All right, y'all, welcome to the Scott Horton Show.
I am the Director of the Libertarian Institute, Editorial Director of Antiwar.com, author of the book Fool's Errand, Time to End the War in Afghanistan, and I've recorded more than 5,000 interviews going back to 2003, all of which are available at scotthorton.org.
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All right, you guys, introducing Jacob Sullum, Senior Editor at Reason Magazine and nationally syndicated columnist too.
And he is covering the trial of Derek Chauvin, the cop from Minneapolis for the death of George Floyd last year.
Welcome back to the show.
How are you doing?
I'm doing all right.
How are you?
I'm doing great.
Appreciate you joining us on the show again here and appreciate you covering this trial.
I saw that it was on, I watched a very small portion of it yesterday during lunchtime, but that's because I knew I could count on you, Jacob, to catch us up.
Where are we at right now in the trial in terms of prosecution, case defense or jury deliberations or all those things?
Well, the prosecution is still presenting its case.
Yesterday, a paramedic testified and confirmed that Floyd was dead by the time they got there, basically.
There were some ambiguity on that point.
I mean, it certainly seemed to the bystanders and people who watched the videos that he died while he was being restrained in the prone position and Chauvin had his knee on his neck.
But the paramedic confirmed that point.
So that was significant.
There was also testimony about Floyd's drug use, which the prosecution is probably, it's trying to get ahead of this because the defense is going to argue, already has argued in the opening statement that drugs, if they didn't in themselves kill Floyd, that they played a role in his death.
He had consumed black market tablets labeled as Percocet, but that actually contained fentanyl and methamphetamine.
And the autopsy confirmed that that was in his blood.
And so the defense is going to argue that that was largely responsible for his death.
And the prosecution I think is trying to show that since Floyd was a regular opioid user, that he had enough tolerance, uh, that the amount of, uh, fentanyl he consumed would not have killed him in itself.
Um, and I think that that's accurate.
I mean, if you look at the, the blood levels in the autopsy report, they're not very high.
Um, they're toward the low end of what has been found in people who died of, uh, uh, opioid related, uh, uh, causes.
Um, so I, I think that's, it's pretty clear that it was certain that it wasn't an overdose per se.
Um, but the defense may still argue that the fact that he took those drugs increased the stress on his cardiovascular system.
He was already not very healthy and that, um, he died as, as a result of those, those causes the underlying health conditions plus the drugs.
Um, of course he was under tremendous, tremendous, you can't ignore the fact that he was under tremendous stress because of the way the police were treating him.
So, so, uh, the defense's argument that, um, cardiovascular disease, adrenaline pumping through him, um, the stress from the drugs and so on, uh, that that caused his death, uh, does not, uh, eliminate the possibility that what the police did to him, uh, was a crucial factor as well.
And if he would have survived, but for what the police did, um, and in particular, but for what Chauvin did, then that means that Chauvin caused his death legally, um, uh, that it was the but for cause of his death.
Um, and then you have additional questions about Chauvin's state of mind and the other elements of, of the various crimes that he's charged with.
But in terms of causation, um, we could, uh, the prosecution even could, could see that the drugs played some role in his death, but it still doesn't mean that Chauvin is off the hook.
All right.
Now, so on that first point about whether he was already dead or not, I think we've heard over and over again that he died in the ambulance on the way there, uh, that there was some kind of electrical activity, this, that, the other thing, they were still trying to save him for a while.
But at what point did it fail?
Can you clarify that?
Um, well, they did try to resuscitate him, uh, later in the ambulance and they'd never, they did not succeed.
So, um, uh, uh, he was, they had no, he had no pulse, uh, uh, repeatedly during his restraint.
He had no pulse.
At least twice Chauvin was told he has no detectable pulse, paramedics came, they couldn't find a pulse either.
There was no sign, there were no signs of life.
So I think it is, it is fair to say that he was dead at that point, even though they subsequently tried to resuscitate him.
I see.
