George Floyd verdict: Supporters of Derek Chauvin refuse to believe jury considered the evidence

While many Americans were celebrating Derek Chauvin’s murder conviction this week, others were convinced he didn’t get a fair trial.

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“You can believe your eyes,” prosecutors told the jury in the trial of former police officer Derek Chauvin, who was found guilty of murdering George Floyd this week.

“Use your common sense.”

A simple message, for a simple case.

The murder was recorded on video in its entirety: the moment Chauvin first dug his knee into Mr Floyd’s neck; the 27 times Mr Floyd said he couldn’t breathe; the minutes Chauvin stayed on top of him after he had stopped moving. Even after being told he had no pulse.

Chauvin’s colleagues at the Minneapolis Police Department, including the chief of police, testified that his actions had violated their policies and could not be justified.

“To continue to apply that level of force to a person proned out, handcuffed behind their back – that is in no way, shape or form part of our policy, it’s not part of our training, and it is certainly not part of our ethics or our values,” Chief Medaria Arradondo said.

So, the jurors ultimately believed their eyes, and their ears, and their common sense, and convicted Chauvin on all three counts. Justice was served.

At least, that’s one interpretation of what happened.

While Mr Floyd’s family members were expressing their relief, the crowds in Minneapolis were celebrating, and President Joe Biden was hailing the verdict as a “step forward” in his country’s struggle against systemic racism, other Americans were raging.

As far as they were concerned, the jurors had only convicted Chauvin because of pressure from Democratic politicians, or because they were scared of the violence an acquittal might unleash on America’s streets. The evidence had nothing to do with it.

Welcome to the United States in 2021, where people are divided not just by culture or politics, but by the version of reality they choose to inhabit.

RELATED: ‘The only reason’ Chauvin was convicted

Former police officer Derek Chauvin, pictured after his murder conviction. Picture: Minnesota Department of Corrections

I’ll give you a few examples to demonstrate what I mean, but first you need a bit of context.

On the Saturday before the verdict, Democratic Congresswoman Maxine Waters spoke about the trial in Minneapolis, and said protesters should get more “confrontational”.

“We’ve got to get justice in this country, and we cannot allow these killings to continue,” Ms Waters said.

“We’ve got to stay on the street and we’ve got to get more active, we’ve got to get more confrontational. We’ve got to make sure that they know that we mean business.

“I hope we’re going to get a verdict that will say guilty, guilty, guilty. And if we don’t, we cannot go away.”

This was widely seen as incendiary, and Judge Peter Cahill expressed his frustration in court, saying he wished politicians would “stop talking” about the case.

Then on Tuesday, just a few hours before the verdict, as the jury was deliberating, Mr Biden weighed in as well.

“I’m praying the verdict is the right verdict,” he told reporters in the Oval Office, clearly implying the “right” verdict would be a guilty one.

“I think it’s overwhelming, in my view. I wouldn’t say that unless the jury was sequestered now. You would not hear me say that.”

Let’s get the obvious point out of the way here: the remarks from both of these politicians were completely inappropriate. We can all agree that no public official should express an opinion like this, particularly on such a high profile case, until the trial is over.

If Donald Trump had done it – come to think of it, Mr Trump actually did do it multiple times throughout his presidency – he would have been rightly condemned.

That said, Mr Biden did wait until after the jury was sequestered, so we know his comments could not have influenced the verdict. And Judge Cahill had instructed jurors not to follow the news, so unless they were defying his orders, they would not have seen Ms Waters’ remarks either.

The law assumes jurors are following the court’s instructions unless there is evidence otherwise. We have no such evidence here.

President Joe Biden. Picture: Brendan Smialowski/AFP

OK. Now we can get into some right-wing reaction to the verdict, much of which focused on Ms Waters and Mr Biden.

“What we are really seeing is mob justice, and that is really what happened with this entire trial,” said author and political commentator Candace Owens.

“This was not a fair trial. No person can say this was a fair trial.

“This was a trial about whether the media was powerful enough to create a simulation and decide upon a narrative absent any facts.

“They can create a narrative and they can treat people like pawns, and get them to basically say, ‘If we don’t get what we want, we will riot. If we lose, we will send these people like soldiers to destroy your neighbourhoods.’ And that is exactly what has happened.

“I feel like we are living in fiction right now in America. We are living in fiction because people are not strong enough to call out this stuff. And I feel like I am one of the only ones who has the courage to say I will not be moved into a different reality.”

Next up we have Rob Schmitt, a host on the network Newsmax.

‘They say justice is blind. I don’t think it was blind in this case at all,” Schmitt said.

“I think you have political pressure, I think you have pressure from all these activist groups going into all this. And I think at the end of the day people say, ‘You know what? If we acquit this guy, this city is going to burn to the ground.’

