Chauvin trial is perpetuating a lie

Are your readers aware that many recorded trials of black men charged with capital murder took place in two or three days from jury selection to conviction. But here we are showing to the public the extensive detail of testimony and due process extended to the murder trial of a white policeman who committed his crime in plain view for all to see.

We also are being misled by the willingness of the police to turn on one of their own by testifying against the accused. The blue wall of silence may be cracking but it is still a wall that hides the sins of criminal officers.

When the defense gets its turn we are going to be introduced to the term “excited delirium.” “Excited delirium” is an invented defense used by accused police when a suspect dies in their custody from suffocation, or heart stoppage, or brain death. The defense is that because the victim had drugs in their system their system did not function sufficiently to endure the assault and battery to which they were exposed. In other words they died on their own and not because the police killed them. The defense is usually sufficient to carry at least one or two jury votes which in turn results in a mistrial and a subsequent refusal to retry the officer defendant.

The Chauvin trial is nothing more than a showboat of assertions that our justice system is fair and open to all races and economic status. Nothing more than a perpetuation of a very old lie.

— Larry L. Baumbach, Chico