“So Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.” The Biggest New Sheriff In The Wake Of The Chauvin Verdict.

I wrote previously about all of the possible changes to upcoming investigations and trials concerning police officers, especially white police officers, involved in the killing of unarmed black men and women. But there is one almost veratrin change out there that I found that I thought was significant enough to earn its own discussion.

And that change has to do with what may quite possibly be the strongest, most fundamental aspect of protection for rogue police officers. And that is their defense.

Since at least as far back as what may well have been the first video taped police atrocity, Rodney King, when called to task for their abuses, the defense had almost always been that of the almost superhuman black man, drugged up on crack, or heroin, or PCP, almost totally uncontrollable, requiring only the strongest methods of containment. And in almost every case, it has worked like a charm. Because in a land of majority white voters, it fit their preconceived prejudices.

Since the first day of the trial, I have harbored a deep disgust for Derek Chauvin’s lawyer, Eric Nelson. Not because he was defending Chauvin, but because to me that he was a lazy, unprepared lawyer who felt that he had the ace-on-the-hole already in his pocket. Namely, the scary, superhuman, toked up black man defense.

For balance and perspective, here’s an example. In 64 years, I have done my share of juries, including being foreman on two civil cases. And as s result, I have a little personal insight into the behavior of juries.

We watch shit. Hell, it’s our hob. There’s a reason why the defense table is placed closest to the jury box. When the testimony is going on we watch the witness,  the counsels, and the defendant. We like to see everybody’s reaction as to what’s going on with the testimony at the moment.

Never have I seen a more piss poor prepared defense attorney than Eric Nelson. Normally, when the plaintiff or prosecutor has a witness on the stand, the defense attorney sits there at the table, a legal pad and pencil in front of him, and takes notes from the testimony to use in his cross examination.

Nelson couldn’t be bothered with any of that shit. When prosecution witnesses were testifying, he had a stack of folders in front of him. And he sat there, flipping pages and making notes before flipping them again. Mostly, what Nelson looked like was that he was signing off on his expense reports and billable hours for the secretary so he got paid on time. I cannot even begin to tell you how terrible this kind of inattention to the proceedings looks to a juror. But Nelson felt protected.

Because Nelson was following the standard cop defense playbook. George Floyd was a big, and I mean big black man, somewhere around 6’8″ and 240 pounds. And there were drugs in his system! He could spiral out of control at any moment! Not only that, but he was a smoker, with clogged arteries, and an enlarged heart from hypertension. God! Talk about a witches stew just waiting to strike him down! It’s a wonder the cops even touched him before he collapsed at their feet!

But this time it didn’t work. You had a team of dedicated prosecutors who followed the evidence, presented it, and made a mockery of Nelson’s lame ass attempts at cross examination, mostly because Nelson was paying no attention to the direct testimony. And in less that 12 hours of deliberation,  a jury came back and told Nelson to Get that lame shit outta here!

But this is the critical thing. That should have worked. Because it was the standard cop defense mantra of almost the last half a century. And this time the jurors rejected it in an almost insultingly short amount of time. And that opens up another totally different can of worms.

Which is a total disaster for criminal defense law firms all over the country. Because it means that they’re going to have to come up with a new strategy. Because the good old tried and true didn’t work. The advent of video cell phone evidence, social justice activism, and just plain police abuses are going to be more difficult to defend.

That may well end up being the biggest “New Sheriff” that came to town with the George Floyd guilty verdict. Because, as more readily available and conclusive evidence against bad cops becomes available, and social justice forces continue to push in the streets every day for justice, it becomes harder for these defense attorneys to defend what everybody can see with their own eyes. I’m going to be interested to see what happens with Chauvin’s three fellow officers awaiting trial in August once he is sentenced in June. This should be interesting.

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