So in other words, he was just pronounced dead on the way there at that point, they gave up at some point trying.
Yeah.
I mean, yeah.
Wouldn't you, at the point at which somebody is pronounced dead isn't necessarily a point at which he actually died.
Um, and yes, I mean, I, it's, I think, but in other words though, it's not like he was just, he had been knocked completely out, but was still alive.
He actually was not alive by the time that the cops got off of him.
That was the paramedics impression.
Yes.
Okay.
Which, Hey, that's what I saw in the video too.
But I think there'd been some mixed messages about exactly when he died.
So, yeah, I mean, I think the paramedics testimony, uh, clarified that point.
Um, and yes, so, you know, I'm not sure if you can still argue either way, uh, whether he, he died, um, at the scene or died in the ambulance.
Um, uh, you still have this dispute about which factors precisely, you know, killed him.
Um, but, but I think it's, I just, it's totally implausible to say that what Chauvin did was irrelevant.
Right?
I mean, even if you buy the defense's argument about various underlying factors, um, you can't ignore what was going on.
You're saying that this guy was not dying of a drug overdose at the time that the cop put his knee on his, uh, and here's the, here's a very important point.
You say what, what Chauvin did.
What exactly did he do?
Because I saw, uh, one thing going around on right wing Twitter yesterday saying, see, his knee is not on the guy's neck.
It's on his back.
And that's your reasonable doubt right there that they were putting so much weight on this whole knee on the neck argument.
And yet here's a, I guess a screenshot from the video of one of the other cops, body cams, uh, something like that, and maybe even from the witness video.
And so what difference does that make or does it?
Well, it makes some difference because the, the prosecution is arguing that he was asphyxiated.
The, in fact that he, he, he was, his breathing was so obstructed that he, uh, suffered an anoxic seizure.
Um, and of course the defense denies that they say that he was not, his breathing was not obstructed.
He was not having trouble getting oxygen.
So that, that, uh, the position of the knee is relevant.
Um, in, in that sense, um, I think it's quite clear from the bystander video that his knee was on the neck.
I mean, his, his attorney, uh, just in his opening statement described the knee as being on his shoulder back and back, but of course your shoulders right next to your neck.
So if you, if you put your knee on somebody's shoulder, it can be on their shoulder and on their neck.
And in fact, the picture I saw from a cop who's further back, I guess, holding down his legs or holding down the next cop in line or whatever.
And yes, the knee is on the back, but it's not precluding the idea that it's also on his neck too.
And, and the, the bystander video was just shot, you know, in front of Floyd's head.
It seems very clear from that, that the knee is on the neck.
Now, here's the thing though too, isn't it the case that a lot of times cops suffocate people to death by holding them flat on their chest and compressing them so that the asphyxiation is not a block in the throat.
It's the inability of their lungs to expand their chest cavity, to expand, to take in new air.
And then oftentimes these people, the last words they hear are, if you can say you can't breathe, then you can breathe.
And then they die.
Well, we heard that we heard that in this case.
Yes.
There've been similar cases where people died while being restrained in a prone position on their stomachs, not with a knee on their neck.
And there was a case in Dallas, in fact, where somewhat similar circumstances where this guy called the cops to come and help him.
Yes.
He was having a panic attack.
He was taking psychiatric medication.
He said he hadn't taken it that day.
He also apparently had taken cocaine, which the police knew.
And this guy was basically freaking out.
He wasn't threatening anybody or hurting anybody.
And so in an attempt to help him, they ended up killing him because they, uh, pinned him to the ground face down.
He was clearly, if you look at the video, he clearly was having, uh, trouble breathing.
He was kept turning his head to the side, uh, which is similar to what you see Floyd doing.
Um, and yeah, so it wasn't that's in that case.
There was no need to his neck.
Um, you can still, uh, make it hard for somebody to breathe even if you don't have your knee on the neck.
Um, uh, so yeah, that's the operative point here is it's not crucial to show that.
