"Some of the machinations of lawyers in courts seem to be an exercise in absurdity and I have no appetite for that right now."

There is a big difference between real trials and television/movie trials. You don't see those machinations in real life; judges wouldn't put up with it. This trial was worth watching just to see high quality lawyering.

Graywings123, I agree with you! I was impressed with the prosecution and defense attorney's. Also, very high marks to Judge Cahill.

I watched the trial from the beginning, including jury selection. I will say that the hardest part of the trial for me, including all video/bodycam footage, was all of the bystander testimony. It was gut wrenching to watch the emotional and physical impact this has and will have on them, one a nine year old girl. To watch a man die before their eyes, all of them continually pleading for George's life and to feel so utterly helpless for 9 minutes and 26 seconds. Awful.

“I haven't seen it, what happen?”

is this some type of lame attempt to be funny?

The prosecution closing statement was very powerful. He did a good job of laying out the case, engaging people on all levels.

The defense sounds like he's stretching his reasoning to the point of incredulity.

Not being funny! I just want to know what happened

this defense attorney is going way too long and he's probably losing at least a few jurors. good grief, this is a MURDER case and any verdict is going to produce some significant reactions and he's talking about baking chocolate chip cookies?? it's becoming a real snooze fest.

i'm thinking the rebuttal closing by Jerry Blackwell will demolish him.

I watched part of the defense closing statement. I thought, is that all you got? Weak and ineffective. He has to know what a loss this big will do to his career.

Sometimes attorney's will take cases for the fees knowing that the client has little chance of winning. They go through the motions, collect the fees, then forget about the trial. Unlikely the defense attorney's career will suffer since he is a criminal attorney and they sometimes win and sometimes don't. There will be another client waiting.

"Sometimes attorney's will take cases for the fees...."

Attorneys take cases for the fees 100% of the time, except for the limited amounts of pro bono work they're expected to do.

I have a friend who's a criminal defense attorney. He expressed to me his attitude over many conversations, which I can approximately summarize as follows: " Most of my clients are guilty. My job is to make sure that the process follows the rules - the police, the investigators, the prosecutors, all have rules to follow. When that's done and I find no transgressions or mistakes to highlight, and guilt is the judgement of the jury, I've done my job and my client gets the outcome provided under the law. If not, or if there are problems I can identify that sway the jury, then same story - the accused, whether or not guilty, has gotten the result provided by the law."

Sometimes defense attorneys have to try to defend the indefensible. Their job, if they cannot show their client is innocent, is to try to show that the prosecution failed to prove he is guilty. Or try to create reasonable doubt in the minds of the jurors. It’s not an easy thing to do with a high profile case like this with so much evidence against the defendant. I’m sure that they are scrambling.

Joanne in Fl It's the trial on the George Floyd death. It's on most of the news stations.

you can bet there are many, many ulcers forming while deliberations are in progress. juries simply can't be predicted. all you have to do is look back at cases like o.j. and casey anthony to know we just never know how juries make decisions.

during my 40+ years in the workforce, i worked for defense attorneys in private practice, a public defender and a prosecuting attorney. jury trials were always a tense time with so many weeks put into preparations, exhibits, interviewing witnesses, with the actual trial lasting a mere few days or maybe a week.

i'd love to see convictions on all 3 charges but i think the most we can really hope for is a guilty on the manslaughter charge. i hope i'm wrong.

If I were to guess, it would be there will be a hung jury. I can imagine at least one juror who would never go against a police officer for actions on the job, so would not convict him. Or at least one juror who would never let a cop get away with this behavior, so would find him guilty.

I think it will be a swift verdict, guilty on at least two charges.

Joann, a police officer is being accused of killing a black man by kneeling on his neck for an extended period. This is the trial we are discussing.

I was disappointed in the closing arguments. All three of them were excessively long.

I agree with Elizabeth - swift verdict, guilty on at least two charges.

I haven't watched a lot but did spend the day watching the closing arguments. Just from watching that, he's GUILTY as all you know what. The defense attorney grasping at straws thinking the jurors are stupid that "exhaust fumes" may have killed him, even though his blood oxygen was 98%? Really? Yet Chauvin didn't get gassed out? Even a little?

Mr Floyd clearly yelled he was claustrophobic and had anxiety. A "reasonable" officer would have handcuffed him and sat him on the sidewalk, even against the car or building, and tried to calm him down. He would have called a police VAN to haul him away. He was yelling, "I'm a good guy!" Yeah, I'm sure a lot of criminals say that, but the fear in his voice should have been a hint, he had issues.

