I think I'm beating a dead horse at this point, but you can't logically infer that the medical examiner meant equal significance among the factors when they only listed the factors without any mention of relative significance at all. You just can't, at least not on the basis of what the medical examiner provided you.
Doesn't really matter for the discussion now anyways, since upon reviewing that article you provided I agree with you that the two autopsy reports are significantly different. That is surprising. I didn't know the history of law enforcement twisting the arms of medical examiners in the US. Needless to say, I was shocked and disgusted.
There may be some difficulty in gettin a first-degree murder charge. Just perusing the criminal code in Minnesota, there are seven cases under which someone can be guilty of first-degree murder, but I don't think any of them fit. The most applicable case would be causing "the death of a human being with premeditation and with intent to effect the death of the person or of another", but the operative word here is 'and'. Even if you can prove intent, it would be really hard to prove premeditation in this case.
You really don't think public pressure affects what the DA is thinking or doing? They made the charges for the three other officers when that new video came out, which makes me think they found out about the video not much earlier than we did.
I think we're both coming from the same place of wanting to see the law upheld. Our criminal justice system is long overdue for reform, and that's an understatement.
One thing I think is worth noting is that all of them got charged and the charges were increased only one Attorney General Ellison was appointed by the governor to take over the prosecution of the case. There was a great deal of concern in the community that this was going to be a show trial and that the prosecutors were not serious about attempting to get justice. It's not that I don't think public pressure is factor, but bias by the County Attorney's Office in favor of the officers that work in that county can also be a factor, considering that there are so many prior bad acts emanating from this police department. At least two of the cops involved have had multiple police police brutality accusations against them, including several shooting deaths by Chauvin, but prosecutors were not charging him. So I do think there is corruption in this county that needs to be rooted out.
What the charge against Chauvin was raised to yesterday was Second Degree murder. I actually think that's an accurate descriptor of what happened. There are a lot of subdivisions of second degree murder in Minnesota, so it can get confusing to follow but with second degree murder you don't have to show premeditation like you do with first degree murder. You don't even necessarily have to prove an intent kill, there
can be an intent to kill, but not always. Second degree murder can be a lot of different crimes.
What I think they are going for in the Floyd murder case would be the first clause in the second subdivision. I got this from Minnesota's Office of Revisor and Statues, but it expressly says anybody is guilty of second degree murder who:
causes the death of a human being, without intent to effect the death of any person, while committing or attempting to commit a felony offense.
https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/cite/609.19
If you kill someone while you're committing a felony then you have committed second degree murder whether you intended or not. Some states call it felony murder. Let's say you're trying to rob someone, and you hit them in the head with a crowbar and that person dies, then that would be second degree murder. In that case the robbery is the felony, in Chauvin's case the felony is assault.
Chauvin has been charged with third degree assault in addition to murder, what that constitutes is the
reckless infliction serious bodily injury. He is not just doing his duty as a police officer and simply trying to conduct an arrest. He is not defending himself against someone attacking him. His victim is unarmed, already handcuffed, restrained and immobilzed. He has done his job, but rather than just take him to the police station he stops to have some fun. He knelt on this poor man's neck for 9 minutes, compressing his neck and back. What he is doing is performing a slow torture.
Floyd kept screaming and begging, telling him that he couldn't breathe more times than I could count, he asked for a doctor, and was denied care, and kept praying out loud that they didn't kill him, and his prayers fell on deaf ears. So Chauvin can't make an argument with a straight face that he didn't know he was seriously harming him. Floyd cried out that he was in pain all over his body, and that Chauvin was hurting his private parts, but Chauvin just kept coolly pressing all his body weight down on him as minute after minute goes by, taunting him with his friends as bystanders scream and beg for mercy too, warning him that Floyd could die. One man even cries out that this a human being, but Chauvin ignores him, and continues crushing an unresponsive man. That's an assault. Assault is a felony, and if someone dies while you commit the crime of a felony you're guilty of second degree murder.
What I believe is that Chauvin is a sadist. He didn't have to do this, but did it because he felt like it, taking advantage of someone he had subdued that he thought nobody would care about. Since the number of complaints against him are into the double digits I think it's safe to say that Chauvin mistreats people in his custody. If he would do this cruel thing right on the street in broad daylight in front of a crowd of onlookers, I don't even want to imagine what he would do when he thinks nobody can see.
If he's found guilty, which I really hope he will be, then he'll go to jail for 40 years. It's not a life sentence like you might get with a first degree murder charge, but if he serves 40 years it's almost life. He could die in prison, or if he some out he should be an old man and unable to hurt anyone else in the community, and neither will his buddies if they're found guilty of aiding and abetting. Helping someone as they commit a crime carries the same sentence as if you did it yourself, so each of them would get the 40 years if convicted as well, and effectively be swept off the streets for good like they should be.