@Cyborgette : a look at an english dictionary show that in english law, “reckless endangerment” can be premeditation, while in french – the language not the legal system – premeditation mean basically to have planned the event entirely, as opposed to kill on the spur of the moment.
(I guess it’s an example of why jurors have to be educated on what the words mean in the trial)
So, if the question is “did he voluntary killed someone ?”, the answer is yes, but if the question is “did he made preparations and plan for the disposal of M. Floyd ?”, the answer isn’t that straightforward. I am not convinced that the perpetrator waked up and thought “so, how will I kill someone today ?”.
You also act like if it made his act worse, which I am not sure of. I don’t particulary want people who don’t care if they kill people to be free, and the redemption path for someone like that seem even less likely than for an hired killer. In a lot of way, to my eye, the fact he killed because he could make it worse.
To summarize :
proving that the cop had planned to kill someone, even as an example, is hard and not that certain here.
in some way, the fact he look like he did it just because he could at the moment make it worse in my opinion.
rabid rabbit
3 years ago
@Masse-Mysteria:
That’s really interesting. So much for my plot for police reform by convincing governments to ban straight white men from being recruited for five years.
Obviously, banning them permanently would be more effective, but I figure a 5 year moratorium would be more likely to survive the inevitable human rights challenge.
Alan Robertshaw
3 years ago
@ big titty demon
he’s been involved in three police shootings…he crushed the neck of another boy …complaining he couldn’t breathe, but it was ruled inadmissible in court
This is ‘similar fact’/’bad character’ evidence. I’ve had a look at the relevant MN law (link below). It’s very similar to how we used to deal with it here. Although that’s changed now and everything is admissible here now.
I can see though why neither the prosecution or the defence would have wanted that in. For the defence the risk is it shows, as you rightly point out, propensity.
However for the Prosecution there’s also a risk. They knew one strand of the defence was that Chauvin was only following what he believed to be approved procedure. So if the previous incidents go in, bearing in mind there was no comeback from those, it could bolster the defence that as no-one in authority had complained before, they can’t now say it was an unapproved method.
What’s needed is a complete break from existing institutional norms and continuity, i.e. completely abolishing the institution as it now exists and rebuilding any useful parts from the foundations up and/or assigning them to organizations with relevant competencies. Also massive reforms in the laws that are being enforced, of course; ending the War on Drugs Black people is only the beginning of what’s needed on that front.
Big Titty Demon
3 years ago
@Alan
❤️ Thanks for going to the trouble of looking it up! I would not have thought of that issue for the prosecution, so I guess it’s good that IANAL. That’s a very interesting law to me and seems to be the source of the old “but the rape victim really had a bad character and probably was asking for it” defense.
rabid rabbit
3 years ago
@Dalillama:
Well, yes, obviously, but as that’s not going to happen any time soon… I admit my plan is mostly based on curiosity to see just how quickly some straight white guy would sue for discrimination, and just how whiny he’d be about it.
Alan Robertshaw
3 years ago
@ big titty demon
Thanks for going to the trouble of looking it up
My pleasure. Stuff like that interests me anyway. I’d been following the trial quite closely. I do advocacy training for newly minted barristers, and the prosecution were using a particular model that we encourage. So there were some examples of practice I’ll be able to use as illustration.
But yeah, that double edged sword thing. In the model we use the first thing you do is write your closing speech; then you write your opponent’s closing speech. Then you look at the evidence. That helps you anticipate and head off the other side’s case pre-emptively.
There was a good example of things backfiring though with the defence expert. He was terrible generally; an exemplar of all the bad practice we warn experts about. But he got cocky and made an unsolicited point that he thought helped the Defence. It very much didn’t though. The prosecution seized on that and got him to admit that at the very least his client was guilty of manslaughter.
Robert Baden
3 years ago
As a Mexican American I’d like to see white women like Amber Guyger banned from being police as well. And the cop in Brooklyn Center Minnesota.
Full Metal Ox
3 years ago
I’m worried that now there’s a huge bullseye painted on Darnella Frazier (on top of the one she was assigned at birth, of course.)
Mogwitch
3 years ago
@Ohlmann, I‘m not disagreeing that the police in Germany and France have a problem with pervasive racism, and Masse_Mysteria has a good point that they enculture this in new recruits as well as attract it. Terrible things still occur.
