11 hours to decide? Seems a long time to decide the bleeding obvious. I cannot see how he even tried to have a defence.
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11 hours to decide? Seems a long time to decide the bleeding obvious. I cannot see how he even tried to have a defence.
Watching it unfold live, you could sense the anxiety of the crowd of people that gathered outside the courthouse in Minneapolis. Despite the overwhelming evidence, including testimonies from witnesses, including an off duty fire marshal, EMTs, police dispatcher, fellow police officers condemning the use of the knee on the neck and most importantly the umpteen angles of actual footage of this murder, there was still a seed of doubt that this man could be found not guilty.
Fortunately he has been found guilty and it feels like this is the first step of many to address systemic racism, because lets be clear justice was not served by this guilty verdict, this is accountability.
What has all that got to do with trying to defend a guy that you know yourself is guilty?
If Chauvins defence could have somehow got him off with some kind of miraculous technicality, they would have, and wouldn’t have blinked an eye at letting a guilty man walk.
As i said, everyone is entitled to a defence, but you’ve got to have some teal thick skin to try to defend the indefensible, in a court of law.
I think in these cases, the defence's job is to make sure the prosecution and police have done their jobs properly.
If you have a system where people are pretty much guilty before any trial, and there are countries like that, then that makes it easier for innocent people in other cases to be found guilty. It's easier for the state to go for their enemies.
So it's to keep the other side in check by always providing a defence, no matter what.
An interesting article regarding this subject:
https://metro.co.uk/2018/08/01/peopl...y-job-7750268/
By the way, has anyone on here been on jury service and who had to mull over what the concept of 'beyond reasonable doubt' really means? Yes, the literal meaning can be looked up but it's a tad nebulous in one's own mind perhaps.
I agree with everything you’ve said Lardy, and the last thing anyone of us would want is an innocent person to be found guilty of a crime.
The point i’m trying to make though, is if a small error had been made by the police or prosecution in a case like this, the defence could have got this guy off on a technicality. How many guilty people over the yrs have got off on a “technicality” The defence then go home, after doing their job correctly, and a guilty man( that every man and his dog knows is guilty) walks.
That’s a big difference in a case where the evidence is sketchy or flimsy.
Guilty people that they know are guilty before the trial begins. If a defence lawyer had got Chauvin off on a technicality, how could he sleep at night?
I couldn’t, then i’m not in that possition.
I suppose it’s a question that only a defence lawyer could answer. There must be a few on here 😂
It would be the jury that decide though. The Judge can intervene if he thinks that the points being raised aren't relevant. I sort of agree with you in this case, Lardy put it well. The defence lawyer is putting over a case for the defendant, however flimsy that may be. I'm glad that is the case.
If you think that Chauvin was innocent you are a racist.
it's that simple.