Chauvin Pre-trial Deep Dive

worked as a federal prosecutor. This week I asked him to break down the numerous aspects of the Chauvin pre trial process that have been troubling me. Glenn's explanations were so in depth and so informative. We ended up talking

for almost a half hour about this pivotal trial. To hear our full conversation, which is one I think is essential listening for anyone that will be following this trial in the coming weeks, head over to patreon dot com slash woke F and subscribe for just five dollars a month. I'm sure this will not be the last time that Glenn and I talk about this particular trial, and I talk with so many other experts and thinkers five days

a week on my show. But for now, I do want to share with you Glenn's breakdown of the lesser included third degree murder charge, which has since been restored, how the jury selection process works, how Chauvin's defense might use George Floyd's autopsy against the prosecution, and ultimately whether he thinks Derek Chauvin will be convicted of the murder

of George Floyd. The feeling here for me with regard to the second degree murder charge and a third degree murder charge and having both of those stand, is that I don't want him to get the lesser charge right, And the understanding is that one I'm not hopeful. The pattern that we have seen since the murder of Trayvon

Martin has been the same, has been consistent. There's been no deviation, except for I believe in one case where the young man and I'm forgetting his name because there have just been so many was shot to death in a car because he was playing loud music. The older white man who shot him went to jail. But in every case and every other case, these people get off, whether you are a white vigilante or a white police officer.

My question though, with regard to how we are looking at these drawers, some of the questions to me seem incredibly problematic, which is, do you support Blue Lives matter? Do you support Black lives matter? Have you been to a protest? If you were at a protest, did you bring a sign. If you brought a sign, what was

on that sign. The idea that we can't even in this country say that black lives matter and make that into something that is somehow conspiratorial, somehow violent, when in fact everything you've seen is to the contrary of that is incredible to me. And we also seek to look for people that are what unbiased or are impartial. And I don't understand how everyone in the world saw that video of George Floyd taking his last ust everyone in the world. So how do we look for impartiality when

something went viral? So okay, there's a lot to unpack, so many great questions. First of all, when we talk about the judge getting rid of the third degree murder charge, he did that because he thought, legally speaking, that was not an appropriate theory of liability, as the Minnesota law is drafted, so when I said it might be perceived I should have said it might be misperceived by chauvin or by some as Hey, this judge threw out a charge, Maybe that's good for us. He was doing what he

thought was right. I believe based on the law, So it's and it may not. I don't want to get down on the lead weeds. It may not technically be a lesser included offense under the law because you need to have elements in common as you work your way down to lesser included offenses, and the theories of liability are kind of different, so it may not be a lesser included. Let me talk about lesser included every time

I try to first degree premeditated murder case. You bet I wanted the lesser included a second degree murder to

go to the jury. Why Because if I didn't persuade all twelve jurors beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant actually engaged in premeditation and deliberation before killing the victim, then if I didn't give them second degree murder, the jury would have to find him not guilty, and I will take a second degree murder conviction all day, every day, rather than a not guilty on first degree with no

opportunity for the jury to hold them accountable. Then let me talk about the problematic juror questions that you refer to. I don't see them as problematic. Here's why I want. First of all, you're absolutely right, we get to protest. I was down at the Black Lives Matter protest in DC right in the middle of it. I felt strongly about that we need to protest. It's an important part. It's our civic responsibility, frankly to protest. Right, it's the only one of the only ways we can hold our

government accountable. But as a prosecutor or as a criminal litigator, I want to know what the preconceived notions and beliefs and passions are of each juror. So, for example, I want to know if somebody is all about Blue Lives Matter, and you know, but Derek Chauvin, whatever he needed to do, he needed to do because he was protecting us, right. I need to know that as a prosecutor because I need to be able to exercise a strike for cause

against that person. Because I welcome your right to express and to protest. Whether you're on the Blue Lives Matter the Black Lives matter, both neither. But I need to know it so I can make informed decisions as a prosecutor about who I want and about who has no rights sitting on this jury because they have such strong preconceived notions that they can't put them aside and base the case only on the evidence they here in court.

So that's my view of what sound to be intrusive questions that sound like they trample on our right to expect right, it sells freely, okay, because that's how I felt when I when I heard it, I said, well, that just doesn't seem right to me. The entire country

was at protest. We were seeing them in all fifty states, right, And so when I when I saw that question, I'm thinking to myself, well, we're just now going to throw people out and assume that if you've sat on your couch for the past year, right, didn't involve yourself in any which way in these uprisings or calling your representatives

or anything that, then that makes you impartial. And I think that I equate it to when we talk about media and journalist not having opinions right, and there is no way that you don't have an opinion in this day and age, in what we are seeing. There's no way that you didn't have an opinion about kids being snatched from there from their mothers right and locked in cages. There's no way that you are reporting that and saying you're you're reporting it in an impartial way. We're human beings,

and so I thank you for that clarification. What are you anticipating as this unfold? Where are you anticipating that the defense goes here? I know where the defense is going to go. I've studied the autopsy report, and so two things about the autopsy. The first one was performed by the Hennepin County Medical Examiner, as is ordinarily the case in all jurisdictions, your state or your county medical

