Part 2: Judge John Wilson analyzes the controversial trial of Derek Chauvin. Throughout American history, the right to a fair trial has always been held sacrosanct, no matter how heinous the crime or how outraged the public may be. Was that concept violated in this case?
It is true that there was no practical way to shield the jury from this environment; “Outside of court hours, (the jurors) must avoid reading or watching anything to do with the trial — and during the selection process and again at the start of the proceedings, Cahill repeatedly told them their role is not to investigate the case on their own, but to weigh the evidence they hear during the trial.” Yet, “(w)hen jurors report for duty each morning in Derek Chauvin’s trial, they do so as a group, escorted into the courthouse building by members of the Hennepin County Sheriff’s office using a private entrance. The building itself has been fortified — one of many extraordinary security measures for a high-profile murder trial…”
To make matters worse, California Congresswoman Maxine Waters came to Minneapolis and injected herself into the case. Appearing before a crowd prior to the jury’s commencement of deliberations, “Waters told the crowd Saturday night that she wanted to see a murder conviction against Chauvin for Floyd’s death. When asked what should happen if Chauvin wasn’t convicted on murder charges, she replied, ‘We got to stay on the street, we’ve got to get more active, we’ve got to get more confrontational.’”
The inevitable defense motion for a mistrial was predictably denied by Judge Cahill. However, the Court made some very important remarks that may be very relevant to the eventual appeal of Chauvin’s conviction; “I’ll give you that Congresswoman Waters may have given you something on appeal that may result in this whole trial being overturned.” Cahill also added that “I wish elected officials would stop talking about this case, especially in a manner that is disrespectful to the rule of law and to the judicial branch and our function…I think if they want to give their opinions, they should do so in a respectful and in a manner that is consistent with their oath to the Constitution, to respect a coequal branch of government.”
Even President Biden couldn’t resist expressing his views on the Chauvin case; “I’m praying the verdict is the right verdict, which is — I think it’s overwhelming, in my view.”
With this level of pre-trial publicity and violence, with the threat of more violence hanging in the air, observing the extreme security measures, hearing the large settlement paid to the family of the deceased prior to trial, and hearing a Congresswoman publicly call for more unrest if the defendant is not found guilty, what else could the jury do but find Chauvin guilty of all charges?
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“’Judge Cahill asked Juror #52, whether he heard anything about the #GeorgeFloyd civil case,’ KMSP reporter Paul Blume tweeted on March 15. ‘He says, no. He explained hearing some basic info about trial dates, etc from the news in recent months, but nothing that would keep him from serving as impartial juror,’ Blume posted… But once the trial was over and Chauvin had been convicted on all three charges, it turned out that Mitchell had engaged in activism. Pictures posted to social media by a family member showed that Mitchell had actively participated in anti-police protests in Washington, DC last summer while wearing a Black Lives Matter t-shirt that said ‘Get Your Knee Off Our Necks.’ His uncle, Travis Mitchell, posted the picture to Facebook on Aug. 31, 2020,’ a full 7 months prior to Mitchell’s selection as a juror.
Mitchell wore the t-shirt at a rally in Washington to commemorate Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. While, as he states, his presence at the rally may not have had anything to do with his jury service, the phrase “get your knee off our necks,” is clearly a reference to George Floyd, and demonstrates Mitchell had more knowledge about the case than he admitted to Judge Cahill.
It’s possible that one or two of these circumstances might not be enough to lead a reasonable person to believe Derek Chauvin’s trial was unfair. But given all of these factors, it is obvious that the jury that heard this case could not have been anything but intimidated, and even biased, by this combination of influences.
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