The extra training is a good thing though. The rate of extrajudicial killings is way lower, and they accidentally kill bystanders and themselves much less. Chauvin was prepared to murder someone slowly on camera, so it might not have stopped the George Floyd murder, but the number of mentally ill people who survive a police encounter would be much higher. Training might not make the police nicer, but it does make them more competent. And it actually even reduces the direct murders, because there is no way they can claim they didn’t know better. I think one of the other cops in the Chauvin case might have intervened earlier if he knew he‘d be on trial for murder.
If you can’t read the link, here’s a relevant quote:
In the class recorded for “Do Not Resist,” Grossman at one point tells his students that the sex they have after they kill another human being will be the best sex of their lives. The room chuckles. But he’s clearly serious. “Both partners are very invested in some very intense sex,” he says. “There’s not a whole lot of perks that come with this job. You find one, relax and enjoy it.”
Full Metal Ox
3 years ago
@Nequam:
For the benefit of readers blocked by the Washington Post’s paywall: http://archive.li/DhBF3
The difference, though, is that the sheepdog must not, cannot and will not ever harm the sheep. Any sheepdog who intentionally harms the lowliest little lamb will be punished and removed.
Lumipuna
3 years ago
The extra training is a good thing though. The rate of extrajudicial killings is way lower, and they accidentally kill bystanders and themselves much less. Chauvin was prepared to murder someone slowly on camera, so it might not have stopped the George Floyd murder, but the number of mentally ill people who survive a police encounter would be much higher. Training might not make the police nicer, but it does make them more competent.
My hunch is that police incompetence/poor training mainly results in crimes going unsolved or undetected, plus perhaps more safety hazard for the cops themselves than civilians. Rotten police culture and general racism/corruption/authoritarianism in society with regards to policing causes a whole host of other issues.
The difference, though, is that the sheepdog must not, cannot and will not ever harm the sheep. Any sheepdog who intentionally harms the lowliest little lamb will be punished and removed.
Or rather, the difference is that sheep and wolves are literally different species, and wolves are supposed to be simply banished or killed from sheep pastures. This seems like red flag for someone thinking that they can easily tell criminals from law-abiding citizens on sight, and that these are inherent traits of individuals. A sheepdog must not ever harm the sheep, sure, but what if sheepdogs are the primary authority on deciding who’s a wolf?
(Also apparently in this metaphor, the police need to be essentially cultivated criminals to be able to fight against wild-type criminals. Grossman probably wanted to point out that cops need to be better armed than the “sheep”, but the actual phylogenetic closeness between wolves and dogs is a bit on the nose, and he perhaps didn’t intend that.)
C.A.Collins
3 years ago
@Nequam: I have to admit, for me, adrenaline is a hell of an aphrodisiac. The times I’ve come close to cashing out? Yeah sex got intense.
I’d like to think that if it was the other way around, if I’d killed someone rather than nearly dying, I’d be too horrified for sex, but I can’t swear to it. Before it happened I would have sworn being in a rolled car wouldn’t have had me willing to hump graveyard angels.
Elaine The Witch
3 years ago
@C.A Collins
you can have that adrenaline without killing someone or almost being killed. My husband and I have had intense angry sex after an argument that felt really good and had the same crash effect. But we’ve also had the same type after cliff jumping, almost getting hit by a car, and on a hike after we thought a mountain lion was hunting us. The only time it had been close to something violent was after he beat this one jerks ass for reaching his hand under my skirt and grabbing my ass at a bar.
The cop teacher is just a psychopathy who found another psychopath to get off when they can kill someone legally. There is Adeline and then there is getting physically aroused by the act of taking someone’s life which is what that guy is talking about.
Training will do nothing. Time and again, we see cops deescalate when that’s what they want to do (typically when a suspect is white). They don’t kill people because they don’t know how to deescalate. They kill because they want to.
I’m for abolishing all together, but if that’s not going to happen, then it’s time to come for their money. That is the only thing they’ll care about. Tie funding to use of force. The more they use force, the less money they’ll get. Settlement money from lawsuits needs to come out of police department budgets, not general city budgets. The occasional conviction isn’t going to stop police abuses, because most of the time they won’t be convicted, and they know it.