The assumed he was under the influence, yet he wasn't. Not nearly enough to show this much force. And to compare a pregnant women whose adrenaline went through the roof to save her child to a person under the influence was a joke. There is NO comparison. Did Chauvin's lawyer give reasonable doubt? Not in my opinion.

9 minutes and 29 seconds of putting pressure on someone neck is what killed Mr Floyd. Even the 9 year old child who witnessed that knew it was wrong. The arrogant cop who smirked as he watched the video deserves to spend the rest of his life in prison.

I watched a large part of it and Graywings is right, there was some really great lawyering. The Prosecution was really top notch. I didn’t care for the defense attorney, he was always trying to twist commentary and put words into the mouths of witnesses. I believe he will be found guilty, but it’s obvious it will be challenged on appeal and the main reason is because the jury wasn’t sequestered. I think the judge errored on that decision.

I keep thinking of George Clooney's suggestion that a perfect defense would be to put Mr. Chauvin in the same position Mr. Floyd was, and have someone kneel on his neck for the same amount of time....

P.S. I'm pretty sure he can't be the first person with that idea.

The jury verdict will be read between 3 and 4 Central time which is in just a little while.

4:30 according to CNN

^^^est

My son and his girlfriend have been living in Minneapolis for the last 6 months or so to be close to her brother and his family to make a Covid "pod." They have plans to leave town to stay with the GF's sister in law's mother. I hope that they are on the road now!

My DD and family live in a Minneapolis suburb. Bags packed .... ready to flee. I am getting the guest room ready. So very tense.

I'm world's biggest coward. I'd be out of there too. Out of any where likely to explode. Prayers for the jury, that they did their job to the best of their ability with integrity and courage. Above all else -- even above peace -- prayers for justice. (and thanks that I'm not the judge)

All rise for the jury.

Guilty on all three. Now the next problem will be the sentence's. A slap on the wrist like several in this area nullifies this rulling.

Thank you jurors, for your 'heavy duty' jury duty.

Love the verdict!!!

I so hope this will bring some peace.

maifleur beat me to it. We're only halfway there.

Sentencing will matter more than anything. At least there are options for severe punishment.

2 months before sentencing, in custody now. I don’t think he will get a slap on the wrist, Maifleur. I wonder how Chauvin’s family is handling this.

I wonder if the jury got together, did their first vote, found everyone said guilty and decided, we can't decide this soon, so we'll take an overnight, have a nice dinner, spend some time on it tomorrow and then release our verdict.

I'm really happy about the verdict. It was so good to hear. I live in St. Paul and would love to go out & celebrate with people, but I'm not going to. It was fun to see some of the videos of crowd reactions after the verdict was read.

I'm struck by 2 things:

...I wonder how many, many times incidents like this have happened without a phone to record the events and thus the police have gotten off the hook. We've seen so many times where they have even with video evidence. This verdict has broken a true barrier

...I've noticed the multi-racial crowd we see on TV for this incident. Far different from the groups fighting for racial justice in the 60s which were so predominantly black. The fact that so many people of whatever color now see these events as human issues is very enheartening. While we have so far to go, it's clear that some progress has been made...the road has not been and will not be smooth and straight, but we are further down it.

I wonder how many, many times incidents like this have happened without a phone to record the events and thus the police have gotten off the hook. We've seen so many times where they have even with video evidence.

Have you read the original police statement about the "Medical Incident?"

https://twitter.com/jaketapper/status/1384622849562873856

Yes, I saw it just tonight for the first time, and it's stunning. Without the video and eyewitness evidence, they would've sold this story and justice would never have been done.

socks they probably thought he would be let off as is normal in these cases. They may even feel a sense of relief because bullies which he apparently is given his past problems normally are physically or mentally abusive to their family. Will have to wait and see if this comes out but it is common in high stress jobs.

The police statement is shocking, especially after seeing and hearing the evidence. Yet the defense went with Floyd dying from underlying medical conditions. It made the final closing statement by Jerry Blackwell for the prosecution even more powerful.

“You were told—for example—that Mr. Floyd died because his heart was too big…The truth of the matter is that the reason George Floyd is dead is because Mr. Chauvin’s heart was too small."

Long time since we looked at Houzz/Gardenweb....

Bless that teenager for being so brave as she did video the entire horrible process. That was key to getting a 'guilty". A lot for anyone let alone a teen to have the guts to film a man dying at the hands (knee] of someone who is supposed to be trained to sort out conflicts peacefully. Unfortunately Chauvin may get off light if the judge is so inclined.

