What's Next in the Derek Chauvin Case

courtroom and broadcast to the country. Former police officer Derek Chauvin showed no reaction to his conviction, but outside the heavily fortified and guarded courthouse, the crowd erupted and cheers at the announcement of guilt on all three charges, and there was uniform praise for the verdict from people in all walks of life. From George Floyd's brother, Felonis Gustus bad Me freedom fall, to the President of the United

States as he saw in this trial. From the fellow police officers who testified most when men and women aware the Badge served their communities honorably, but those few who failed to meet that standard must be held accountable, and they were. Today. Chauvin is facing up to forty years in prison. And the Minneapolis Police Department is facing a sweeping federal investigation. Joining me is David Harris, a professor at the University of Pittsburgh Law School and author of

A City Divided, Race, Fear, and the Law in Police confrontations. David, isn't an inflection point that at this trial a number of police officers, including the chief of police, testified against Chauvin, one of their own. Is this the crumbling of the so called blue wall. It was very significant because usually, as you say, this idea, the blue wall of silence is that police officers never turn on and certainly don't testify against their own in these kinds of cases, that

they always back each other up no matter what. And here you had three police officers from the Minneapolis Police Department to current high ranking officers, including the chief himself, testifying against Chauvin. Now, this is very significant on two levels. Number one is on the level of the case itself. It served to cut off the defense argument that somehow Chauvin was acting within his training, that his actions were within policy and so forth, And all three of the

officers said, oh no, definitely not. And therefore that crippled the argument that the defense did make. But the larger question is whether this shows that that blue wall will crumble more generally. I think the jury has to be out on that at this point. Certainly, seeing this right out in front of the whole country gives an indication of how important it is for police officials to say

out and direct no, this was wrong. But whether this becomes some kind of a trend that we see in a lot of other cases, I think still remains to be seen. There is still a very strong current of thinking, well, this Chauvin, he was just one bad guy in an otherwise good department, in an otherwise good profession. Chauvin is facing a maximum of forty years in prison and a minimum of twelve and a half. Floyd's family and activists

are calling for the maximum sentence. How likely is that, Well, in any sentencing, you look at both the crime and the convicted descendant. The Chauvin's lawyers will no doubt argue that he's been a policeman with a relatively good record for nineteen years, and you know, there can be some argument about whether that's true of his record, but they'll argue that he should get the minimum sentence because this is something that nobody could have foreseen he's not a

repeat offender. I don't think that's realistic, because the crime itself showed what are called in Minnesota aggravating circumstances, and that would be especially just the outright cruelty of what happened out there in public. This was a situation where a man did not need to die. This was not a case in which the police officer could make and we didn't hear it any argument. You know, he was in fear for his life, like we often hear in

such cases. You often wonder looking at that video, is this guy waiting in line for a sandwich at subway? Is he trying to make a point to these people who are yelling at him that he can do whatever he wants. So I would expect the sentence to be above the minimum. The system and the sentencing will respond to the circumstances of the crime and the sendant. You can make an argument that the crime was so cruel and outrageous that it deserves the maximum sentence, but I

think there's going to be debate about that. I don't expect the judge to give the minimum, but I would be surprised if he gave the absolute maximum that was out there. Chauvin's lawyer has been making a record for his appellate case throughout the trial. What will some of the appellate issues be. There will be appeals about jury issues.

We saw multiple times that Chauvin's lawyer asked that the case be moved out of Hennepin County, multiple requests for mistrial concerning information that was out in the public sphere, particularly the announcement during jury selection that the family of Mr Floyd was going to receive a very large settlement, And we saw Judge Cahill actually take a couple of the juror who had already been selected off the jury panel when they told him they weren't sure that they

could stay on the jury and be fair. There are also multiple issues about the admission of certain pieces of evidence that will be contested by the defendant on appeal. Once you're convicted, it becomes hard to overturn a conviction at every stage of the system. The higher up you go and the farther along ago once you're convicted, the harder it is to overturn a verdict. The three other officers at the scene will be tried in August. Does the conviction in this case have any impact on that trial?

