The Washington Post :
The case against Derek Chauvin looked formidable. Video footage captured him with his knee pressed against George Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes.
Former Minneapolis police colleagues testified against Chauvin. Medical experts convincingly tied Floyd’s death to Chauvin’s use of force.
But, legal experts said, Chauvin had one big factor in his favour: He was a police officer. And that meant prosecutors faced long odds.
In the end, they overcame those odds. Chauvin was found guilty on all counts Tuesday, becoming the rare police officer convicted of murder for killing someone while on duty.
That outcome, experts said, was due to an overwhelming case presented by prosecutors, who sought to fully sever Chauvin from policing, the job he held for nearly two decades.
And Chauvin’s defence could not overcome the trial’s centerpiece: video of the White police officer driving his knee into Floyd’s neck as the Black man gasped for air.
“The defence was boxed in, in many ways, and had to make the case his conduct was reasonable,” said Philip M Stinson, a criminologist at Bowling Green State University who studies arrests of police officers. “But the problem is, you can’t rationally explain Derek Chauvin’s conduct.”
The jury’s decision – convicting Chauvin of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter after deliberating for about 10 hours – capped the most prominent policing trial in decades.
The case was gruelling, with prosecutors calling up a parade of tearful bystanders, disapproving police officers and blunt-speaking medical experts since testimony began three weeks ago.
