The verdict in the Floyd case was unveiled Tuesday, convicting Derek Chauvin, a former Minneapolis, Minnesota, police officer, of all charges in the case, second-degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. The Breitbart News reports that Alan Dershowitz, a prominent defense attorney and professor emeritus at Harvard Law School, said Tuesday that the verdict should be overturned on appeal because of the public intimidation of the jury and the judge’s refusal to sequester the jury.
Dershowitz told Newsmax, “The Floyd verdict is highly questionable because of the outside influence exerted by people like black pastor Al Sharpton and Rep. Waters. They threatened to intimidate and hung the sword of Damocles over the jury’s head, saying, quite frankly, that if you don’t convict on the murder charges and on all charges, American cities will burn and America will be destroyed. All of this seeped into the jury room, and the judge made the terrible mistake of not keeping the jury closed. So the judge himself said that this case could be overturned on appeal. I think the verdict in this case, which could be overturned on appeal, I think the verdict in this case should be overturned on appeal as well.”
Dershowitz went on to say, “All Americans who care about due process and freedom should be concerned that the jury’s verdict may have been influenced by fear and threats. Every juror in the room was aware of these threats. As they sat there deliberating, they had to say to themselves, consciously or unconsciously, what the consequences would be for me and my family, my friends, my business, if I returned a verdict other than murder. But these were never supposed to seep into the jury room. So I have no real confidence in a verdict that was not generated by due process and the rule of law, but by crowd pressure.”
Dershowitz argued that after exhausting state appeals, the case “will go to the U.S. Supreme Court,” which has the “best chance” of overturning the conviction based on the judge’s own reaction to Waters’ comments.
In his address to the nation, Biden appeared to endorse the pressure on the jury. Biden said, “For many people, it feels like the justice system has spent so much money to provide just basic accountability.”
Recent Comments