I mean the, what the prosecution says is that Chauvin had his knee on Floyd's neck for more than nine minutes, did not move from that position despite, uh, what the bystanders were saying that he was, his life was in danger despite what Floyd was saying that he couldn't breathe despite, uh, one of his colleagues, uh, uh, Thomas Lane repeatedly said we, that they should roll him onto his side repeatedly.
He said that.
Yes.
Twice, uh, according to the prosecutors, uh, so, um, and even after he was not responsive, you know, they say he was still resisting and this is, this came up in the Dallas case too.
The police call resisting may just be somebody panicking, um, because they're afraid they're going to be suffocated, right?
And so they're going to struggle in order to avoid suffocation.
And the police may interpret that as resistance.
And that's certainly, that's what it looks like in the video of Floyd's arrest.
Um, and in any case, at a certain point he was no longer responsive.
So he wasn't, wasn't even complaining anymore.
Uh, he wasn't moving, wasn't complaining.
Um, and they, and, and Chauvin still kept in that position.
He was still pinned to the ground.
Uh, even after they, his, uh, he was told there was no pulse.
He was still, even after the ambulance arrived, uh, he was still Jacob.
So here's my concern though, is, you know, not that it's deliberate or whatever, but it sounds like possibly the prosecutor is setting this up too narrowly where if the defense can make a juror believe that, look, he really was more on his shoulder than his neck, that that might work because they're not saying one way or the other, he suffocated him.
He should have backed off at some point after crying for his mom, the guy obviously, you know, stopped moving at all.
Uh, this kind of thing, but just on that narrow point of where exactly was his knee.
And if the prosecution is saying, look, whether he suffocated him by holding his chest cavity from expanding or by blocking his throat, it's kind of hard to say, but either way, it seems like that would be a more compelling argument.
And I'm, I guess I'm worried that there, it sounds like maybe they're defining it too narrowly where the defense could create some doubt just on exactly the position of the knee, whether one or two degrees to the left or the right.
Right.
Yes.
I don't think that that it should be focused that narrowly because the crucial question is, is, uh, would, would he have still been alive had they not treated him this way?
But how is the, I mean, is the prosecution, are my fears misplaced or not in terms of the way the prosecution is framing it?
It may be.
I mean, I, they haven't presented specific medical testimony on that at that point yet.
But in the opening statement, yes.
One of the prosecutors in the opening statement said he, he was, uh, said there were, you could see involuntary movements that was, uh, that were indicative of, uh, an anoxic seizure.
And he said that, um, something like this, the very life was squeezed out of him.
Now, of course, the very life was squeezed out of him.
That's consistent with simply being pinned to the ground in that position.
And you don't necessarily have to have a knee on the neck.
So I'm not sure that they're going to, uh, insist that that, that, that that's the crucial point.
Um, they certainly shouldn't.
Um, and I mean, the, the autopsy report said, described the cause of death as cardiopulmonary arrest, complicating law enforcement, subdual restraint, and neck compression.
So that did mention neck compression, um, did not find that he was asphyxiated specifically, but, um, the basic thrust of this, and even based on the description, the defense's arguing of the cause of death is the basic thrust is that this use of force was crucial in causing his death, that if it hadn't happened, he would still have been alive.
That's the crucial point.
And so, yeah, I don't think you have to show exactly how long the knee was, where, where exactly the knee was or how long it was on his neck.
They say more than nine minutes.
Um, the, the crucial point is that he was kept in this position, pinned to the ground, uh, for an unreasonable length of time.
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All right.
Now, uh, you write in your piece at reason here from, I'm not sure if you have an update or not, I'm sorry, I have this one from yesterday or the day before, I guess, I think yesterday.
Um, where they're saying, well, look, all the protesters screaming that, Hey, you're killing the guy.
Well, that distracted them.
And then if only they had been left in peace, then they wouldn't have killed the guy, but they were so busy worried that I guess the angry people on the sidewalk were about to kill them or something that they had to protect themselves and, and, uh, divide their attention from what they were doing.
