Chauvin subjected to 'mob justice'

 Clarice Feldman:

If you don’t recall the long sad story of the nine black teenagers convicted for raping two white women nine decades ago in Alabama, convictions clearly handed down in an atmosphere of extreme racial prejudice, here’s the account. In much the same way, I believe the conviction of Derek Chauvin on three counts -- each with inconsistent elements of the offense -- in an undeniably prejudicial atmosphere violates the Supreme Court ruling in Sheppard v Maxwell (384 U.S. 333) where the Court ruled that while the press had the right under the First Amendment to publish stories about the murder of Sam Sheppard’s wife, the defendant had the right under the Sixth Amendment to Due Process and in failing to protect the defendant by postponing the trial or moving it to another venue, the court had deprived the defendant of his right to a fair trial. 

The Atmosphere in Minneapolis

Beginning last May, Minneapolis was the scene of riots in protest of George Floyd’s death, riots that destroyed 100 buildings and caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damage from fires and looting. By June of that year the area riots were the cause of two deaths and over $500 million in damage. The corporate media and (I’m sorry to say, universities and schools as well) harped on the death as yet more evidence of some nonsense called “systemic racism,” suggesting that the death was deliberate. In fact, none of the three charges against Chauvin indicated that he intentionally killed George Floyd.

Here are the charges:  

• Second-degree unintentional murder means causing death without intent by committing a felony.
• Second-degree manslaughter is causing death by unreasonable risk.
• Third-degree murder means causing death by an “eminently dangerous” act, showing a “depraved mind.”

Press accounts bought the race baiters' claim of an “epidemic” of police shooting unarmed black males. Depending on your political inclinations, estimates of the numbers vary. Very liberal respondents to surveys said about 10,000 unarmed black males were killed by police, The actual figure for the 2019, last year in which I can find figures, was eleven.  Kyle Becker writes:

These tragic cases are not only statistical outliers, they are far from ‘black and white’ in terms of what motivated the police shooting. In nearly every case, a suspect was wanted by police and threatening circumstances gave rise to an unfortunate police shooting.

...

 Amid this atmosphere of local rioting and relentless media misinformation, the judge in Chauvin refused to change the place of the trial, refused to sequester the jury, did not adequately warn them about viewing and hearing outside reports of the case, the city, in the middle of the case, entered into a highly-publicized $27 million dollar settlement with Floyd’s family, and both the President and Maxine Waters weighed in on his guilt and the consequences of a not guilty verdict. The local press, without disclosing the names of the jurors, revealed very specific identifying information about them. In advance of the verdict, Governor Tim Walz asked for help from the Ohio and Nebraska National Guard, again emphasizing the likelihood of further riots if a guilty verdict were not reached.

An alternate juror said that the jurors were so concerned about their identities being revealed that among themselves they did not refer to each other by name, just juror number.

...

There is more.

I do not think Chauvin got a fair trial and I think the jurors were clearly intimidated by the mobs and the race-baiting politicians of the left.  I don't know if the Minnesota appellate courts are sufficiently insulated from the mob to overturn this verdict.  It may be up to the US Supreme Court to do so, but that would need to be done before Democrats pack the court with left-wing race-baiters.

BTW, the politics of the conviction has not been lost on blacks in this country:

Poll: Majority of Black Americans Say Politics at Least ‘Somewhat’ Influenced Derek Chauvin Verdict