Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

I’m more Christian than these people and I’m an atheist.

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

These days, even the boring Republicans are nuts.

If West Virginia and San Francisco had a love child.

There are more Russians standing up to Putin than Republicans.

Republicans: “Abortion is murder but you can take a bus to get one.” Easy peasy.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the gop

I desperately hope that, yet again, I am wrong.

I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

Donald Trump, welcome to your everything, everywhere, all at once.

Someone should tell Republicans that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, or possibly the first.

Narcissists are always shocked to discover other people have agency.

If you still can’t see these things even now, maybe politics isn’t your forte and you should stop writing about it.

My right to basic bodily autonomy is not on the table. that’s the new deal.

This must be what justice looks like, not vengeful, just peaceful exuberance.

We still have time to mess this up!

Cole, when it comes to calico cats, restraint is overrated.

You are here: Home / Civil Rights / Racial Justice / Black Lives Matter / Friday Night Cop Dump Open Thread: Derek Chauvin Has Been Sentenced

Friday Night Cop Dump Open Thread: Derek Chauvin Has Been Sentenced

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ETA from the AP, at the time of Chauvin’s conviction:(h/t Steeplejack):

… Why won’t we see multiple sentences?

Because all the charges stem from one act, carried out against one person. Multiple sentences are typically handed down in cases when there are convictions for multiple victims, or multiple crimes against one victim.

For example, if a defendant is convicted of kidnapping and sexually assaulting a woman — two crimes against one victim — a judge would issue a sentence on each count, and could rule that they be served at the same time or consecutively, said former Hennepin County chief public defender Mary Moriarty.

That’s not the case here, Moriarty said. “This case involved three different theories of the same behavior toward the same person.”…

No matter what sentence Chauvin gets, in Minnesota it’s presumed that a defendant with good behavior will serve two-thirds of the penalty in prison and the rest on supervised release or parole…

Reader Interactions

104Comments

  3. 3.

    debbie

    I’ve listened to reports all day and snippets of statements by family, defense counsel, and predatory offender. Defense referred to the citations and awards that the predatory offender had received, but I heard nothing about the number of complaints that had been lodged against him throughout his career. Was this not allowed?

  4. 4.

    Baud

    I thought I read that this sentence is just for one of the three charges. Not sure why or what that means.

  8. 8.

    HeleninEire

    Is there a death penalty in Minnesota? I ask because that Asshole who killed my nephew Alex in VA was facing the death penalty. It was my sister, Alex’s mom, a practicing Catholic, who told them no, do not to kill him.

    Also??? The Asshole’s Dad was a cop. Because of course he was.

    Anyway this sentence seems to easy.

  12. 12.

    Lyrebird

    Grateful that it was not just a slap on the wrist. Not trying to go against people saying “not enough!”, just reporting in as someone who remembers the Rodney King disaster and was not daring to hope.

    The family’s attorney (Ben Crump) had a tweet up that hails this as historic & a step towards healing.

    Hear Hear.

    Too many people have waited far too long even for this step, but I am so thankful this country is taking a step forward.

  13. 13.

    WaterGirl

    @debbie: You’ve gotta admit, he swung for the fences with the “probation” request.  They had to have thought that was actually a possibility, no matter how remote, to ask for probation.

  14. 14.

    Roger Moore

    I have mixed feelings about the sentence. One side of me wants him locked up and the key thrown away. Another side thinks we overpunish and we should have shorter sentences in general. The only thing I can say to reconcile these views is that this is the wrong case to start being lenient. Let’s reduce the sentence of people who were thrown in prison for simple possession of drugs or had the book thrown at them for petty theft, and then we can think about sentence reductions for police brutality.

  19. 19.

    Amir Khalid

    @WereBear:

    It’s not just a river in Egypt.

    @Baud:

    I expect he’d be serving the time for the second and third counts concurrently with the time for the first count, so they wouldn’t affect the overall length of his sentence.

  22. 22.

    Anne Laurie

    @germy: Chauvin also has some tax problems, which I think might add to his jail time?

    My cynical opinion:  Chauvin is never gonna get out of ‘protective custody’, whether for his own good or that of the general community.   Assuming he *doesn’t* end up dead, possibly by his own hand, he’ll be trailed by tax fraud / civil suit / behavioral charges for as long as the memory of George Floyd endures.

    As he’s probably said to others:  If you can’t face the consequences, don’t do the crime.

  23. 23.

    debbie

    @WaterGirl:

    Yeah, I got nothing good to say about the defense attorney. Maybe Rudy will want to check him out?  /

    ETA: I’d really hate to think the attorney “misread” the room to set his client up to appeal because of the lousy representation he got.

