{"id":17351,"date":"2021-03-29T10:42:35","date_gmt":"2021-03-29T15:42:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/news\/?p=17351"},"modified":"2021-03-30T12:51:31","modified_gmt":"2021-03-30T17:51:31","slug":"when-the-scales-of-justice-turn-upside-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/news\/2021\/03\/29\/when-the-scales-of-justice-turn-upside-down\/","title":{"rendered":"When\u00a0the Scales of Justice Turn Upside Down"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>

Mitchell Hamline has created a page for resources to learn more about the legalities around the Chauvin trial.<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

Ruling that Floyd<\/span><\/b>\u2019s pr<\/span><\/b>ior<\/span><\/b>\u00a0conduct<\/span><\/b>\u00a0is relevant is<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/b>\u2018topsy-turvy\u2019<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

By Albert Turner Goins<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

On Monday, America will witness on livestream broadcast the opening statements in the trial<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>of the\u00a0<\/span>s<\/span>tate of Minnesota versus Derek Chauvin. Everyone, except maybe those living in Patagonia, has seen the video recording of that tragedy.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The issue, as one legal expert said, will not be who or when, but exactly how George Floyd died as he lay prone on a\u00a0<\/span>s<\/span>outh Minneapolis street corner on May 25, 2020.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The defense has made plain in their pretrial filings that they will seek to make their attack on the prosecution through the issue of \u201ccausation.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Causation involves the legal requirement that the\u00a0<\/span>s<\/span>tate must prove it was the act of Derek Chauvin that caused or brought about the tragic outcome on Memorial Day of last year.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And, because in our courts\u00a0<\/span>each and every<\/span>\u00a0element of any crime must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt, the defense will seek to plant seeds of doubt through expert testimony and evidence regarding how George Floyd passed away.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The\u00a0<\/span>s<\/span>tate of Minnesota cannot simply ask the jury to hear that Mr. Floyd died upon that day\u200a\u2014\u200aor ask the jurors to watch the tape and draw their own conclusions\u200a\u2014\u200ait must instead prove the actions or conduct of Chauvin brought about Floyd\u2019s death as defined by Judge Cahill\u2019s instructions on the law.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And because we operate in an adversarial system of justice, every defendant, including Derek Chauvin, is entitled to present a defense at trial. In this case, Mr. Chauvin will be allowed to offer evidence to the jury that on a prior instance in 2019, George Floyd allegedly panicked and attempted to conceal drugs by swallowing them.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The\u00a0<\/span>c<\/span>ourt has ruled that this conduct, which apparently was wholly unknown to Chauvin, is relevant to the ability of the defense to show the mechanism of Mr. Floyd\u2019s demise beneath Chauvin\u2019s knee.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Much in this case has been an anomaly, but this alone might have made it unprecedented.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The law in Minnesota has allowed so-called \u201cReverse\u00a0<\/span>Spreigl<\/span>,<\/span>\u201d or Rule 404(b)<\/span>,<\/span>\u00a0evidence for decades<\/span>,<\/span>\u00a0which allows a criminal defendant to present evidence that might show a second or different person committed the crime at issue in the trial; but the idea that a murder victim\u2019s prior conduct may become the subject of the litigation seems unprecedented\u200a\u2014\u200aif not topsy-turvy.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Yet, that is the state of the court\u2019s rulings so far.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>The jury will be asked to decide, in part, if George Floyd brought about his own death based on conduct alleged to have occurred nearly a full year before he died.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>And while jurors are often more unpredictable and more acute than most lawyers (and judges) give them credit for, this single ruling risks turning the scales of justice upside down.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>For, in a replay of the tragic flaw in American justice which Black Americans have witnessed throughout history, the man on trial may be the one who is unable to tell his own side of the story.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Albert Turner Goins<\/span><\/i>\u00a0is an attorney in Minneapolis with experience in both private practice and with the\u00a0<\/span><\/i>Hennepin County Public Defender\u2019s office.<\/span><\/i>\u00a0He has worked for decades in criminal defense and the civil prosecution of police misconduct in Minnesota<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ruling that Floyd\u2019s prior\u00a0conduct\u00a0is relevant is\u00a0\u2018topsy-turvy\u2019\u00a0 By Albert Turner Goins\u00a0 On Monday, America will witness on livestream broadcast the opening statements in the trial\u00a0of the\u00a0state of Minnesota versus Derek Chauvin. Everyone, except maybe those living in Patagonia, has seen the video recording of that tragedy.\u00a0 The issue, as one legal expert said, will not be … <\/p>\n

When\u00a0the Scales of Justice Turn Upside Down<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5668,"featured_media":17353,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[153],"tags":[152,68,51],"class_list":["post-17351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-columns","tag-chauvin-trial","tag-commentary","tag-george-floyd","entry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5668"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17351"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17351\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}