Not directly. It doesn't say foreclosed the possibility that they could be acquitted. They are charged with aiding and abetting Derek shown, which in legal theory is the same as being the main actor. But juries always have a sense

of proportion in my experience. They will know, for instance, that one officer was standing up on the sidewalk blocking people from what they fear might have been interference, though he is an aider and a better allegedly under the legal theory of the case, and therefore bears the same responsibility of as the person who did the actual act.

Juries want a sense of proportional justice, and if they think the system is reacting too harshly to a person with a role that is not the same, the jury may be more reluctant to convict for the same charges, and prosecutors know this, so I wouldn't be surprised to see some movement towards a plea agreement with these three defendants.

Coming up next, I'll continue this conversation with Professor David Harris of the University of Pittsburgh Law School, and we'll talk about the new Justice Department investigation into the Minneapolis Police Department Date Right, life mad Date Wright Life, Merit.

The trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin is over, but still to come is the trial of another former police officer for the killing of Dante Wright, a twenty year old black man shot during a traffic stop on April eleven in suburban Minneapolis, and that city's police department will now be the subject of a sweeping investigation by the Justice Department. Here's Attorney General Merrick Garland. The investigation

I am announcing today. We'll assess whether the Minneapolis Police Department engages in a pattern or practice of using excessive force, including during protests. I've been talking to David Harris, a professor at the University of Pittsburgh Law School. How significant is this pattern and practice investigation? I think it's very important. Uh. Here's why. A case like Chauvin's case, or the cases of the other three officers, those are criminal actions against

individual people for particular acts that they did. In a case like that, you're looking at individual facts to pursue individualized justice, even though we are all looking at it as a kind of referendum on police conduct. They are fundamentally individual cases about individual actions on a particular day.

What the Justice Department has the authority to do is under a federal statute called the Pattern or Practice Statute, to go to a local police department and to say, we will now be investigating you, uh for allegations that your department, not Derek Schouve, not one of the other three options, but your department is engaged in a pattern of violating your citizens constitutional right. Now, a number of

important things are packed in there. Number one, the national government in this country does not have authority to regulate local policing. Our policing in this country is hyper localized. The best that they have is the authority to see that the constitution is obeyed, and that's what this statute is based on. So they can go in and look for violations of constitutional rights. The statute limits them to looking for patterns, to looking for regular practices of violations.

In other words, even a terrible incident like the death of George Floyd at the hands of Derek Chauvin wouldn't be enough under this statute. It can't be one incident, even one very bad one. It must be a pattern of this that goes on all the time. Under that statute, the Justice Department can come in do an investigation to look for those patterns in anything that might impact constitutional rights,

so that can be used. Of course, it can be search and seizures of other kinds like stopping frisk, like traffic stops. It can be any number of things that might violate people's constitutional rights. And if it finds those patterns, it then goes to the city and the police department says,

here's what we found. We think you're violating your citizens constitutional rights, and we propose that you make the following changes, and if there is agreement, that agreement is then put into something a document called a consent decree, which is signed off on by a federal judge. Now, the real importance of this is that instead of addressing one incident, and addresses the full scope of police actions that are found to be in violation of the constitution in that department.

In other words, it's targeted at the system at the institutional level. Right, So if they find a pattern of use to force violations, they will uh, they will uh say we want you to retrain all your officers. We want this to be the new standard within your police department. It will have the following details and you will monitor it in these ways. So these are systemic level changes and it's the best and really only tool out there that the federal government has for making those kind of changes.

