Does Former Officer Derek Chauvin Have a Chance at a Fair Trial in “Woke” America?

By Steven Yates

Many of us, wherever we are. followed the first four days of the trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, 45, charged with second and third degree murder and second degree manslaughter in the death of George Floyd on May 25, 2020. Chauvin has plead not guilty to all charges.

The disturbing video of Chauvin’s knee on the back of Floyd’s neck for over nine minutes sparked massive unrest. Protesters took to the streets, and despite claims that “95 percent of protests were peaceful,” the fact remains: stores were looted and buildings were torched — many of them with black-owned businesses — in the worst explosion of racial violence since the 1960s.

Before we get any further: when seeing the video for the first time, among my thoughts was, What an idiot! With nearly everyone and his grandmother owning a smartphone, something like that was bound to go viral on social media in minutes.

So like probably most viewers I was ready to see the book thrown at Chauvin. With a number of citizen’s complaints against him from whites as well as blacks for excessive force, he didn’t come across as a nice guy. I read that several fellow officers saw a dark streak in his personality. His wife divorced him following his arrest. While no one knew what went on behind their closed doors, it was easy to wonder if she saw a chance to get away from a violent sociopath and took it.

The first four days of the trial saw a parade of eyewitnesses — ordinary people who happened to be there that day. Many had highly emotional testimony. We soon had quotable remarks such as that of Donald Williams, 33, mixed martial arts expert: “I believed I witnessed a murder.” And when one of Chauvin’s attorneys asked Genevieve Hanson, 27, an off-duty firefighter and EMT first responder, if she and others in the crowd were angry, she snapped, “I don’t know if you’ve seen anybody be killed, but it’s upsetting!” For this she received an admonition from the judge.

In the U.S., everyone accused of a crime is supposed to have a right to a fair trial, and that includes former officer Chauvin. To paraphrase the defense’s opening argument, there are always two sides to any story, and indeed, there is abundant information bound to be invisible to witnesses.

While the major question of the trial is, What caused George Floyd’s death? the more basic question before us is: does Derek Chauvin have the slightest chance at getting a fair trial?

Keep in mind that this is now the Cult of Woke’s America, not the America we grew up in. If you grasp this, you understand that the deck was stacked against Chauvin from the get-go.

I don’t envy that jury one bit! Their job is to decide the guilt or innocence of a man based on the law and the evidence. Even assuming they are given all the evidence, suppose the most honest reading of the full scope of what happened exonerates Chauvin.

If the jury votes not to convict, America’s cities will probably explode into another orgy of violence, probably exceeding that of last year. That’s just the way things are in 2020s America.

Behind-the-scenes maneuvering has already occurred aimed at securing a conviction.

Paul Craig Roberts penned an article based on information from an informant in Minneapolis, an attorney not part of the defense but there to observe. What this article reveals ought to disturb us all.

Quoting (all italics his):

“Minneapolis paid a $27 million settlement with George Floyd’s brother in the middle of jury selection for Chauvin’s trial. In other words, in effect the city officials admitted Chauvin’s guilt prior to the jury’s determination. One would have expected Minneapolis to hold on to $27 million of taxpayers’ money until the jury rendered a verdict both for the sake of a fair trial and for the city’s budget.

“On the eve of the trial, the district court granted the state’s motion to insert the charge of third degree murder in addition to second degree manslaughter against Chauvin. The consequence of this for Chauvin was made clear yesterday (March 31) when the Minnesota supreme court handed down a decision on third-degree murder while Chauvin’s trial was underway. My informant explains that the decision has the effect of allowing Minnesota to convict Chauvin of third degree murder without having to prove that Chauvin intended George Floyd’s death. In effect, the court’s decision negates the objective evidence of the medical examiner’s report that his examination discovered three times the fatal dose of fentanyl in Floyd’s blood and no life-threatening injuries. (For [a link to] the medical report [go here].)”

Roberts adds that this “certainly looks like a state-organized setup to make certain Chauvin is convicted. On the very eve of the trial a third degree murder charge is inserted and during the trial the Minnesota supreme court rules that third-degree murder only requires the inference of indifference to human life.”

To what extent will the jury get to hear about the drugs in George Floyd’s system? It is a reasonable inference that he was high as a kite on something when he was apprehended. A witness from inside the Cup Foods store described Floyd as seeming high, and all one need to is watch his often erratic behavior inside the store to infer this (here, starting at 3:00 when he seems disoriented, and later, at around 10:20 and again at 13:02).

His girlfriend testified that the two of them had a history of drug use they had been battling together.

A fentanyl overdose can cause difficulty breathing, which matches Floyd’s complaint to police. An autopsy report — whether it will be allowed into the record or not remains to be seen — denies that Floyd’s breathing passages exhibited physical damage sufficient to cause death, directly traceable to Chauvin’s actions.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the jury never sees this. I’ve been wrong occasionally in these columns, though, so that means there’s hope.

A case like this was inevitable. I was against the militarization of police by Homeland Security after 9/11 when phrases like domestic terrorist and enemy combatant were weaponized. We saw increased and often deadly violence by police against unarmed citizens; a website appeared documenting the number of people killed by police, naming names. Some were black and some were white. While racial ratios varied with location, I never had the impression color mattered all that much. White people have been shot to death by police. Example: Daniel Shaver, 26, killed by Philip Brailsford inside a Mesa, Ariz. hotel, back in 2016. Brailsford was acquitted of a murder charge. The case did not make headlines. People did not take to the streets in protest.

At one time, such incidents were readily findable on YouTube. In our present era of cancelation, YouTube supports the approved narrative, which is that white cops are systematically hunting down and killing unarmed black man. Do a search on YouTube for police violence, and that is what you will find, even though actual crime stats do not support the narrative (surprise, surprise).

So will the jury convict on the basis of emotional testimony that does not tell the whole story? Will they review all the medical reports and still decide that Floyd might have survived without the knee on his neck? Or will they decide that he likelihood of Floyd’s being high on a lethal dose of fentanyl constitutes reasonable doubt sufficient for a not-guilty verdict?

The trial will probably run for several more weeks, and then the jury will probably be sequestered. There will doubtless be mounting tension on the streets of America during this period.

Should Chauvin be found innocent, black mobs will take to the streets again in inflamed (and possibly elite-funded*) anger.

If he is found guilty, they could still take to the streets in a celebratory mood with the same sort of looting and burning.

My advice to America’s white people: get out of big cities before the verdict is announced. I wouldn’t stay in medium sized ones. Board up your property (home or apartment, business), and be elsewhere. I hate having to say this, but in Cult of Woke America, ordinary, nonwealthy white people are second class citizens, and there are no immediate fixes for this. So take a vacation. Prepare to be gone for several weeks if necessary. Small towns in red states might be a good bet. International travel might be better yet if you can afford it before vaccine passport tyranny descends.

The point is, do not be anywhere your physical safety and that of your loved ones might be jeopardized.

Remember that in any confrontation, neither the legal system nor any major media will be on your side.

The outcome of this trial will speak volumes. It is very possible, even probable, that fair trails are as dead in the U.S. as honest elections and the rule of law generally.

*It may not be widely known that the largest corporations in multiple industries have collectively donated hundreds of millions of dollars to Black Lives Matter — perhaps in the misguided opinion that Black Lives Matter is really about black lives mattering and not part of the fundamental political-economic / cultural restructuring of America as a controlled society — and doubtless because they expect to profit from it.

E-Mail Steven Yates: freeyourmindinsc@yahoo.com