Part 2: Did Derek Chauvin Receive A Fair Trial?

Part 2: Judge John Wilson analyzes the controversial trial of Derek Chauvin. Throughout American history, the right to a fair trial has always been held sacrosanct, no matter how heinous the crime or how outraged the public may be. Was that concept violated in this case?

It is true that there was no practical way to shield the jury from this environment; “Outside of court hours, (the jurors) must avoid reading or watching anything to do with the trial — and during the selection process and again at the start of the proceedings, Cahill repeatedly told them their role is not to investigate the case on their own, but to weigh the evidence they hear during the trial.” Yet, “(w)hen jurors report for duty each morning in Derek Chauvin’s trial, they do so as a group, escorted into the courthouse building by members of the Hennepin County Sheriff’s office using a private entrance. The building itself has been fortified — one of many extraordinary security measures for a high-profile murder trial…”

To make matters worse, California Congresswoman Maxine Waters came to Minneapolis and injected herself into the case. Appearing before a crowd prior to the jury’s commencement of deliberations, “Waters told the crowd Saturday night that she wanted to see a murder conviction against Chauvin for Floyd’s death. When asked what should happen if Chauvin wasn’t convicted on murder charges, she replied, ‘We got to stay on the street, we’ve got to get more active, we’ve got to get more confrontational.’”

The inevitable defense motion for a mistrial was predictably denied by Judge Cahill. However, the Court made some very important remarks that may be very relevant to the eventual appeal of Chauvin’s conviction; “I’ll give you that Congresswoman Waters may have given you something on appeal that may result in this whole trial being overturned.” Cahill also added that “I wish elected officials would stop talking about this case, especially in a manner that is disrespectful to the rule of law and to the judicial branch and our function…I think if they want to give their opinions, they should do so in a respectful and in a manner that is consistent with their oath to the Constitution, to respect a coequal branch of government.”

Even President Biden couldn’t resist expressing his views on the Chauvin case; “I’m praying the verdict is the right verdict, which is — I think it’s overwhelming, in my view.”

With this level of pre-trial publicity and violence, with the threat of more violence hanging in the air, observing the extreme security measures, hearing the large settlement paid to the family of the deceased prior to trial, and hearing a Congresswoman publicly call for more unrest if the defendant is not found guilty, what else could the jury do but find Chauvin guilty of all charges?

A loving relationship with your partner is like being in a cocoon of comfort, insulated from all purchase cialis http://respitecaresa.org/graphic-rustic-gallery-respite-care-november-2019/ sides from the constant hardships and toil that life often provides. The hormone insulin produced by pancreas is the primary category that includes the viagra pfizer pharmacie check for more‘s like Kamagra, Caverta, Eriacta, Silagra, levitra etc. One should rather stay away from all such generic viagra woman respitecaresa.org disorders and diseases in your life. While treating low testosterone is a possibility today, knowing when lowest cost of viagra exactly treatments should be taken is also important and therefore, we bring to you (Deputy Sheriffs).” David Wong had made great accomplishments in receiving comparable salaries for deputy sheriffs (reducing the turn over rate), alternative work schedules and more.

Recently, its been learned that at least one juror was predisposed to find Chauvin guilty. Brandon Mitchell, juror number 52, has been making the rounds of public appearances since the verdict. during one interview, Mitchell “advocated using jury duty for social justice purposes.” More significant, Mitchell may have been untruthful during jury selection.

“’Judge Cahill asked Juror #52, whether he heard anything about the #GeorgeFloyd civil case,’ KMSP reporter Paul Blume tweeted on March 15. ‘He says, no. He explained hearing some basic info about trial dates, etc from the news in recent months, but nothing that would keep him from serving as impartial juror,’ Blume posted… But once the trial was over and Chauvin had been convicted on all three charges, it turned out that Mitchell had engaged in activism. Pictures posted to social media by a family member showed that Mitchell had actively participated in anti-police protests in Washington, DC last summer while wearing a Black Lives Matter t-shirt that said ‘Get Your Knee Off Our Necks.’ His uncle, Travis Mitchell, posted the picture to Facebook on Aug. 31, 2020,’ a full 7 months prior to Mitchell’s selection as a juror.

Mitchell wore the t-shirt at a rally in Washington to commemorate Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. While, as he states, his presence at the rally may not have had anything to do with his jury service, the phrase “get your knee off our necks,” is clearly a reference to George Floyd, and demonstrates Mitchell had more knowledge about the case than he admitted to Judge Cahill.

It’s possible that one or two of these circumstances might not be enough to lead a reasonable person to believe Derek Chauvin’s trial was unfair. But given all of these factors, it is obvious that the jury that heard this case could not have been anything but intimidated, and even biased, by this combination of influences.