Yes.
I mean, it is a puzzling argument actually.
Um, because they, on the one hand, the defense is saying Chauvin did everything by the book.
He did everything the way he was trained to do it.
Couldn't have done things better.
But then they also were saying, but y'all, you know, he was distracted.
Well, why is that?
It's not relevant that he was distracted unless he's screwed up in some way.
Right.
I mean, the fact that he was distracted doesn't, uh, doesn't get you anywhere unless you're using it as an excuse for something he either did or failed to do.
Now, what it looks, it looks like the defense is saying that they, that they would have rendered aid because they referred to the, they were distracted from the, the, the care, let's say the police were just, he's, were distracted from the care of, of Floyd was suggests that maybe they would have rendered aid had they not been distracted by the angry bystanders.
Um, but it doesn't, I mean, if you actually listen to what the angry bystanders were saying, right.
Uh, that that's certainly should have called their attention to the fact that this guy's life is in danger, that he didn't need to be restrained in that position any longer, that he was not resisting, um, that he was having trouble breathing and so on.
Right.
So, so I mean, the protest, the people, in other words, the bystanders are pleading with the police.
He's dying.
He's dying.
Please.
They're saying, they're saying, uh, you're, you're, uh, going to suffocate him, you're cutting up, you're making it hard for him to breathe.
You should check for a pole.
There was a, there was a, uh, a firefighter there.
It was also a paramedic who was one of the bystanders.
And, and she was saying, you should check for a pulse.
You gotta check for a pulse.
Um, uh, I think she even offered to examine him.
They, of course, they wouldn't let her anywhere near him.
Um, so the, so this alleged distraction was actually calling their attention to the danger of what they were doing.
So it's a really, it's a strange kind of argument in my view.
Um, I don't think it really helps his case.
All right.
Now here's the thing though.
If a regular human being does this to somebody, it's an entirely different set of laws and standards that apply.
In this case, this cop only needs to say that it was reasonable.
As you said, uh, his defense is already saying, look, he was trained to put his knee on people's necks.
How is he supposed to know that you're not supposed to do that?
He was trained that way.
And so it's somebody else's fault if it's anybody's fault.
And so, um, and the threshold for what's reasonable is what's reasonable to a cop, not what's reasonable to a regular person.
And the cops all agree that they were trained to do that.
So what's the problem?
Right.
Well, of course, I mean, the crucial difference is that, uh, an ordinary person doesn't have the right to just grab somebody and handcuff them.
And, and, and that's kidnapping, you know, the crucial point is that the police have the authority to do that because they were arresting him for this, for this misdemeanor, the passing the, the, the fake, uh, $20 bill, um, once they well, that's, that's one distinction, but also they can say, for example, if they shoot someone, well, I felt fear and it was reasonable that I felt fear.
But if you shoot somebody, you got to do a lot better than that.
You have to have had absolutely no choice.
Well, the standard is supposed to be the same for that, for that, for the use, for use of deadly force in self-defense, you, you, it's not enough for either a cop or anybody else to show that they were afraid they have to show that the fear was reasonable in the circumstances.
Um, but in, in the case of, so they're taking him into custody and, and, and by the way, he was, he was called, he was intermittently calm and he was calm up until the point they were trying to put him in the car at which point he seems to be having a panic attack.
He says he's claustrophobic.
Uh, he's, he can't breathe.
Um, could he, can he ride in the front?
Right.
And so he's resisting the cops as, as they do that.
Um, once he gets out of the car, it's not clear whether he actually like pushed himself out of the car or the cops pulled him out of the car, but he ends up and he actually says, let me, something like, let me lie on the ground or I'm going to, I'll lie on the ground.
Meaning let me just calm down.
Um, he didn't probably did not have in mind lying in the ground and the way he ended up.
But, uh, the question is, yes, he resisted them, uh, while they were trying to put him in the car, but then once he was out of the car, could he have just sat there in handcuffs and calm down?