  27. 27.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Roger Moore: 
    I agree with this take. As the judge mentioned during sentencing, Chauvin’s actions were cruel, an aggravating factor. This is definitely a case where a long sentence is deserved. The criminal justice system should definitely be overhauled and lower sentences the norm, with a greater emphasis on rehabilitation imo

  38. 38.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @zhena gogolia:

    That was so disgusting. They fucking rushed to do those executions before Jan 20th as thousands died from COVID a day. I think one of the inmates they put to death was mentally disabled, too

  39. 39.

    Anne Laurie

    @debbie: Yeah, I got nothing good to say about the defense attorney.

    Extraordinary cases require extraordinary defenses.

    Look at it from this perspective:  You certainly don’t want Chauvin being released, however briefly, because it can be demonstrated that his attorney didn’t make every possible effort to defend him.   Yes, the prisons are full of people who *didn’t* have this benefit, but I think we can assume the Wingnut Wurlitzer will do its expensive best to promote Chauvin as another martyr to ‘wokeness’; lack of a rigorous defense is one claim they’ve been denied.

  41. 41.

    dmsilev

    @WaterGirl: On a quick Google, I found this report, which notes (scroll down to the third set of graphs) that people convicted and incarcerated for all nonviolent drug offenses (not just marijuana) are roughly 230,000 for state and local, and 78,000 for the Federal prison system.

  43. 43.

    Amir Khalid

    @HeleninEire:
    I share your sister’s sentiment re the death penalty. Executing Alex’s killer isn’t going to bring him back to her. Vengeance might taste good in the moment, but it’s ultimately one more person killed and nothing gained thereby.

  44. 44.

    JPL

    @HeleninEire: Unfortunately he was convicted of 2nd degree murder, and that is not a life sentence.   The sentence that he received is probably a life sentence, since he’s a policeman.   I did hear that Federal charges could add some time, too.

  45. 45.

    oldster

    Holding a cop accountable. I hope it’s not a one-off event.

    I’d take five cops put away for four years each over one cop put away for twenty. With one cop, they can pretend he’s a martyr; but make it a routine thing and they may start getting the message.

  46. 46.

    Anne Laurie

    @debbie: Sure, the Wurlitzer doesn’t need ‘facts’ or ‘truth’ to pump out its sewage.  But it’s on us not to give them a workable lever, despite that.

  47. 47.

    Kent

    @JPL:Unfortunately he was convicted of 2nd degree murder, and that is not a life sentence.   The sentence that he received is probably a life sentence, since he’s a policeman.   I did hear that Federal charges could add some time, too.

    Why “unfortunately?”

    Second degree murder is the crime he actually committed.  No one even argued much less proved that he set out that week or morning with a premeditated plan to stage the murder of George Floyd.  Which is what they would have had to argue and prove for it to be first degree murder.

    It seems to me that he was appropriately charged, appropriately convicted, and now, appropriately sentenced.

  48. 48.

    WaterGirl

    @dmsilev: Thank you for that.  Then I think all 78,000 should be released with a ton of support for starting a new life outside of prison.

    Governors should take care of the state prisoners.  Hey, let’s use all the money that will be saved to fund infrastructure.

  49. 49.

    Kay

    CBS News
    @CBSNews
    · 3h
    Derek Chauvin’s mother Carolyn Pawlenty says before sentencing that he is a “good man”
    “When you sentence my son, you will also be sentencing me. I will not be able to see Derek, talk to him on the phone, or give him a special hug.

    She didn’t ask me, but I would have told her not to say it. She may believe it, obviously she’s upset about her son but today is just not the day for her to be a victim.
    I feel like people have lost the ability to just not say things. She can’t just keep this to herself? What changes with saying it? This is why you have personal friends– to say things like that to.

  51. 51.

    WaterGirl

    @Baud: I wasn’t thinking of drug dealers when I read “non-violent drug offenses”.  Not big-time dealers.  But Dealers who were really small-time, sure.

    edit: I’m not naive enough to think it could be that simple, but we should be working in that direction.

  52. 52.

    Amir Khalid

    @WaterGirl:
    Thank you. I got the Sinovac, which they told us doesn’t have the strong aftereffects of the American vaccines. I also now have my vaccination card, with my first dose recorded on it.

  54. 54.

    Kent

    @WaterGirl:Could Biden do a sweeping pardon of everyone who is in jail or in prison for marijuana possession?

    Only those who are convicted under Federal charges.   Governors would have to pardon those serving sentences for state charges.   I have no idea how many marijuana convictions are state vs Federal.  My perception is that most Federal drug charges tend to be for big time international trafficking, not minor possession.    Like Mexican and Columbian drug cartel types.  Or for drug crimes that take place in Federal jurisdictions like military bases and Indian reservations.  But I really don’t know.