I think Chauvin is worried about his safety in prison- rightly so. He wants to go to a 'plush' prison.

I think Chauvin is worried about his safety in prison- rightly so. He wants to go to a 'plush' prison.

he should be worried. my brother was a prison guard at the prison where chauvin is housed right now. i heard many, many stories. the place is anything but 'plush'!!

i heard yesterday that one of the "aggravating factors" that could be used to increase Chauvin's sentence is that the crime was committed in front of children. And given the testimony of the children, you can see that this incident will stay with them the rest of their lives.

What do you think about the other three officers? I understand that one of the two 'rookies' twice asked Chauvin to stop choking Floyd. I'd find Chauvin's partner as guilty as Chauvin. The third man? IDK.

I wish media would stop linking *every* shooting by a police officer to this slow, calculated incident. I can understand why an officer shot the teen girl to stop her from killing another person. with a knife. I can also see how an officer would shoot at an armed person who had run from him after he was cornered and turned towards the officer in the dark of an alley. I can forgive the female officer for mistaking her gun for her tazer. These things happen in manoseconds, without the leisure *we* have to review alternatives.

None of these deaths were necessary, but none of the deceased were 'innocents' either. It would help to limit which illegal activities are worth chasing someone down. It would help if police didn't have to assume that every person has a gun (since they do).

@chisue, while I understand why the officer shot the teen yesterday, I don't understand why he shot to kill or fired FOUR shots. Don't officers get trained to shoot to wound? Or do they only get trained to shoot to kill? While the officer did stop the teen from stabbing someone, I think killing her was a little too much. But I do understand why he did what he did. He took a life to save a life. I did see the body cam footage and it was hard to watch. A shot in the leg could have dropped her. Why shoot four shots into her upper body? There has to be better police training.

As for the officer who mistook her bright yellow taser that feels completely different from her gun? No. She deserves what she's getting and I do hope the court system holds her 100% accountable.

There have been too many innocents killed unless people consider having something hanging from a rear view mirror as crime enough to be killed. It is all to easy for someone thought to be guilty of a crime rather than being guilty of a crime either to be killed or as more often happens beaten if the officer is having a bad day. A 70ish man was beaten in the small community north of me because he pulled into a business parking lot rather than stopping on the street. He later died of complications of his injuries. By doing what is even suggested by police the officer considered him as resisting arrest and not obeying when he did not get out of his car fast enough.

from what i understand, police are trained to aim for "body mass" which would be torso/chest. in the heat of the moment, aiming for an arm or a leg would most likely end up in a miss.

would the shooting/killing of the 16 year old girl wielding a knife be looked upon any differently had she been in her 30s or 40s? i doubt it would have gotten nearly as much attention.

as for the other 3 officers involved in the chauvin murder, i fully expect they will either all enter plea agreements or if they do decide to take it to trial, to request a bench trial rather than taking it to a jury. they would stand a much better chance of acquittal with a judge instead of a jury.

I wonder if anyone else recalls that the incident in Minneapolis several years back, where a woman called 911 because she thought a rape was occurring outside her home and was shot to death by police?

Sadly, similar things haves happened numerous times around this country.

I’m curious about Chauvin himself. Was there any testimony as to his moral character? We ever see anything of his family? He’s known for a year this was a possibility but I wonder what his state of mind is now. He’s probably meeting with his attorneys now as they plan an appeal, so life is still “interesting.” After sentencing, when he is warehoused in isolated conditions, life will be miserable. (Not defending him at all. He got what he deserved. Probably on more than that one occasion with George Floyd.)

Carol, the cop who shot the Australian woman was also found guilty of murder & manslaughter -

https://abcnews.go.com/US/minneapolis-police-officer-sentenced-fatal-shooting-justine-ruszczyk/story?id=63547748

Socks, there was probably no testimony about Chauvin's moral character because he doesn't have any. :-D

For 1 thing, last summer he & his wife were charged with several counts of felony tax evasion.

https://www.npr.org/sections/live-updates-protests-for-racial-justice/2020/07/23/894535746/former-minnesota-police-officer-derek-chauvin-charged-with-tax-evasion

Police are definitely taught to shoot to kill. I am puzzled to see so many officers pulling out weapons these days they apparently dont intend to use. It used to be you only pulled out a weapon if you expected to fire it. Wounding people will not stop them from doing what ever it is they are doing. The notion that people fall incapacitated to the ground from being wounded is not true. They can do a lot of damage in the mean time assuming they do become incapacitated. And that is why pulling out that gun is so freighted. It means you mean to take a life.