Right.
I mean, we don't know because they didn't even try that.
Um, and, uh, so the question is, is, uh, the, the test for the use of force is whether it's reasonable at each particular point where they continue to use it.
Right.
So is he posing such a threat to them that this use of force is necessary?
Um, and even if they, he initially resisted for sure, when he was getting into the police car, they say he was resisting, although it's not visible in the video that he was resisting even after he was pinned to the ground.
But once that, uh, he was not resisting anymore, there was no justification for that use of force.
Um, and so that's, that's basically the argument is that what, what threat did he pose while they were doing that to him that justified that use of force?
Yeah.
And after he's already cuffed and they got, it's just three cops or four cops holding them down.
It was three cops holding down.
The fourth cop was on a crowd, crowd control.
And it's, uh, yeah, he's the one who said, this is why you don't do drugs, kids, um, and kept just parroting what.
The other cops were saying, which is if, as long as you can talk, it means you're breathing fine.
There's no need to worry.
Um, and, uh, you know, that did not need us to say that that did not satisfy the bystanders.
So they would do this.
They, they thought, um, that it was obviously, uh, you know, excessive use of force and that, that the cop who was, who was talking to them should have intervened.
And in fact, he's charged with aiding and abetting along with the two other, uh, uh, cops who were assisting Chauvin.
Um, and you know, so we'll see if that, if that, but his failure to intervene, you know, can be enough to convict him of that charge, but for sure it was a moral failure.
If you watch the video of, uh, his, uh, the way he reacted to the bystanders, not, not taking their concerns seriously at all.
Um, and you know, so that, that goes to the whole, that whole argument about the angry bystanders and how they were a distraction.
Yeah.
Well, and it goes to show about how they think about the citizens that we're all, all the people on the sidewalk are, you know, like a bunch of Iraqi enemy combatants or something.
They're not the people that they're sworn to protect along with Mr.
Floyd, who they're killing.
But they have these people to be lectured and disregarded.
And as you said, when he addresses them, it's this patronizing crap about drug use and all this.
Yes.
And I, and if you watch, uh, that, that video and you'll see they're not violent, they're not threatening.
They are pleading that's earned.
And they are, and you know, one of them who, who testified the other day, uh, call, uh, he calls, uh, Chauvin and, and also it was a tat tau, the, uh, the officer who was, uh, who was on crowd control, um, a bum, right.
Uh, your bum, um, and, and, and various other names to actually, uh, you know, you might've thought harsher, harsher names were appropriate, but, but yeah, so he does, he calls them names.
He says, you're failing, you're not doing what you're supposed to do.
You're violating, you know, your duty.
Um, that's the kind that those are the kinds of things they were saying.
So it wasn't like it was an incipient riot, you know, and that the people were about to, you know, attack the police.
They, if anything, they were trying to help Floyd.
Um, uh, but I, you know, what, what looks to most people like valid criticism is often perceived by police as, as a threat, of course.
All right.
Now on the question of drugs, I guess I had seen reports saying, oh, he had a massive amount of these drugs in his system.
Everybody knows I get right wingers on Twitter.
Sometimes everybody knows he died of a drug overdose, you big dummy.
But you say, no, actually the testimony here is that it was a very low percent.
I don't know how they measure that in quantity in blood.
Yeah.
I don't have the numbers right here in front of me, but I did write about it at the time.
The autopsy report shows the blood levels.
And like I said, they're not that high.
I mean, look at, if you look at studies where they measured, uh, fentanyl blood levels in people who, who died after taking fentanyl, um, they tend to be much higher.
Uh, this was on the low end.
It's not that there has never been a death, uh, where the blood level was that low, but it's on the low end of the range.
And I think the prosecution is trying to establish that he had developed tolerance, uh, to, to fentanyl because he was using it on a regular basis, uh, which would make it even less likely that, that he could have died, uh, from that amount.
Now, isn't there a thing about, um, I don't know all the legal stuff, but something about like you take them as they come kind of thing.