So it is entirely appropriate to follow the Chawbn trial with this kind of investigation to see is this the problem of one person, as some people are saying, well, he was a bad apple, or is this a department wide problems. In the last few years, there have been as many as seven fatal shootings by police in the Minneapolis area, So is it likely the feds will find

a pattern and practice? And I suspect they're going to find that department wide pattern because data that was public even at the time of George Boyd's death showed that the Minneapolis police used force way disproportionately against people of color and all kind of force, not just deadly forced, but you know, using tasers, using fists or pepper spray

or clubs or whatever. So this is the right thing for them to do to look into this, and it is a signal that the Justice Department is going to pick up this tool after letting it go and abandoning it entirely. Under the Trump administration and under Attorney general sessions have consent degrees changed police practices in past cases. Yes, they worked, not all of them worked, and not all

of them had staying power. But I do think it's fair to say that they were the best tool we had, and often a very effective tool to go in and address some of the worst police departments and get others back on track. You know, they had to go into the New Orleans Police department, not once, but twice. Here in Pittsburgh where I am based, was the very first consent to free back to two thousands and two, and it transformed this police department, and it was a better

department for some years. But you know, as in all police departments, city administrations changed, a new mayor comes in, a couple of police chiefs. Down the line, the commitment is not there, and a lot of the things that were put into place a kind of atrophied didn't stick. So it doesn't always work and fully transformed departments. But there are many places where it has. I mean, a good example is Cincinnati, which had a terrible set of riots after the killing of Timothy Thomas back in two

thousand and one. And that's still a different department. Remember that there are knock on effects too. So when the Justice Department comes into a police department in say Baltimore, Chicago, or New Orleans or whatever, you've got police departments all over that same region and all over the country saying, you know what, I don't really want the eight hundred pound guerilla in my office telling me they're gonna take all my files. What do I have to do to

get better? How can I manage up to a better standard so I don't have that. Everybody knows the Department of Justice can't investigate all police departments. I think during the entire Obama administration they did twenty five of these. And you know, we have eighteen thousand police departments in this country, so you're only going to get a small franction, and hopefully they're the ones that really needed. That's Professor David Harris of the University of Pittsburgh Law School coming up. Well.

The Supreme Court curb green card applications. This is Bloomberg

Law with June Brush from Bloomberg Radio. In oral arguments this week, the Supreme Court suggest that it would block green card applications of thousands of immigrants who entered the country illegally but then secured temporary legal status because their home nations are in crisis, like the Salvadoran couple in the case, federal law requires Green card applicants to have been quote inspected and admitted into the country, and some

of the justices appeared doubtful about whether the plaintiffs could be considered admitted. Here are Justices Clarence Thomas and Elena Kagan in the case of oppetitioners, how does that work? Because they clearly were not admitted at the borders? So is that a fiction? Is it metaphysical? What is it? I mean? The section says the admission to the United States of any alien is a non immigrant, But why does that suggest that admission is something that all non immigrants?

Ket and Justice Brett Kavanaugh said the plaintiffs at an uphill climb. We need to be careful about tinkering with the immigration statutes has written, particularly when Congress has some such a primary role. Here joining me is Leon Fresco, a partnered Hollandon Knight. Leon explain what temporary protected status is.

So that's actually a statute that Congress passed that says that when there is a natural disaster or something like the COVID nineteen pandemic or the hurricane or political war, et cetera, that the United States and the President in this case in particular, has the ability to say, I AM going to protect people here in America from those countries from deportations and give them something called temporary protective status that allows them to remain here legally for eighteen

months increments during the quote unquote duration of the crisis, and then when that quote unquote crisis is over, then theoretically these individuals are supposed to then returned back to their country. So the Salvadoran couple came here in the nineteen nineties, when did they acquire temporary protected status? The status that they accrued actually did occur in the nineties due to natural disasters and hurricanes that occurred in Al Savador.