  56. 56.

    VOR

    @germy: He was filing taxes as a Florida resident while working full time on the Minneapolis police. That’s a heck of a commute.

  60. 60.

    Kay

    We’re not talking about you today, Carolyn. Crime is complicated, there are collateral victims, but this trial was about a murder victim and since he can no longer speak perhaps we could just focus there.

  65. 65.

    Kent

    @Cameron:I don’t think this guy’s going to last a year.

    Of course he will.  He is a violent white racist.  He will find his people in prison.  There are plenty of them there.  He’ll probably be hailed as a hero among the white racist skinhead type of prisoners.

  67. 67.

    debbie

    @Kay:

    I will not be able to see Derek, talk to him on the phone, or give him a special hug.

    Absolutely brilliant to say that in front of the family who will never see their sibling, talk to their sibling, or give that sibling a special hug…all because of her “good man.”  /

    ETA: Wonder if she’s any relation to past governor Tim Pawlenty?

  68. 68.

    Baud

    Responding to interest from President Donald J. Trump, White House aides drafted a proclamation last year to invoke the Insurrection Act in case Mr. Trump moved to take the extraordinary step of deploying active-duty troops in Washington to quell the protests that followed the killing of George Floyd, two senior Trump administration officials said.

    ….

    The aides drafted the proclamation on June 1, 2020, during a heated debate inside the administration over how to respond to the protests. Mr. Trump, enraged by the demonstrations, had told the attorney general, William P. Barr, the defense secretary, Mark T. Esper, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of staff, Gen. Mark A. Milley, that he wanted thousands of active-duty troops on the streets of the nation’s capital, one of the officials said.

     

    Mr. Trump was talked out of the plan by the three officials. But a separate group of White House staff members wanted to leave open the option for Mr. Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act to call in the military to patrol the streets of the capital.

  70. 70.

    Kay

    @zhena gogolia:

    I don’t object to her feeling it or even saying it. She should say it! She’s probably heartbroken. But why does it have to be today, in that place, with his family there?

  76. 76.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    It’s fascinating to me how rattled they were by those protests. They’re all such weaklings. The big manly men needed someone to go shoot the scary people outside the gate.

  77. 77.

    debbie

    @Baud:

    The WSJ reporter’s book seems blunter:

    Gen Mark Milley, the top US military leader, resisted Donald Trump’s demands that his forces “crack skulls” and “beat the fuck out” of protesters marching against police brutality and structural racism, according to a much-trailed new book.

    “Just shoot them,” the president reportedly said.

    CNN reported the latest excerpts from Frankly, We Did Win This Election: The Inside Story of How Trump Lost by Michael Bender, a Wall Street Journal reporter. The book will be published in August.

  78. 78.

    OzarkHillbilly

    I am still tired from my tribulations yesterday, but I just want to say that 22.5 years, 15 in prison, is not a slap on the wrist. My ex got 7 years, 4 months shock time. Probation is it’s own kind of hell, just enough freedom to get you sent back to prison for the slightest of fuck ups. 3 years later she did in fact fuck up again and did 6 years in Chillicothe that left a very heavy impression on her, so much so that she has not stepped an inch out of line since.

    Which is a good thing for my sons because I don’t think they would still have a mother otherwise.

    One may feel it is not enough, and having seen the expression on Chauvin’s face while George Floyd pleaded for his life, I certainly would not argue. But it’s not nothing, it’s serious time.

  80. 80.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @Baud: Perhaps not, but many states had 3 strikes laws that gave draconian sentences for minor, nonviolent crimes.

    I have hyped the podcast Earhustle before, about life in and out of San Quentin. One of the episodes had interviews with inmates describing their sentences. While most were for violent crime, you’d hear things like, “added all up, I’ll get out when I’m 215.” I don’t believe every human is redeemable but none are in a system with sentences that give no hope for redemption.

  82. 82.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @debbie:

    Gen Mark Milley, the top US military leader, resisted Donald Trump’s demands that his forces “crack skulls” and “beat the fuck out” of protesters marching against police brutality and structural racism, according to a much-trailed new book.

    “Just shoot them,” the president reportedly said.

    Holy fuck. I hope he dies before 2024

  83. 83.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Kay:

    I’ll always remember that video of a veteran getting beaten with a night stick by the DHS goons in Portland. His crime? Telling them to remember the oath they took to the constitutional.

    Also, people being kidnapped off the streets by unmarked vans

  84. 84.

    Gvg

    @Kay: oh, I thought they just wanted an excuse to shoot blacks, Hispanics, democrats and everyone who didn’t agree with them worshipfully enough.