So that if some guy has a brain injury and you don't know that and you punch him and it kills him, that's still murder.
And because it is what it is.
So even if this guy's on drugs and that means it's easier to suffocate him.
So you still suffocate him.
It's not really a mitigating circumstance under the law, right?
In fact, I mean, I would argue to the contrary.
I mean, I just wrote a piece about this yesterday that, um, with, you know, when Chauvin is defending his actions to, uh, one of the bystanders after Floyd has been taken away.
Um, he says he's a big guy.
He seemed to be on drugs and we had a, you know, we had to subdue him.
Um, so he, he clearly thought Floyd was acting this way.
He was, you know, this panicky kind of way because he was on drugs.
Uh, I mentioned the other, other officer had the same impression.
Um, a third officer, the one who said he should be rolled onto his side, uh, talked about excited delirium, right?
Uh, the dangers of, he was referring to holding, you know, keeping somebody on his stomach, you know, pinned to the ground when he is, is, is experiencing excited delirium.
Um, so the fact that Chauvin believed Floyd was under the influence of drugs actually makes his decisions even more questionable because he shouldn't, that the position he was holding in was especially dangerous for somebody who had taken drugs, um, and, uh, he should have done that.
Um, and, um, with other, with the other, you know, possible contributing factors like his underlying disease or whatever, again, it comes down to, would he just have died of that?
You know, would he, the police had never tried to arrest him.
Would he be dead?
I mean, that's basically the question.
And, and, uh, you know, or was there use of force, the, the, the but for cause of his death.
Um, so, um, uh, you can only get so far by arguing that there were other contributing factors.
So tell me this real quick.
Is there anything that I'm missing in terms of, uh, the defense side or say like conservative media saying that, you know, cause I saw where Andrew McCarthy was saying, see, he was resisting arrest and this kind of thing.
I mean, is there much to what they're saying that we haven't really touched on here so far?
Um, well, he was, I think he was resisting arrest certainly when they were putting him in the car.
Right.
Um, the, uh, there is a question they, the defense is claiming he was still resisting, even he was pinned, even when he was pinned to the ground.
I don't see that.
Um, uh, you know, I, I, I would like to see what other, what additional evidence they have of that.
If it is only that he was moving his head and one of his shoulders in an effort to breathe and, and repeatedly saying he couldn't breathe and begging them to stop, if that's what they, what counts as resisting, um, you know, they might even, it might even count what the prosecution describes as involuntary movements brought on by lack of oxygen.
As if that is, uh, perceived as an attempt to, you know, as a kind of resistance or an attempt to assault them or something, you know, I wouldn't be surprised if they did that.
And then in which case you would say the cops would be, uh, the defense would be saying he's, he was resisting, look at the way he's moving.
And the prosecution is saying that's an involuntary movement caused by an anoxic seizure.
Um, right.
So these things can be interpreted, interpreted very differently, but I, I don't see in the, in the video him, uh, offering opposing a violent threat at the point where he's been to the ground.
Yeah.
And by the way, has anybody mentioned yet that these two men knew each other from being guards at the strip club or whatever it was?
I don't know if that came up in the trial yet.
Um, but, and I don't, as far as I can tell, that's not relevant.
I mean, it doesn't look like there was any bad blood or grudge between them or anything like that.
Uh, but, but we'll see if that, if that, if either side thinks it's relevant, uh, it may come up.
Um, well, apparently they weren't friends.
I, you know, the, the cop could have said, Hey buddy, it's me.
Your old friend from the strip club.
Let's figure out how to deescalate this crisis here.
But that was apparently not one of the relevant options.
Yes.
I mean, look, so you said deescalation, that was really the issue.
The guy's freaking out when they're trying to put him in a police car.
How do you respond to that?
And if, if he was prepared to be calm, once he was out of the car, could they have just let him sit there in handcuffs for a while while he calmed down?
Um, right.
That was an option that they didn't explore.
