Thinking back to 2020, I remember the convictions of several officers involved with unlawful deaths sparked outrage because they were not charged with 1st degree murder. A legal expert wrote that it is so difficult to convict someone on a 1st degree murder charge under the law that the prosecution had to choose charges that actually had the potential to stick. While some people may see that as a negative because it doesn't feel good, I'm glad that we are not able to convict people in our courts based on emotion or mass sentiment. This puts me in a difficult position, because emotionally I want the officer in question to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, but in this case it feels like the law will come up short. And yet I do not want the officer in question to be prosecuted beyond the fullest extent of the law, which is where my emotions and reason are in conflict. I 100% wholeheartedly agree with your recent article that police officers need to be held to the same legal standards as civilian citizens. Our legislation needs to change so that unnecessary police officer violence is de-incentivized, and prosecution commensurate with the full magnitude of the crime is punishable under the law...but I don't think there is any outcome in this case that will make anyone feel like he truly "got what he deserved." A manslaughter charge will not have the same impact on the community or deliver the same emotional relief as a murder charge. The quote from Ibram X. Kendi was a gut punch. And it needed to be. We need to get angry enough about the unfair balance of power in our legal system that we do something to change it.
Great coverage, Isaac, and now, as I write this, the verdict is so quickly in. My call was manslaughter, and I doubt the other two charges will survive appeal. What this episode taught me, with a little coaching from Maxine Waters, is that there is now a dual justice system in the US. There is one part of the population against whom the laws are prosecuted with vigor. There is another part against whom the laws are not prosecuted at all. So, my fellow Tangle reader, in which part are you? If the former, under no circumstances commit an offense against anyone in the latter.
My take: I am NOT defending Derek Chauvin. He killed George Floyd. I am only questioning the process by which he was convicted of two murders and a manslaughter by a jury that deliberated, under pressure, for the duration of a long nap.
When a patient dies on the OR table, the surgeon who killed them is generally not guilty of murder. When a pedestrian steps out into traffic, the driver who hits and kills them is generally not guilty of murder. When a long line drive fatally beans a bystander, the batter who killed them is not guilty of murder. When someone dies at the hand of the police, that killing is sometimes a murder, and sometimes not, depending mainly, it now seems, on the race of the victim.
No one suggests that Chauvin wanted to kill Floyd. No one suggests that Chauvin, long married to an Asian, is racist. Floyd would be alive today if he had not been high on meth and fent. He would be alive today if he had not resisted arrest. He would be alive today if he were not a career criminal known to the police. He would be alive today if he had not had serious cardiac disease.
It is tragic that Chauvin killed Floyd through a combination of thoughtlessness, bad procedure, and just plain fucking up. He is even culpable: The city paid Floyd's family, what? Was it $24 million? But he did it by accident, without intending to, without malice. I am just not comfortable with a jury--threatened by the presence of the National Guard, incited by a member of Congress, preemptively lambasted in the media--almost instantly convicting him of two murders and a manslaughter. It feels too much like the fate of Roman gladiators in the Colosseum.
But then, imagine for a moment that you were one of the jurors. How could you possibly have done anything different? Think of the consequences, had you dared to vote Not Guilty.
Thinking back to 2020, I remember the convictions of several officers involved with unlawful deaths sparked outrage because they were not charged with 1st degree murder. A legal expert wrote that it is so difficult to convict someone on a 1st degree murder charge under the law that the prosecution had to choose charges that actually had the potential to stick. While some people may see that as a negative because it doesn't feel good, I'm glad that we are not able to convict people in our courts based on emotion or mass sentiment. This puts me in a difficult position, because emotionally I want the officer in question to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, but in this case it feels like the law will come up short. And yet I do not want the officer in question to be prosecuted beyond the fullest extent of the law, which is where my emotions and reason are in conflict. I 100% wholeheartedly agree with your recent article that police officers need to be held to the same legal standards as civilian citizens. Our legislation needs to change so that unnecessary police officer violence is de-incentivized, and prosecution commensurate with the full magnitude of the crime is punishable under the law...but I don't think there is any outcome in this case that will make anyone feel like he truly "got what he deserved." A manslaughter charge will not have the same impact on the community or deliver the same emotional relief as a murder charge. The quote from Ibram X. Kendi was a gut punch. And it needed to be. We need to get angry enough about the unfair balance of power in our legal system that we do something to change it.
Great coverage, Isaac, and now, as I write this, the verdict is so quickly in. My call was manslaughter, and I doubt the other two charges will survive appeal. What this episode taught me, with a little coaching from Maxine Waters, is that there is now a dual justice system in the US. There is one part of the population against whom the laws are prosecuted with vigor. There is another part against whom the laws are not prosecuted at all. So, my fellow Tangle reader, in which part are you? If the former, under no circumstances commit an offense against anyone in the latter.
My take: I am NOT defending Derek Chauvin. He killed George Floyd. I am only questioning the process by which he was convicted of two murders and a manslaughter by a jury that deliberated, under pressure, for the duration of a long nap.
When a patient dies on the OR table, the surgeon who killed them is generally not guilty of murder. When a pedestrian steps out into traffic, the driver who hits and kills them is generally not guilty of murder. When a long line drive fatally beans a bystander, the batter who killed them is not guilty of murder. When someone dies at the hand of the police, that killing is sometimes a murder, and sometimes not, depending mainly, it now seems, on the race of the victim.
No one suggests that Chauvin wanted to kill Floyd. No one suggests that Chauvin, long married to an Asian, is racist. Floyd would be alive today if he had not been high on meth and fent. He would be alive today if he had not resisted arrest. He would be alive today if he were not a career criminal known to the police. He would be alive today if he had not had serious cardiac disease.
It is tragic that Chauvin killed Floyd through a combination of thoughtlessness, bad procedure, and just plain fucking up. He is even culpable: The city paid Floyd's family, what? Was it $24 million? But he did it by accident, without intending to, without malice. I am just not comfortable with a jury--threatened by the presence of the National Guard, incited by a member of Congress, preemptively lambasted in the media--almost instantly convicting him of two murders and a manslaughter. It feels too much like the fate of Roman gladiators in the Colosseum.
But then, imagine for a moment that you were one of the jurors. How could you possibly have done anything different? Think of the consequences, had you dared to vote Not Guilty.