examiner performs the autopsy. And then George Floyd's family hired doctor Michael Boden, whom I know, and he had a fellow forensic pathology do the second autopsy with him. They reached two different conclusions. The first one said he experienced a heart incident that was a product of the restraint being applied to him by police officers, but he wasn't suffocated and I'll talk about that in a minute, and that's an important finding. And Michael Boden and his associate said, no,

this was an asphyxial death. He was asphyxiated. Here is the issue that we have to contend with. The prosecutor said, I'm calling the Hennepin County Medical Examiner to testify, but I'm not calling the medical examiner that was hired by George Floyd's family. That's a perfectly appropriate tactical decision. And he thinks he can prove criminality based on the findings of the Hennepin County Medical Examiner. But here are some

of the challenges with those findings. The Hennepin County Medical Examiner found no injuries to his neck, either externally or internally. When you resect the neck. I've seen so many strangulation cases. There are telltale signs of strangulation. There's a broken highoid bone, which is a very delicate bone right here. And I can tell you, Danielle, in every manual strangulation case or significant pressure that's put on the neck, you're gonna have

a fractured highoid bone. You're gonna have fractures. They call it to the cartlete. You're gonna have bruising internally, you're gonna have and you're gonna have what's called peticial hemorrhaging. Those are pinpoint hemorrhages in the whites of the eyes and in the gums that are a result of your brain being deprived of oxygen. The blood vessels begin to pop, telltale signs. He had none of that. Okay, none of that.

So what they're going to argue is it may look bad that all this pressure seem to be applied to his neck for eight minutes and forty six seconds, but there's no injuries and there's no hemorrhaging that would that's associated with the brain being deprived of oxygen because there's away is being cut off. So he wasn't strangled. What he was is he had pressure being put on all parts of his body and his body was under duress. He couldn't get enough air in, which is right different.

It's different than a strangulation death. It's called positional asphyxia where pressure is being put on the body here and here and here, and he can't breathe and he can't breathe, which is different than strangling. A guy out not to get graphic right. So here's what the defense is going to say. They're gonna say, you know what, maybe the guy who was putting pressure on his torso was really the bad guy. I can't. I can't. I just just hang with me, though, hang with me. I know I

can't either. And it's not a winning argument. I'm just trying to set out you for your listeners where I think Chauvin is going with this right, but hold fast because it's a losing argument for him. So, you know, maybe my knee on his neck looked bad, but there were no injuries and there was no deprivation acute deprivation of oxygen to the brain. Sony didn't strangle him. Here's the other thing they're gonna say, and you're not gonna like this either. Do you know how long it takes

if you're strangling somebody. Do you know how long it takes for somebody to lose consciousness? The first apologists will tell you eight to ten seconds, and then it takes less than four or five minutes to kill somebody by manually strangling that person. They're going to embrace the eight minutes in forty six seconds and say, see he didn't lose consciousness in ten seconds. He didn't wasn't strangled to death in four minutes. Therefore, my knee on the neck

was not the bad actor is. Here's my concern. Anytime you have multiple people involved in a murder, co defendants and you begin to sever them out and try them individually, you know what happens every flipping defendant makes this argument, Oh, I'm not the one who always the other guy. The other guys who aren't in court, they're the bad guys. I'm not the bad guy. Look at me. I've got a suit and a tie and I'm wearing my college

boy glass. Look at me, I'm you know. And they put on an act and I saw for thirty years. And the defense attorney will put everybody in a suit that's too big for them to make them look meek, and put fake glasses on them to make them look bookish. Oh yeah, it's the place defense attorneys. And I'm not critic I love my brother and sister defense attorneys, I really do. Most of them are good, honest, ethical, zealously representing their clients, and we want that. But here's the

good news. As I watched this as a career homicide prosecutor. I know how I would try this case, and I'm pretty dang sure I could win a conviction based on the evidence I've seen and what I've seen from this prosecutor. Is he's strong, he's thoughtful. I haven't. I've only seen what I can see on court TV, right right. I also think the defense attorney is very strong. I think the judge is very thoughtful. I'm thrilled with the civility

and the professionalism that I'm seeing. I don't think it will be a circus because they've allowed cameras into the courtroom. Sometimes that can devolve into an absolute mess. At the end of the day, my prediction as this jury will hold Derek Chauvin criminally accountable for what he did. The biggest question in my mind is at what level of homicide. In the days and weeks to come, we will be following the Derek Chauvin trial across the country as it unfolds.

In Minneapolis, the city, with its Operation Safety Net, barbed wire and boarded up businesses, is already preparing for the worst possible outcome, a presumed not guilty verdict and justifiable civil unrust over yet another killer cop walking away without justice being served. But I will continue to have these conversations with Glenn, whose illegal optimism gives me much needed hope, and other sound legal minds every week on woke af Daily.

If you want to follow this trial along with me and the rest of the woke a F nation, join us at patreon dot com slash woke a F for just five dollars a month. We are steadily growing this community and an effort to make our world a woker place. Power to the people and to all the people. Power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.