Derek Chauvin Trial

[Four Litre]

Now that the trial has started and is being live streamed. The defense have stated that he died of a heart attack, based on the fact that he ate his drugs stash when pulled by the police. Therefore an overdose of Meth and Fentyl. Certainly not something the media has led us to believe.

I hope justice will be done with the facts but it does make you wonder how impartial the trial may be. How can an jury not have watched it on TV and not know anything about the case beforehand?

If the policeman walks free, its going to be WWIII out on the streets of the USA and London.

https://www.npr.org/sections/trial-over-killing-of...

[Four Litre]

Northernboy said:

DeepEnd said:

Northernboy/Andymadmak - are you willing to answer the question as to whether you'd be happy to undergo this treatment for 9 minutes:

(warning : photo of DC crushing GF's neck)




I wouldn't as it is proven to have induced asphyxiation and death.

You keep saying that, but it’s not, which is why the evidence is being tested in trial.

It may well turn out to be the case, but you are pretending that it’s settled when it isn’t.

Proven by the media and armchair experts. The fact is that its now gone to court for the experts to provide evidence based on their expert opinion.

As I've said time and time again - all we have is the media to which we make decisions, these arent based on fact, just media opinion.

[Four Litre]

thewarlock said:

mpkayeuk said:

thewarlock said:

I haven't seen that anywhere in this thread. Who's claiming that the drugs definitely had no effect?

I've seen people saying it's not relevant, but who's been saying they had no effect?

What kind of mental gymnastics are you doing to suggest they are both irrelevant and they had an effect. Isn't irrelevant and having no effect basically analogous in this context?

He might have been high.

Didn't give DC the right to kill him.

So no, not really analogous. At all.

I don't understand how stupid people must be to watch that video and conclude that he died of an OD, that DC wasn't directly responsible for what happened.

Take a step back and ask yourself how do you know he died solely because of DC. You may want to think it and believe it. It doesn't make it true. The only way to tell he did is from medical experts, not armchair experts. Until is it expertly proven he did - its still unknown. Luckily our opinions in these matters don't count!!!

[Four Litre]

Pegscratch said:

rockin said:

In my purely personal opinion DC appears likely to be convicted of Third Degree murder. The big question IMO is whether the jury will consider his behaviour so extreme that it amounts to an intentional killing and thus Second Degree murder.

I predict second degree manslaughter, purely on the strength of the evidence being presented that it is indeed a method that is taught to them, and while re-evaluation should have meant it was unnecessary I think it’s a long way from negligence to the gross disregard that needs to be shown for the murder charges; even third degree.

If there was no support whatsoever on using that method he’d be so high and dry people would reference him instead of Gandhi’s flip-flops when they’re thirsty, but that just doesn’t appear to be the case.

I think your correct, no way the murder charge is going to stick. Murder (correct me if Im wrong) is actively killing somebody with the premeditation. An example would be getting a gun from your safe, going over to the now deceased house and shooting them on the doorstep without argument.

Whatever happens in this trial it wont be murder. On this basis we should all start boarding up our houses now!

[Four Litre]

BlackWidow13 said:

Four Litre said:

I think your correct, no way the murder charge is going to stick. Murder (correct me if Im wrong) is actively killing somebody with the premeditation. An example would be getting a gun from your safe, going over to the now deceased house and shooting them on the doorstep without argument.

You are wrong. What you have described is (according to the posts upthread) in Minnesota first degree murder. Minnesota also has second and third degree murder, which Chauvin has been charged with.

An example of second degree murder would be hitting someone with the butt of the gun (a serious but not deadly assault), causing them to fall onto a spike or off a ledge which killed them. An example of third degree would be doing something like deliberately knocking out a scaffold support, being reckless as to whether anyone was on or under the scaffold (ie not doing anything directly to a specific person). The scaffold comes down and someone who was on or under it is killed.

Happy to be corrected. My potential career in Law is now on hold 🙂

[Four Litre]

Slaav said:

N7GTX said:

Petrus1983 said:

The current forensics lady is speaking so well. Fair play to her. One think though - she was called there at 1.15am - I though the incident happened much earlier?

Yes it did. By the time she got there it had been raining. Most of her evidence concerned the search of GF's car and the 'cruiser' and seemed to concentrate on the pills found in the ML and GF's shoes in the rear of the police car.

The defence did not ask much at all and then the next witness, a forensic scientist who tested the pills gave a very brief account of the concentration of substances in the pills. The defence did not question her at all.

In my own experience of (admittedly in the UK) a trial and cross examination, there is little point in challenging a witness on the stand unless you think you have an angle or loophole/crack to exploit.

I love talking about my own experiences but in my case, one of my prosecution witnesses stated something as she believed as fact. Defending QC jumped on a minor point and challenged her as she could not have witnessed the episode in question first hand so therefore, it is hearsay and not admissible as reliable testimony of fact. He couldn't leave it thee and asked her why she believed the particular statement was true and factually accurate that she had been challenged on - her reply was excellent:

"because your client, the defendant, was the one that told me all about it and that it had happened"

'No further questions' was his (a QC FFS) reply and even the judge smirked.

Moral of the story is that never challenge a witness if it is likely to cause you more trouble than the tiny, to non existent chance of improving your case. Never ask a question you don't already know the answer to!

Trying to rip the witness apart by 'fishing' may just worsen the defendant's case so best left alone I guess. If she was testifying to drugs etc, the D doesn't really want to open up evidence to further scrutiny that the pills found were tiny and couldn't possibly have killed GF eg.

On a much more disappointing but unsurprising twist, UK media are terrible at reporting factually on the case - much like some on this thread. It is shocking that you can watch testimony of the Officer yesterday who trains in the use of force and then see something reported that either didn't happen or was 'spin' and interpretation by the journo' straight from Facebook who wrote the narration.....

The dangerous part is that people take media headlines as full fact. When they are mostly a work of fiction. Laws need to be passed to ensure that news outlets are factually correct, there will always be journalistic interpretation, however some of the news outlets are shameful at best.

[Four Litre]

kestral said:

Sierra Nevada said:

Derek intended to kill him that is why. No one has given a reason for Derek to keep him restrained in the prone position. Even the argument that it was the crowd was written off by the defence's use of force expert. There is no reason to keep restraining someone because another person or people are pleading with you to get off. Even if there was a gun battle, which Nelson alluded to, how would kneeling on George help anyone or anything? Imagine being shot at you would not stay in the same position on a suspect.

The reality is the crowd did not do anything and Derek wanted to make sure George was dead. Hence why he did not do get off him when he had no pulse or was not breathing. I cannot fathom a logically reason to keep on top of George. Unless he thought a pulseless man could come back to life? Maybe Derek has been watching too many zombie movies. Who knows!

Within full view of the public and whilst being filmed with other police officers present Derek just thought I will kill him, no problem no one will notice.

He knew too much, he had to be silenced!