The point is that that status was extended. This is one of the criticisms that people give about temporary protective status is once it's extended, it never goes away. Because America feels badly about deporting people that had legal status. So these were individuals that had for eighteen month increments at a time been getting their silent remaining in the

United States. But we're concerned, like many people were, that when President Trump came into office, his goal was to end this temporary protective status and not let anyone remain on it anymore. And so many people started to try to figure out are their ways I can get a green card in order to remain here in the United States. And that is the crux of what the Supreme Court was debating. The issue for the justices, though, was that

they came here illegally. Correct they came here illegally, and so what happens is in order to get temporary protective status, it doesn't matter whether you came here legally or illegally. It just matters that you're in the United States on the day that the status is created. So let's say there's a hurricane on March one, and on March eighth, the President says, we're gonna say that everybody who was here on March one, the day of the hurricane, gets

temporary protective status. Then anybody here could apply whether they were here illegally or legally, and more importantly, whether they came illegally or legally, The question for them was whether those individuals who had entered here illegally could be treated as being admitted here now that they had temporary protective status such that they're permitted now to apply for green card because the condition of a green card is that you had to have been admitted into the United States.

What were the justices main concerns during oral arguments? There were three being concerns. One there was there was well, there was a prudential concern, a textual concern, and then sort of the main concern in the case. But so I'll start first with the prudential concerns because that's the easiest to understand. The first was, look, Congress decided this

thing as a temporary relief. And so if Congress decided this thing as a temporary relief, then Congress didn't want this thing to be used by people to stay here permanently. So there's no way that's could have been. They're intent to give people a way to be able to sneak ely earn lawful permanent residents. So you heard Justice Kavanaugh said, Justice Coney Barrett talk about this. Justice Kevana was also concerned, Hey, look, Congress is currently debating giving green cards to people here

with temporary protective status. So just let that debate happen, and when they can win it, they win it, and they get the green cards. And if not, why should the Supreme Court be involved in this? The second was there was this very arcane and I thought a bit confusing because I think they were trying to be too

cute by half. All of the justices asking whether a nonimmigrant, which is someone who's coming here temporarily, and so nonimmigrants are student visas, visitor visas, temporary work visas, religious work, or visas, all of these things are called non immigrant visas, whether there's any kind of nonimmigrants who hasn't been admitted

into the United States. Because the key up to this case is that the statute says that if you have temporary protective status, you're being you're being treated as a non immigrant, And so they were getting to this debate, is there any kind of of non immigrants who hasn't

been admitted to the United States? And the actual answer that question is no. And for some reasons that did not come out in the oral argument yesterday, you can't the whole point, even if it's not said in the code that in order to be a nonimmigrant, you have to be admitted into the United States. It's like if you don't say in the code, in order to be alive,

you have to be breathing. It's just an obvious point because what happens is the way you get non immigrant status in America is you enter a port of entry, you present that VIVA, and a CDP person stamps you, and that's your admission. And that's every nonimmigrant in America that there's nobody who's not like that. And so because of that, the the court got off on this tangent of well, maybe not every non immigrant is admitted, but they didn't come up with an example. They didn't ask

for an example. Nobody provided an example. Because though example was available, and the Justice has asked a lot of questions about what the word admitted means, tell us about the third concerns. Then the third thing they were arguing about was, well, there's two requirements in order to get a green card. First you have to be admitted, and second you have to be in legal status when you apply. This is for employment based green cards, which is what

they were talking about in this case. And so they said, why doesn't this just mean the second thing, which is that you're currently in legal status, but it doesn't fix the first thing, which is that you were admitted. And

that's really the central question in the case. And there is where I think the government, if they have the stronger area of the argument, it would be there, which is that it was meant to cover just the issue of whether you're currently in loveful status, but it was not meant to fix the issue of whether you had been admitted here in the first place. And so it's only meant to give a green card the people who

came here llegally. It's not meant to give a green card to people who came here illegally, and so that's I think most likely where you're going to see the court go. But what's very fascinating about this case is the Biden administration Solicitor General did not want the court and was very adamant about this, to say that this interpretation had been foreclothes that you could get a green

card while they were on TPS. They simply wanted to be a reasonable interpretation of the statue because it's possible that they may issue a regulation later that does allow people with temporary protective status to get green cards because you can choose between two reasonable interpretation. But if the Supreme Court says there's only one reasonable interpretation, and it's that you cannot get a green card, then no regulation