Xennial Dot Warner
3 years ago
Oh; and additionally? It’s baffling that a young white man who is the active shooter is seen as a lesser threat than a black girl defending herself with a knife.
Surplus to Requirements
3 years ago
you can have that adrenaline without killing someone or almost being killed
Hence the classic date night itinerary of dinner followed by a scary movie. Roller coaster will do the job too.
Dalillama
3 years ago
I know I’ve had some bitter disagreements with a number of y’all before, but I really appreciate this being one of the only spaces in my life where absolutely nobody is trying to justify the murder of Ma’Khia Bryant.
We Hunted The Mammoth
So murdering while Blue is illegal now?
Who knew?
@Cyborgette : a look at an english dictionary show that in english law, “reckless endangerment” can be premeditation, while in french – the language not the legal system – premeditation mean basically to have planned the event entirely, as opposed to kill on the spur of the moment.
(I guess it’s an example of why jurors have to be educated on what the words mean in the trial)
So, if the question is “did he voluntary killed someone ?”, the answer is yes, but if the question is “did he made preparations and plan for the disposal of M. Floyd ?”, the answer isn’t that straightforward. I am not convinced that the perpetrator waked up and thought “so, how will I kill someone today ?”.
You also act like if it made his act worse, which I am not sure of. I don’t particulary want people who don’t care if they kill people to be free, and the redemption path for someone like that seem even less likely than for an hired killer. In a lot of way, to my eye, the fact he killed because he could make it worse.
To summarize :
@Masse-Mysteria:
That’s really interesting. So much for my plot for police reform by convincing governments to ban straight white men from being recruited for five years.
Obviously, banning them permanently would be more effective, but I figure a 5 year moratorium would be more likely to survive the inevitable human rights challenge.
@ big titty demon
This is ‘similar fact’/’bad character’ evidence. I’ve had a look at the relevant MN law (link below). It’s very similar to how we used to deal with it here. Although that’s changed now and everything is admissible here now.
I can see though why neither the prosecution or the defence would have wanted that in. For the defence the risk is it shows, as you rightly point out, propensity.
However for the Prosecution there’s also a risk. They knew one strand of the defence was that Chauvin was only following what he believed to be approved procedure. So if the previous incidents go in, bearing in mind there was no comeback from those, it could bolster the defence that as no-one in authority had complained before, they can’t now say it was an unapproved method.
https://www.revisor.mn.gov/court_rules/ev/id/404/
@Masse_Mysteria, Rabid rabbit
What’s needed is a complete break from existing institutional norms and continuity, i.e. completely abolishing the institution as it now exists and rebuilding any useful parts from the foundations up and/or assigning them to organizations with relevant competencies. Also massive reforms in the laws that are being enforced, of course; ending the War on
DrugsBlack people is only the beginning of what’s needed on that front.@Alan
❤️ Thanks for going to the trouble of looking it up! I would not have thought of that issue for the prosecution, so I guess it’s good that IANAL. That’s a very interesting law to me and seems to be the source of the old “but the rape victim really had a bad character and probably was asking for it” defense.
@Dalillama:
Well, yes, obviously, but as that’s not going to happen any time soon… I admit my plan is mostly based on curiosity to see just how quickly some straight white guy would sue for discrimination, and just how whiny he’d be about it.
@ big titty demon
My pleasure. Stuff like that interests me anyway. I’d been following the trial quite closely. I do advocacy training for newly minted barristers, and the prosecution were using a particular model that we encourage. So there were some examples of practice I’ll be able to use as illustration.
But yeah, that double edged sword thing. In the model we use the first thing you do is write your closing speech; then you write your opponent’s closing speech. Then you look at the evidence. That helps you anticipate and head off the other side’s case pre-emptively.
There was a good example of things backfiring though with the defence expert. He was terrible generally; an exemplar of all the bad practice we warn experts about. But he got cocky and made an unsolicited point that he thought helped the Defence. It very much didn’t though. The prosecution seized on that and got him to admit that at the very least his client was guilty of manslaughter.
As a Mexican American I’d like to see white women like Amber Guyger banned from being police as well. And the cop in Brooklyn Center Minnesota.
I’m worried that now there’s a huge bullseye painted on Darnella Frazier (on top of the one she was assigned at birth, of course.)
@Ohlmann, I‘m not disagreeing that the police in Germany and France have a problem with pervasive racism, and Masse_Mysteria has a good point that they enculture this in new recruits as well as attract it. Terrible things still occur.
