The Shape of Things to Come, by Philip Giraldi

So what was preordained has finally taken place. Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin has now been convicted of the murder of George Floyd. While many, possibly even most, Americans would agree that Chauvin exceeded what was necessary in his use of force, the prosecution never proved that he intended to either kill or severely injure Floyd, nor could they demonstrate that any racial bias was behind what had developed after Floyd resisted arrest.

Nevertheless, Chauvin was held solely responsible for the death of Floyd and will be sentenced to up 40 years in prison the first week in June, at which point he can initiate an appeal, and, to be sure, there are considerable grounds for upending the verdict. First of all, the defense’s moves to have the trial moved from Minneapolis, where violent crowds were gathering nightly outside the courthouse and in other public spaces, was denied, creating a “mob rule” atmosphere that clearly intimidated the jurors as well others involved in the trial. And there were more specific threats. The day before Chauvin’s case went to the jury, the former California home of a defense witness was vandalized with a pig’s head and blood.

Secondly, media coverage of the trial, visible to the unsequestered jury, weighed heavily against Chauvin and only provided perfunctory and unsympathetic reporting on his defense. Third, Minneapolis gave the Floyd family a “historic” $27 million wrongful death settlement on March 12^th, which sent a clear message to jurors and others that the city considered Chauvin guilty as charged and it also reinforced fears that if the verdict were to go the wrong way the city would burn.

And finally, the political class, mostly Democratic Party activists supported by the usual guilt-stricken limousine liberals in this case, intervened regularly in the commentary surrounding the proceedings. Representative Maxine Waters notoriously appeared in Minneapolis shortly before the jury was due to consider its verdict and advised an angry mob that “Well, we’ve got to stay on the street. And we’ve got to get more active. We’ve got to get more confrontational. We’ve got to make sure that they know that we mean business” if the judgment went the wrong way. When Republicans in the House of Representatives called on Waters to either apologize or be censured, the move was blocked by Speaker Nancy Pelosi. One might note the double standard, recalling that recently a president of the United States was impeached for saying something rather less provocative than Waters.