CIVIL RIGHTS
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Why This Trial Was Different: Experts React to Guilty Verdict for Derek Chauvin BY ALEXIS KARTERON, JEANNINE BELL RASHAD SHABAZZ & RIC SIMMONS THE CONVERSATION
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cholars analyze the guilty verdicts handed down to former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin in the 2020 murder of George Floyd. Outside the courthouse, crowds cheered and church bells sounded — a collective release in a city scarred by police killings. Minnesota’s attorney general, whose office led the prosecution, said he would not call the verdict “justice, however” because “justice implies restoration” —but he would call it “accountability.” Race was not an issue in trial Alexis Karteron, Rutgers University — Newark Derek Chauvin’s criminal trial is over, but the work to ensure that no one endures a tragic death like George Floyd’s is just getting started. It is fair to say that race was on the minds of millions of protesters who took to the streets last year to express their outrage and pain in response to the
killing. Many felt it was impossible for someone who wasn’t Black to imagine Chauvin’s brutal treatment of George Floyd. But race went practically unmentioned during the Chauvin trial. This should not be surprising, because the criminal legal system writes race out at virtually every turn. When I led a lawsuit as a civil rights attorney challenging the New York Police Department’s stopand-frisk program as racist, the department’s primary defense was that it complied with Fourth Amendment standards, under which police officers need only “reasonable suspicion” of criminal activity to stop someone. Presence in what police say is a “high-crime area” is relevant to developing reasonable suspicion, as is a would-be subject taking flight when being approached by a police officer. But the correlation with race, for a host of reasons, is obvious to any keen observer. American policing’s most pressing problems are racial ones. For some, the evolution of slave patrols into police forces and the failure of decadeslong reform efforts are proof that American
Editorial credit: CHOONGKY / Shutterstock.com
policing is irredeemable and must be defunded. For others, changes to use-offorce policies and improved accountability measures, like those in the proposed George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, are enough. Different communities across the country will follow different paths in their efforts to prevent another tragic death like George Floyd’s. Some will do nothing at all. But progress will be made only when America as a whole gets real about the role of race – something the legal system routinely fails to do. Why this trial was different Ric Simmons, The Ohio State University
The guilty verdicts in the Chauvin trial are extraordinary, if unsurprising, because past incidents of police lethal use of force against unarmed civilians, particularly Black civilians, have generally not resulted in criminal convictions. In many cases, the prosecuting office has been reluctant or halfhearted in pursuing the case. Prosecutors and police officers work together daily; that can make prosecutors sympathetic to the work of law enforcement. In the Chauvin case, the attorney general’s office invested an overwhelming amount of resources in preparing for and conducting the trial, continued on page 5
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