The extra training is a good thing though. The rate of extrajudicial killings is way lower, and they accidentally kill bystanders and themselves much less. Chauvin was prepared to murder someone slowly on camera, so it might not have stopped the George Floyd murder, but the number of mentally ill people who survive a police encounter would be much higher. Training might not make the police nicer, but it does make them more competent. And it actually even reduces the direct murders, because there is no way they can claim they didn’t know better. I think one of the other cops in the Chauvin case might have intervened earlier if he knew he‘d be on trial for murder.
Even more than bans on recruiting whitefolk as cops, we need to get rid of teachers like this ASAP: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2017/02/14/a-day-with-killology-police-trainer-dave-grossman/
If you can’t read the link, here’s a relevant quote:
@Nequam:
For the benefit of readers blocked by the Washington Post’s paywall: http://archive.li/DhBF3
Grossman is also the guy who came up with, or at least popularized, the Sheepdog Metaphor, in which police are sheepdogs, criminals are wolves, and law-abiding civilians are sheep: http://www.police1.com/police-products/training-products/articles/book-excerpt-on-sheep-wolves-and-sheepdogs-UmiU5ujhwNg3douX/ This line seems to have gone missing in the wash:
The difference, though, is that the sheepdog must not, cannot and will not ever harm the sheep. Any sheepdog who intentionally harms the lowliest little lamb will be punished and removed.
My hunch is that police incompetence/poor training mainly results in crimes going unsolved or undetected, plus perhaps more safety hazard for the cops themselves than civilians. Rotten police culture and general racism/corruption/authoritarianism in society with regards to policing causes a whole host of other issues.
Or rather, the difference is that sheep and wolves are literally different species, and wolves are supposed to be simply banished or killed from sheep pastures. This seems like red flag for someone thinking that they can easily tell criminals from law-abiding citizens on sight, and that these are inherent traits of individuals. A sheepdog must not ever harm the sheep, sure, but what if sheepdogs are the primary authority on deciding who’s a wolf?
(Also apparently in this metaphor, the police need to be essentially cultivated criminals to be able to fight against wild-type criminals. Grossman probably wanted to point out that cops need to be better armed than the “sheep”, but the actual phylogenetic closeness between wolves and dogs is a bit on the nose, and he perhaps didn’t intend that.)
@Nequam: I have to admit, for me, adrenaline is a hell of an aphrodisiac. The times I’ve come close to cashing out? Yeah sex got intense.
I’d like to think that if it was the other way around, if I’d killed someone rather than nearly dying, I’d be too horrified for sex, but I can’t swear to it. Before it happened I would have sworn being in a rolled car wouldn’t have had me willing to hump graveyard angels.
@C.A Collins
you can have that adrenaline without killing someone or almost being killed. My husband and I have had intense angry sex after an argument that felt really good and had the same crash effect. But we’ve also had the same type after cliff jumping, almost getting hit by a car, and on a hike after we thought a mountain lion was hunting us. The only time it had been close to something violent was after he beat this one jerks ass for reaching his hand under my skirt and grabbing my ass at a bar.
The cop teacher is just a psychopathy who found another psychopath to get off when they can kill someone legally. There is Adeline and then there is getting physically aroused by the act of taking someone’s life which is what that guy is talking about.
Training will do nothing. Time and again, we see cops deescalate when that’s what they want to do (typically when a suspect is white). They don’t kill people because they don’t know how to deescalate. They kill because they want to.
I’m for abolishing all together, but if that’s not going to happen, then it’s time to come for their money. That is the only thing they’ll care about. Tie funding to use of force. The more they use force, the less money they’ll get. Settlement money from lawsuits needs to come out of police department budgets, not general city budgets. The occasional conviction isn’t going to stop police abuses, because most of the time they won’t be convicted, and they know it.
Oh; and additionally? It’s baffling that a young white man who is the active shooter is seen as a lesser threat than a black girl defending herself with a knife.
Hence the classic date night itinerary of dinner followed by a scary movie. Roller coaster will do the job too.
I know I’ve had some bitter disagreements with a number of y’all before, but I really appreciate this being one of the only spaces in my life where absolutely nobody is trying to justify the murder of Ma’Khia Bryant.