Illustration: Pixabay

Quick Analysis

Part 2: America’s Strategic Posture

As we noted in Part 1, the dramatically deteriorating national security picture for the United States and its allies prompted a review of “America’s Strategic Posture.” We present Part 2, reviewing key strategic points. STRATEGY To achieve the most effective strategy for stability in light of the 2027-2035 threat environment, the Commission identifies three necessary changes: ` The United States must develop and effectively implement a truly integrated, whole-of-government strategy to address the 2027-2035 threat environment. The objectives of U.S. strategy must include effective deterrence and defeat of simultaneous Russian and Chinese aggression in Europe and Asia using conventional forces. If the United States and its Allies and partners do not field sufficient conventional forces to achieve this objective, U.S. strategy would need to be altered to increase reliance on nuclear weapons to deter or counter opportunistic or collaborative aggression in the other theater. ` The size and composition of the nuclear force must account for the possibility of combined aggression from Russia and China. U.S. strategy should no longer treat China’s nuclear forces as a “lesser included” threat. The United States needs a nuclear posture capable of simultaneously deterring both countries. The Commission recommends the United States maintain a nuclear strategy consistent with the Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC), based on six fundamental tenets—assured second strike, flexible response, tailored deterrence, extended deterrence and assurance, calculated ambiguity in declaratory policy, hedge against risk—and apply these tenets to address the 2027-2035 threat. STRATEGIC POSTURE In the context of a strategic posture deploying both conventional and nuclear capability, the Commission believes the traditional role of nuclear weapons in U.S. defense strategy remains valid and of continuing importance: deterrence of adversaries; assurance of Allies; achieving U.S. objectives should deterrence fail; and hedging against adverse events. The Commission recommends fully and urgently executing the U.S. nuclear modernization Program of Record (POR), which includes replacement of all U.S. nuclear delivery systems, modernization of their warheads, comprehensive modernization of U.S. nuclear command, control, and communications (NC3), and recapitalizing the nuclear enterprise infrastructure at the DOD and DOE/NNSA. The current modernization program should be supplemented to ensure U.S. nuclear strategy remains effective in a two-nuclear-peer environment. Comprehensive risk-mitigating actions across U.S. nuclear forces must be executed to ensure that delays in modernization programs or early age-out of currently deployed systems do not result in militarily significant shortfalls in deployed nuclear capability. The U.S. strategic nuclear force posture should be modified to: ` Address the larger number of targets due to the growing Chinese nuclear threat. ` Address the possibility that China will field large-scale, counterforce-capable missile forces that pose a threat to U.S. strategic nuclear forces on par with the threat Russia poses to those forces today. ` Assure the United States continues to avoid reliance on executing Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) launch under attack to retain an effective deterrent. ` Account for advances in Russian and Chinese integrated air and missile defenses (IAMD). The U.S. theater nuclear force posture should be urgently modified to: ` Provide the President a range of militarily effective nuclear response options to deter or counter Russian or Chinese limited nuclear use in theater. ` Address the need for U.S. theater nuclear forces deployed or based in the Asia-Pacific theater. ` Compensate for any shortfall in U.S. and allied non-nuclear capabilities in a sequential or simultaneous two-theater conflict against Russia and China. ` Address advances in Russian and Chinese IAMD. NUCLEAR SECURITY ENTERPRISE INFRASTRUCTURE AND ORGANIZATION The Commission recommends the DOD and DOE/NNSA strategic infrastructure be expanded to have sufficient capacity to: ` Meet the capability and schedule requirements of the current nuclear modernization POR and the requirements of the force posture modifications recommended by the Commission in time to address the two-peer threat. ` Provide an effective hedge against four forms of risk: technical failure of a warhead or delivery system, programmatic delays, operational loss of delivery systems, and further deterioration of the geopolitical environment. ` Flex to respond to emerging requirements in a timely fashion. To support the proposed strategy, the Commission recommends Congress fund an overhaul and expansion of the capacity of the U.S. nuclear weapons defense industrial base and the DOE/NNSA nuclear security enterprise, including weapons science, design, and production infrastructure. Specifically: ` Congress should fund the full range of NNSA’s recapitalization efforts, such as pit production and all operations related to critical materials. ` Congress should forge and sustain bipartisan consensus and year-to-year funding stability to enable the defense industry to respond to innovative DOD contracting approaches and invest with more certainty. ` Congress should enact annual DOD and DOE authorization and appropriation bills before the beginning of each fiscal year. ` Congress should place the purview of all “050” programs (President’s Budget line item for “national security”) that are in NNSA under Defense appropriations subcommittees (House Appropriations Committee-Defense (HAC-D), Senate Appropriations Committee Defense (SAC-D). ` Cabinet Secretaries, working with states and union leaders, should establish and increase the technical education and vocational training programs required to create the nation’s necessary skilled-trades workforce for the nuclear enterprise. The Commission recommends a number of specific actions to expand the capacity and effectiveness of the nation’s infrastructure and supply chain for its strategic capabilities. The Report concludes tomorrow Photo: Air Force Gen. Glen D. VanHerck, commander, North American Aerospace Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command, speaks with members from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency as well as industry leaders at the NORAD and USNORTHCOM headquarters on Peterson Space Force Base, Colo.(DoD)