    You are right that they made a huge deal out of what I thought of as routine. Trump was way too thin skinned and the rest of them are too. Our local school board has meetings with people yelling threats in person, but they still do their jobs. Yes the cops sometimes have to make arrests, but still, unpopular plans get made and done in public.

  85. 85.

    Omnes Omnibus

    I said my piece on criminal sentencing in the previous thread.  I won’t duplicate it here except to say that the sentence appears to be in line with MN law if not everyone’s ideas of what is appropriate.

  86. 86.

    Kay

    @Gvg:

    The whole story has this aura of panic and wild thrashing around. They really could have easily careened into some kind of awful street slaughter just because they’re all such chickenshits. The protests were absolutely teeming with cops. Why would they add the military? Just so everyone knows they’re completely panicking and in over their heads?

  87. 87.

    Kay

    @Gvg:

    I think on some level they knew they were in over their heads, and so….”.ahhhh! shoot everyone! Make the bad thing stop!”

  88. 88.

    Gravenstone

    @Kay: The correct response to that whine is to remind her that George Floyd’s family will never be able to do those things with him  – ever. Then ask her kindly shut the fuck up.

  89. 89.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @Kay:

    Why would they add the military? Just so everyone knows they’re completely panicking and in over their heads?

    TFG felt that the military was somehow magic. It’s clear from the articles on this time that he wanted them in the streets shooting people. That’s probably not what would have happened, but it could have.

    Using the military in the streets of the US is a big, big step. We have laws and norms against it. It would have put us that much closer to banana republic status. It was another norm for TFG to blow through. It would have given him a feeling of power. It’s a good thing it didn’t happen.

    And the advisors who were ready to give him the Insurrection Act should be in jail.

  90. 90.

    Kay

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    Right- the police are also lawfully present. So he thought he would add a huge group of armed people who have a completely different job and role.

    If only he had panicked this much about the pandemic, huh? That he didn’t give a shit about- his actual role.

  92. 92.

    Emma from Miami

    @Kay: Agreed. If only because the reply from Floyd’s family would be devastating.​
    ​
    ​

  94. 94.

    Obdurodon

    @Roger Moore: I think it’s possible to believe both that sentences should generally be shorter and that this one should be longer. There’s abundant evidence that Chauvin has been caught committing what would be considered crimes if he weren’t a cop 18 times, including one case very much like Floyd only it was a 14-year-old boy. He has been punished and he has been given chances to redeem himself. While the focus of our justice system should remain on deterrence and rehabilitation, those don’t work with some people and Chauvin has proven he’s one.

  95. 95.

    Geminid

    @Cheryl Rofer: That summer trump could understand that he might not be reelected. Losing was an existential threat to him in a way it was not for Jimmy Carter or George H.W. Bush. trump may have sensed that provoking a wider upheaval might work to his benefit. If it did not produce a law-and-order backlash among voters, it could set the table for illegal nullification of the upcoming election result. An analogy would be a player in a very high stakes game of hearts who picks up some spades and decides to shoot the moon.

    Last year really was a perilous time.

  96. 96.

    Mary G

    D.C. Police Officer Michael Fanone, who was beaten during the Jan. 6th insurrection, and Harry Dunn, a U.S. Capitol Police officer who faced rioters, leave a meeting with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy.(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) pic.twitter.com/wfC1xUexUi— The Recount (@therecount) June 25, 2021

  99. 99.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @debbie:

    Sure would like to hear how exactly that meeting went and how McCarthy acted. It looks like it didn’t go very well, based on that photo

  102. 102.

    sab

    He will get out just in time for Social Security to kick in, having lost years of income to be credited to his Social Security account. I. e. he will be old and broke and on his own. Works for me.

  103. 103.

    Ohio Mom

    It is true that Chauvin’s mother will not be able to hug him but won’t she be able to visit when there are scheduled visiting hours, as well as receive phone calls from him?

    (She’ll be paying a lot for those phone calls, that’s a big profit center in our corrupt penal system.)

  104. 104.

    Ruckus

    @Kay:

    You likely very well know this but I think it bears repeating:

    People who are racist through and through don’t think that a person who doesn’t look like them, that their life has any meaning. It’s likely that she doesn’t see what her son did is in any way wrong, because his victim was black. It wasn’t a human he killed, it was an animal, like a deer. She has likely internalized all the racism she’s known all her life to be what everyone thinks. I’ll bet she’s shocked and can’t understand why her son is in any trouble whatsoever. The far right wing groups that peddle this crap are and have been responsible for so much of our issues because they peddle this crap and many have been for longer than anyone currently alive.

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