What justice demands
After the speeches, the hashtags, the marches, the dramatic demands for transforming America’s criminal justice system, comes the relatively mundane but indispensable means of determining guilt or innocence and, if guilt, punishment: the trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin for what prosecutors say — and we concur — was the homicide of George Floyd.
To win conviction, a team of lawyers must unanimously prove beyond a reasonable doubt to a racially diverse jury of 12 that Chauvin committed second-degree murder, third-degree murder or second-degree manslaughter when he kneeled on Floyd’s neck for an agonizing 9 minutes and 29 seconds.
From where we sit, which is not inside the jury box, the case is strong indeed: Chauvin took Floyd’s life by exhibiting something worse than mere criminal recklessness when he callously pressed him against the pavement even as Floyd pleaded, and pleaded, and pleaded for mercy.
That Floyd had allegedly passed a counterfeit bill is worse than irrelevant; in fact, the ticky-tack nature of the charge makes the prolonged use of life-threatening force all the less justifiable.
Chauvin’s attorneys will assert he died not at Chauvin’s hands, or knee, but of other causes, chief among them a supposed drug overdose. But autopsies leave no doubt that it was the officer’s actions that were primarily responsible for ending Floyd’s life. The county medical examiner cited “cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint, and neck compression.” A report commissioned by Floyd’s family blamed “asphyxiation from sustained pressure.”
Nor need observers come to a definitive conclusion on the role of race in this abomination in order to convict. These questions will go unanswered: Was there bias in Chauvin’s heart in the moments he appeared to casually and lethally restrain Floyd? Would he have similarly treated a white man?
Much to political pugilists’ chagrin, Black Lives Matter is not on trial, nor are America’s police officers. One man is on trial for what he did to another. We pray he pays a steep price.