Um, and, and then even assuming they needed to pin him, which is not clear to me that they did, uh, at a certain point, they should have reconsidered that, um, uh, instead of continuing to hold them in that position for more than nine minutes.
That's certainly when he's in there begging for his mother.
He's clearly dying.
You know, come on.
Uh, anybody can watch that video.
It's, it's online all over the place.
Uh, right.
And, and the, the, you know, I mean, the, the way the police respond is very dismissive, right?
That this is just, he's just exaggerating.
He's just, you know, being melodramatic, that sort of thing.
Whereas the bystanders saw it very differently.
Um, you know, I guess I, I should say, I mean, some, I've seen some people on Twitter saying, uh, there's no way he's guilty of, of first degree murder, which of course he's not charged with first degree murder, um, he's charged with, with, uh, two different kinds of murder and one kind of manslaughter.
And the elements are somewhat different.
Um, the, the, uh, second degree murder charge, which is the most serious one says that he assaulted that, uh, Chavannes assaulted Floyd.
Um, and in while committing that felony unintentionally killed him, right.
So it's a kind of felony murder charge.
There's unintentional murder, but, but it happened as a result of this other crime that he committed in this case, an assault.
So that's one of them.
Another one is a third degree murder, which said, it would says that, that what Chavannes did, uh, he committed an act that was eminently dangerous to other people.
And it reflects a depraved mind without regard for human life.
Um, and that was the charge on which the police officer who shot that woman in the chest after she called nine one, one, another, another Minneapolis police officer, uh, that he was convicted of that charge.
Um, so that's, that's a possibility.
And, and, but in fact, even though they're, they're rated differently, those two charges have the same presumptive of sentence.
So it really would not have much of a practical difference, which, which of those two, uh, the jury chose.
Uh, the third possibility is, uh, the second degree manslaughter, which says that he, he caused, uh, Floyd's death by culpable negligence that created an unreasonable risk.
And that he consciously took the chance, uh, that he would cause great bodily harm.
Right?
So again, it's not like he intentionally killed him, but there, there was a risk that he was, he recklessly took this, this chance that he would cause a great bodily harm that to me, it seems like an easy fit, uh, to the actual, to the details of the case while there may be questions about the other ones.
Um, and, but that charge has a substantially low, uh, shorter presumptive sentence.
Um, so, uh, I mean, I don't know if I were on the jury, I might be inclined toward that charge to tell you the truth because it's the one that most clearly seems to fit.
Um, but then the resulting sentence may not, uh, people may not be happy with it.
Yeah.
Well, if he's convicted at all, it'd be a miracle, but, um, I guess, uh, uh, you know, I bet if anybody knows off, off hand, uh, it would be you, um, what's the percentages on cops convicted of taking somebody's life under one charge or another?
Oh, I don't know.
I haven't had the actual percentage, but it's basically almost, almost never.
I mean, they're almost never charged.
And then when they are charged, uh, they're usually not convicted.
And then, I mean, obviously there's a lot of cases where somebody's shooting at them and they shoot back, but, uh, I just saw this thing.
I really should get these people on the show.
They did this, uh, study where they show that, uh, the vast majority of people killed by cops were just going about their day before they got engaged with the cops, pulled over for a traffic citation or some kind of thing.
In other words, they were not in the middle of a violent felony at the time that the cops showed up robbing a store, killing somebody or whatever.
Uh, that may be, that may be true.
I haven't seen that.
Um, but, but, you know, in this case, my footnote, when I bring up things like that, but yeah, it just came up.
Well, look, in this case, uh, I mean, Floyd did, he did, you know, apparently commit a crime.
Uh, there was a real victim in it, but it was a very petty crime.
I mean, I mean, how much does a pack of cigarettes cost?
Whatever, you know?
Oh, I guess he got changed for the 20.
Right.
So, so at, at most, this is a, this is a $20 crime.
Um, you know, a misdemeanor non-violent.
Um, and I think that should matter, right?
