Chauvin convicted: Why this big trial broke from pattern
The owner of a clothing store reacts to seeing her burning business in Los Angeles on April 30, 1992. Her store was one of more than 300 burned by rioters after the acquittal of four police officers on trial for beating Rodney King.
Nick Ut/AP/File
The scene was all too familiar 鈥� a police officer on trial for violence against a Black American. But in this case the outcome was exceptional, as a jury found former Minneapolis officer Derek Chauvin guilty of three counts, including second-degree murder, in a rare rebuke of law enforcement treatment of people of color.
Across the country, millions of people found that, in the words of George Floyd鈥檚 family, they could breathe again.聽The case involving Mr. Floyd, who died as Mr. Chauvin knelt on his neck, would not end like that of the 1991 beating of Rodney King, in which Los Angeles officers were acquitted or escaped charges. It would not end like the 2012 shooting of Trayvon Martin, with a Florida neighborhood watch member acquitted on grounds of self-defense. It would not end like the 2014 killing of Michael Brown by a Ferguson, Missouri, police officer, with a prosecutor declining to bring charges.
But the outcome of this one case doesn鈥檛 necessarily point to a sea change in U.S. jurisprudence, say experts on the interaction between police and minority groups. The Chauvin case was an outlier 鈥� with a graphic, lengthy video of the incident, and prosecution testimony from emotional bystanders and the defendant鈥檚 fellow officers.
Why We Wrote This
Sometimes the law and justice are two different things, as several other 鈥渢rials of the century鈥� have shown.
And the outcome of a legal proceeding is not necessarily the same as the delivery of justice. A trial weighs a specific incident. It does not delve into what happened in the months and years before those actions, the surrounding culture, or deeper moral implications 鈥� even if certain cases seem to take on the weight of those broader societal issues.
鈥淥ur community conceptions, our lay conceptions of justice don鈥檛 actually match up terribly well with law,鈥� says Monica Bell, a professor of law and sociology at Yale University.聽
The conditions that led to聽the nine minutes and 29 seconds of Mr. Chauvin kneeling on Mr. Floyd still exist in other communities, says Professor Bell,聽and will continue to exist if citizens don鈥檛 act.聽
鈥淟et鈥檚 think about the work we have to do so that we don鈥檛 have to have these types of trials ever again,鈥� she says.
Uncommon to bring charges
There have been many instances of law enforcement using extreme force against minority suspects in recent years that have roiled the nation and outraged some citizens. Very few of these incidents have resulted in convictions of the officers involved.
To begin with, it is uncommon for prosecutors even to bring charges in those circumstances. The shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson is a case in point: A grand jury declined to indict the officer involved, Darren Wilson. Two St. Louis prosecutors considered whether to charge Mr. Wilson. Both decided against it.聽
鈥淐an we prove beyond a doubt that a crime occurred?鈥� said Wesley Bell, the top prosecutor in St. Louis County, when announcing his decision in July 2020, six years after the shooting. 鈥淭he answer to that is no.鈥�
Lack of definitive evidence can be an impediment at trial. George Zimmerman 鈥� not a police officer but a community watch volunteer 鈥� described his tussle with Mr. Martin as a life-and-death struggle. He was initially not charged, as police said there was no evidence to rebut his self-defense argument. Tried in 2013, Mr. Zimmerman was acquitted of second-degree murder and manslaughter charges.
Juries can be sympathetic to the way police frame violent encounters even if some evidence presents another side to the story. The severe beating that Los Angeles police officers gave Rodney King following a speeding stop in 1991 was among the first such cases recorded on video by a bystander. At trial the聽four officers said they were alarmed by Mr. King鈥檚 鈥渂izarre鈥� behavior and his refusal to lie down as requested. The defense analyzed the tape blow by blow, slowing it down and robbing it of shock value. All four officers were acquitted of assault.
In that context, the guilty verdict in the Chauvin case is unusual. The primary reason Mr. Chauvin was convicted may have been the extraordinary video of his encounter with Mr. Floyd, which provided an unfiltered view of what the then-officer did, and how calm he seemed as he did it.
