Eric Nelson had the right strategy for Chauvin

For any readers from planet Mars (hello, Perseverence!) a quick summary: On 25th of May 2020, a gentleman named George Floyd, who was black, was arrested by several Minneapolis police officers for passing an apparently fake $20 bill in a convenience store. Floyd was a habitual drug user, and had recently ingested both meth and Fentanyl. Officer Derek Chauvin and others tried to put him in a police car; the 220-pound Floyd resisted. The police officers instead put him on the ground and pinned him there for 9 mins and 29 seconds - apparently increasingly fearful that he was undergoing "excited delirium" from the drugs ingested. He protested saying "I can't breathe" several times, including when he was still standing. Officers called EMS for urgent medical help. A couple of minutes before EMS arrived, an officer noticed Floyd was no longer moving, and couldn't find a pulse. EMS rolled up, loaded Floyd, moved to a safe location and commenced resuscitation. Floyd died.

Officer Derek Chauvin's trial for murder ran over this past 3 weeks. The state-funded prosecution came mob-handed: 12-15 prosecutors including a number volunteering their time "for the public good". Chauvin had a single defence laywer, Eric Nelson, paid for mainly out of police union funds. Nelson and Chauvin lost, as you may have heard, and now Chauvin is looking at 20+ years behind bars unless an appeal about trial location and prejudicial comments, plus some sharp practice by the prosecution, works out. For the record, I think he'd have to be very lucky for the appeal to get traction; but not because it's wrong.

I know quite a lot about this trial's events. I've followed the day-by-day liveblog at Legal Insurrection, principally by self-defence lawyer Andrew Branca. Now, Branca comes at this with his own prejudices, as we all do, and gives his own read on the trial, but overall it's a fairly low-bias account. I read through it all and thought that Eric Nelson had got over the line on "reasonable doubt": I thought he could secure a few jurors to accept that there would be reasonable doubt that Chauvin's leaning-on-back-and-neck pin was what materially killed Floyd, compared to the known ingestion of various drugs, enlarged heart, 90%-occluded arteries, etc. Branca was down on Nelson's use-of-force witness, and I'd agree, but on the medical front - and indeed, narrating the arrest from Chauvin's point of view during closing - I think his conclusion of "reasonable doubt" was indeed reasonable.

The jury took just over a day to return a unanimous verdict on all charges, starting with Minnesota 2nd degree murder. They were not hung, they had no questions for the judge. They stayed out for the shortest decent time decent, and came back with a predetermined result. They knew what they were voting before they were sent out.

I'm sure a lot of opprobrium will be heaped on Nelson by people sympathetic to Chauvin. Honestly, it's misplaced. He was David in front of Goliath, but in this case Goliath knew the shot was coming and had a plan to duck. The jury looked at what would happen with any "not guilty" verdict and decided "I don't want any part of that!". It's rational, although a dereliction of public duty. Nelson just needed 1-2 people to say "wait, no, we can't railroad this guy - reasonable doubt!" but the fact that there was no hung jury and not even a question to the judge tells you where the jury felt their interest lay.

Still, all the people bleating about "racial healing!" have it exactly the wrong way around. In today's environment, real racial healing would be a white and black jury not convicting a white man accused of killing a black man, because of the reasonable doubt standard that is still supposed to underpin justice. Weaken that standard because of race, and you make race relations worse.

Incidentally, I hope that the big American blue cities (Seattle, Minneapolis, Chicago, San Francisco, ...) really enjoy the future lack of policing now that it's clear politicians will crush police officers like a bug if they do anything to affect race relations. Informal stock tip: buy ammunition and guns (directly or via companies) as the populace realizes that they're on their own for self defence.