Alexis Karteron, Jeannine Bell, Rashad Shabazz & Ric Simmons Last night, former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was convicted of the murder of George Floyd. Here, US scholars analyse the guilty verdicts handed down to Chauvin in the 2020 murder of Floyd.
But race went practically unmentioned during the Chauvin trial. This should not be surprising, because the criminal legal system writes race out at virtually every turn. When I led a lawsuit as a civil rights attorney challenging the New York Police Department’s stop-and-frisk program as racist, the department’s primary defence was that it complied with Fourth Amendment standards, under which police officers need only “reasonable suspicion” of criminal activity to stop someone.
In many cases, the prosecuting office has been reluctant or halfhearted in pursuing the case. Prosecutors and police officers work together daily; that can make prosecutors sympathetic to the work of law enforcement. Despite the past year’s protests decrying police violence, US support for law enforcement remains very high: A recent poll showed that only 18% of Americans support the “defund the police” movement.
Derek Chauvin used prohibited tactics – keeping his knee on Floyd’s neck when he had already been subdued – to suffocate a man, an act the jury recognised as murder. Three fellow Minneapolis Police Department officers watched as Chauvin killed Floyd. Rather than intervene themselves, they have now been charged with aiding and abetting a murder because of their roles on the day.
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