“So you had a jury that said, ‘You know what? We’re going to have to sacrifice this guy to the mob.’ And that’s exactly what I think happened today.”

“The mob, led by Democrats at the highest level, successfully intimidated the jury into getting the result they wanted before the trial started,” said conservative writer Matt Walsh.

“Black Lives Matter has now proven itself to be the most powerful domestic terrorist organisation in the country. After Maxine Waters’ threats, could there have been any other verdict?” wondered Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, of QAnon-supporting fame.

“Joe Biden decides that Maxine Waters shouldn’t be the only politician foolishly providing grounds for a mistrial or a possible basis on appeal to challenge any guilty conviction,” said Senator Ted Cruz, who ran for president in 2016.

“Everyone understood perfectly well the consequences of an acquittal in this case. After nearly a year of burning, looting and murder by Black Lives Matter, that was never in doubt.”

Incidentally, Mr Cruz is a lawyer by trade. He has argued before the Supreme Court nine times. He knows full well that Mr Biden’s comments will not lead to the conviction being overturned on appeal.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who is spoken of as a potential Republican presidential contender in 2024, was a teensy bit more circumspect.

“I don’t know what happened with this verdict, but if that’s something that can potentially happen, where you basically have justice meted out because the jury is scared of what a mob may do ... that’s completely antithetical to the rule of law,” Mr DeSantis said.

He stressed that he was “not saying that’s what happened here” necessarily, which is just as well, given he himself condemned the video of “that cop murdering George Floyd” last year.

Here’s a couple of conservative radio hosts to round things out.

Serious question:

Is it a fair trail if the jury is in fear for their lives if they come back with anything less then guilty on all charges?

— Ben Ferguson (@benfergusonshow) April 20, 2021

Black Lives Matter: If you don't find this man guilty we will burn down your cities and hunt down your families.

Jury: Guilty on all Counts #GeorgeFloyd

— toddstarnes (@toddstarnes) April 20, 2021

You get the picture.

First, we should note that all of these quotes are astonishingly disrespectful to the jury. They all rely on an assumption, supported by nothing whatsoever, that all 12 jurors violated their oaths to consider the evidence and based their decision on fear.

More broadly, the reaction from leading conservatives is further proof, as though we needed it, that elements of the American right are disconnected from reality. Or to quote the far more eloquent conservative writer David French, they are “addicted to their own narrative, a narrative contrary to the facts”.

The facts in the Chauvin case were clear, and they supported a guilty verdict.

Police responded to a report that Mr Floyd had paid for cigarettes with a counterfeit $20 note. A nonviolent crime.

As soon as they encountered him, sitting idly in a vehicle, an officer drew his gun and shouted at Mr Floyd to show his hands, using several expletives and immediately escalating the situation.

Mr Floyd initially complied with instructions, but resisted attempts to get him into the back of a squad car, claiming he was claustrophobic. He ended up on the ground.

At that point, Chauvin pinned him down, applying force to Mr Floyd’s neck which violated police guidelines and ultimately resulted in his death via asphyxiation.

Much of the defence’s argument focused on the fact that Mr Floyd had drugs in his system, suggesting that – combined with a pre-existing heart condition – was the true cause of death. The medical evidence did not support this.

The defence also argued that Chauvin’s use of force was reasonable due to a few factors: Mr Floyd’s size, him being under the influence of drugs, and the risk that he could start fighting at any moment.

By this logic, it’s OK to apply potentially lethal force to a man based on the fear that he might pose a threat in the future, even if he isn’t at the moment. It’s absurd on its face.

The most serious charge against Chauvin, second degree unintentional murder, required the state to prove that he committed a felony – in this case, assault – and that the assault was a substantial factor in Mr Floyd’s death.

Prosecutors did not need to prove that Chauvin intended to kill Mr Floyd.

Ultimately, their argument was an appeal to basic common sense: if Chauvin had not done what he did, Mr Floyd would not have died.

Meanwhile, the defence asked the jury to believe something preposterous: that Chauvin’s actions had nothing at all to do with Mr Floyd’s death.

He just happened to die from a drug overdose, or from inhaling carbon monoxide from the car’s tailpipe, or from a long term heart condition – take your pick – at the exact moment Chauvin was holding him down. It was all just a horrible coincidence.

You can certainly disagree with the verdict. But anyone who sat through the entire trial and concluded the jury could only have found Chauvin guilty if they succumbed to pressure from the “mob” was simply not paying attention.

The moment police first encountered George Floyd.

In the end, we’re left with nine minutes and 29 seconds of video footage showing a police officer killing someone for no reason, in broad daylight, in front of a crowd of witnesses.

Imagine watching that footage and being outraged, not by the needless death of a human being, but by the idea that the person responsible might be punished.

That’s the world many Americans live in. One guilty verdict won’t change it.

Sam is news.com.au’s US correspondent.