I mean, people want to want to paint him as some kind of, uh, dangerous criminal.
Um, but this is really a petty crime and police should be taking that into account when they're deciding how much, how much of a danger is this guy?
How much, um, is it worth it?
You know?
Yeah.
Well, it's really ironic too.
It's really ironic too, that last May, you know how much money they were creating on May 25th, the same day he expanded the money supply by $20.
Without license, you know?
Yeah.
Well, um, does it happen to be a period of quantitative easing?
You know, I don't know.
I suppose you could, you could see it that way.
Um, uh, so yeah, I, I don't.
And the whole thing about, you know, uh, the, the drug use cuts, uh, I guess mostly in the defense's favor, people would see it that way, but, uh, it doesn't make him a bad guy, you know?
I mean, I know people tend to think that, but the fact that he used these drugs doesn't make him a bad person or a dangerous person.
Um, I mean, this often comes up in these cases where someone's killed by the police, usually a black guy is killed by police.
And we'll say, well, he was, he was on drugs or he was a drug user as if that makes the police use of force.
Okay.
And it really doesn't.
I mean, it is.
Well, it could be part of an important story.
Like the guy had smoked a bunch of PCP and he beat up six cops before we got there or something, but wait, he took some opiate pills.
I mean, it doesn't sound like that would make him anything, but happier and more mellow and less aggressive, if anything.
Yeah.
And look, if you watch the struggle in the car, it's not like he's trying to hurt these officers.
Yeah.
He's not attacking, attacking, he's panicking and he doesn't want to be put in the car.
Right.
And there's the questions, how do you deal with that?
Right.
It's a, you know, it's a legitimate arrest.
The guy doesn't want to get in the car.
Is there some way short of what they did to deal with that?
And I think there are, there are alternatives and we're going to probably going to hear more about that.
Uh, probably next week is today is a short day for the trial.
Um, but already we had one of the sergeants, a former sergeant from.
The Minneapolis police department testify yesterday that they should have stopped restraining him that way once he was no longer resisting.
And it's, you know, very clear at the point where he's not, not responsive and not saying anything anymore that he's not resisting at that point, at least.
Um, and he said they, he explicitly said they should not have, uh, continued to restrain him.
How many more minutes was it at that point after he went limp?
Um, I believe they were saying something like four and a half minutes, the prosecution, half the time then out of nine, right?
Yeah.
Nearly, nearly, nearly half the time.
Um, uh, and you know, so, uh, uh, I mean, they're gonna, they're gonna have a dispute as to whether there was continued resistance on the ground, but then there's also the dispute about when any movement at all stopped, right?
So, I mean, at that point, they're clear if there's no movement at all, you can't, there is no resistance very clearly, even before, even when there is movement, one can, you can argue about, was that resistance or is that just him trying not to suffocate, you know?
Um, so I think we'll, we'll hear more about that.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, listen, uh, if it's all right with you, I'd love to have you back on, uh, maybe next week or the week after to get a wrap on this, but I really appreciate your great journalism on this story.
Well, thank you.
All right, you guys, that is Jacob Sullum at Reason Magazine, senior editor over there, and I'm sorry, I have, the one I have is, uh, Derek Chauvin, uh, Chauvin argues that his use of force was appropriate and Dilma did not kill George Floyd.
Was there another one after that yet?
Yeah.
Yesterday I wrote about, uh, uh, Chauvin, Chauvin's belief that Floyd was, uh, intoxicated at the time and whether that actually helps his case.
I see.
Oh, I see that was, uh, yeah.
Uh, Derek Chauvin's belief that George Floyd was intoxicated does not help his case.
If drugs played a role in Floyd's death, the prone restraint only compounded that danger.
Right.
And that was, we talked about that.
So, okay, great.
Well, listen, thank you so much again, Jacob.
Really appreciate it.
Sure.
Take care.
The Scott Horton show and anti-war radio can be heard on KPFK 90.7 FM in LA.
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