will be possible. Listen to what Chief Justice John Roberts told the Joice Department lawyer about the Biden administration not being more forceful in their arguments. Mr Houston, I was struck by the extent to which your brief um under soldier position. Throughout it you said things like the text doesn't foreclose your position. The court was not required to

accept the petitioners reading. Is that because of the difference in the way the Biden administration views this and the way the Trump administration viewed it correct that's the huge differences. The Trump administration wanted a decision that foreclosed permanently the ability for anybody who would enter here illegally to be able to get a green card using temporary protective plant, and the Biden administration is instead, And I think this

was because they didn't really have time. The case was already in the middle, and they didn't want to change their position. They instead are trying to defer to this minimalist position, which is to say this argument isn't wrong. We're not saying it's the only correct argument. We're just saying that the Trump administration's interpretation wasn't a bad interpretation. So you should say this interpretation is reasonable enough for now, and then you can always change it later if you

want to. And so that's where the bid that administration retreated to. So where do you think the court is going to come out on this? I could see some sort of consensus being reached on the reasonableness of the interpretation that would then allow the Biden administration to come back and ensue a regulation and change how it interprets this statute. That way, sort of the position that people on the conservative side think exists here can prevail in

the litigation. But at least if you provide this consensus opinion. A it's better for courts always to provide a consensus opinion, but be it then provides the ability for the Biden administrations to change how it interprets the statute and actually

permit green cards. I think there will probably be a concurring opinion by Justice Thomas and Justice Alito and maybe Justice Corsage saying no, no, no, we don't agree with the Chevron difference concept, but we don't believe in that, and we think there's only one way to interpret the statute. But I could see a consensus judgment that just upholds the decision but doesn't foreclose the Biden administrations from changing its interpretation of the statutes. That would be my prediction.

Does this illustrate the problem the Biden administration has with immigration issues? Where here it's at odds with Democratic lawmakers. There are nine Democratic members arguing against it and progressive yes. I mean, this was the exact perfect storm where perhaps if this whole issue had arisen during the Biden administration from beginning to end, you might have seen a different

resolution all throughout. But because this case was part of the Trump administration and was carried over into the Biden's administration after the Supreme Court had already granted tertiary, the Biden administration was in a very tough position because it didn't have the ability to do all of the changes that it needed to do. It ordered to change its

position in this case. It didn't want to take a lawless position in this case because there had already been binding authorities from this body called the Board of Immigration

appeals that had bound the administration to this case. So what they just are trying to do for now is minimized the damage by saying, look, all of these binding decisions that we have, now, let's just say they're reasonable, But give us the opportunity to undo all of these decisions using the mechanisms that are available under administrative law. And I could foresee in a year or two this process being concluded to permit people who enter here illegally

to be able to obtain Green card. So far, the Supreme Court the Biden administration on immigration issues has been mostly rescinding Trump policies that the justices had been planning to consider. For example, the Court's dismissed cases over Trump's porter of Wall, his remained in Mexico policy for asylum keepers, and his tough test for screening out Green card applicants who might become dependent on government benefits. Is this the

first immigration case that's been argued by the administration. Yeah.

And the reason this one has to move forward and the other ones didn't have to move forward was because there was actual administrative law decision that had already binded the government, and you couldn't overturn those you either had to do something which I think the Biden administration was uncomfortable doing, which was not defending decisions that the government made through the regular order of the government decisions, or they're doing what they're doing here, which is this minimalist

defense of the decision. For the border wall, they could decifically say we're gonna move this out by not building any more border wall, or for the public charge, they consistually saying we're gonna move this out by accepting an injunction from the lower course. But the problem with the sense as cases, it was a challenge to an administrative decision, and so there's no way to mood out at administrative decisions, or there is, but it was gonna take much longer.

It would have required the Attorney General to issue a new case, a new briefing process, etcetera. And none of that was on the table where the Attorney general has just recently been confirmed. There was not an ability to get to this case in time. Thanks Leon. That's Leon Fresco of hond and Knight, and that's it for the edition of the Bloomberg Lan Show. I'm June Grosso and you're listening to Bloomberg,