鈥淭hat鈥檚 one thing that鈥檚 very different between this case [and the case of Mr. Zimmerman], where you had only the word of Zimmerman, which put the jury in a box, and which to a great degree foreordained the outcome,鈥� says Robert Spitzer, a political scientist at the State University of New York at Cortland.
Breaking the 鈥渂lue wall鈥澛爋f silence
Other officers testified that Mr. Chauvin鈥檚 use of force was excessive, and medical testimony named him as the cause of Mr. Floyd鈥檚 death. The video also viscerally demonstrated the sheer length of time involved, more than nine minutes.
It鈥檚 important to remember that the legal standard in such cases is that jurors envision they are an officer on the scene, having to make an instant assessment about whether to use force, says Professor Spitzer. Mr. Chauvin鈥檚 actions extended far beyond that time frame. On the video, he did not even appear stressed.聽
That鈥檚 in contrast with a case earlier this month in which, during a traffic stop near Minneapolis, a police officer fatally shot a suspect, Daunte Wright, who had lurched back into his car. Body camera footage showed the officer聽shouting 鈥淭aser!鈥� repeatedly before shooting Mr. Wright, and police officials said she mistook her gun for a Taser. She聽has now been charged with second-degree manslaughter.聽
When tensions are high and people are making split-second decisions, even professionals can make mistakes, says Professor Spitzer.
鈥淲hen you boil these down on a case-by-case basis, there are lots of factors at work, which all complicates the relationship between an individual case and individual facts versus what seems to be happening nationwide,鈥� he says.
How individual cases add up
Still, it鈥檚 possible for those individual cases to add up and eventually affect the country at large, says Brandon Terry, a professor of African American studies at Harvard University. He鈥檚 cautiously optimistic that the way the nation talks and thinks about police use of violence is changing.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a really vibrant part of American culture, which is a litigious culture, to treat trials as moments of civic reflection,鈥� Professor Terry says.
For instance, looking back to 1992, it鈥檚 not hard to see a more careful discourse on the subject in 2021. Back then, the media and public referred to the 鈥淩odney King鈥� trial, even though it was police officers, not Mr. King, who were the defendants. Today, it鈥檚 the 鈥淒erek Chauvin鈥� trial, since he was the one charged 鈥� not the 鈥淕eorge Floyd鈥� trial.
There have been cracks in the 鈥渂lue wall鈥� of police silence, with many law enforcement officers testifying. That鈥檚 a big change even if it is intended to paint Mr. Chauvin as an outsider and head off more sweeping reforms, Professor Terry says. And some states are moving on reform bills in any case 鈥� Maryland this month passed legislation to limit police officer use of force and restrict no-knock warrants.
鈥淧eople are connecting the Chauvin trial much more tightly to a demand for democratic accountability in policing and ... they have much more sophisticated visions about what that would look like,鈥� he says.
Progress on what Professor Terry calls 鈥減rocedural justice鈥� 鈥� rules that govern institutions 鈥� is not the same as progress on the deeper moral questions of substantive justice.
But think of all the young people who mobilized in the biggest social movement in American history last year, he says, in part because they are ashamed of what happened to Mr. Floyd, and because they think their society can be better than it is.
鈥淒o I think [the verdict] will stop police brutality? Absolutely not. But movements need victories,鈥� says Professor Terry.
It remains to be seen how far this conviction can push voters, politicians,聽and police departments to start rethinking policing in a way that will聽prevent deaths such as Mr. Floyd鈥檚 from happening in the first place,聽adds Colorado University law professor Aya Gruber, who has studied leniency standards toward those who kill minorities.
It is a statement on American society that it takes a nine-minute聽video that horrified much of the rest of the world to get a police brutality聽conviction, Ms. Gruber says.
鈥淪eeing this as the finishing line is totally premature,鈥� she says. 鈥淭his is聽the starting line.鈥