Chauvin Trial Verdict Prediction (of Sorts): On legal merits alone, not guilty — but political dynamics drive injustice

Attorney Andrew Branca of The Law of Self-Defense explains his view as we head into closing arguments and jury deliberations

While we’re waiting for closing arguments tomorrow morning, and for the court to release the final form of the jury instructions with which the jury will be charged immediately after closing arguments, I thought it might be worth stepping through my current view of the case as things currently stand, in terms of the facts and law of the case.

Obviously, what qualify as the “facts” of this case proven beyond a reasonable doubt is subject to considerable uncertainty, where reasonable people can disagree—that’s why we have juries in the first place.

Also, the state and defense obviously have their own conflicting views on precisely how Minnesota law should be applied to the facts, in whatever form they are deemed proven—that’s why we have arguments between the parties about the precise wording of jury instructions.

With those caveats in mind, perhaps it’s worth stepping through the facts argued at trial, at least as I perceive them, considering them in light of the relevant law, and seeing where we end up.

The bottom line: If the verdict were based solely on the legal merits, the facts and law in this case, were I personally a juror I would have more than enough reasonable doubt to be unable to vote guilty on any of these criminal charges, for all the reasons of fact and law that I detail below.

That said, this case left the “facts and law” train station quite some time ago, making where it will end up largely unpredictable in any realistic sense, especially given the political and social dynamics looking to drive this train clear off the rails.

Also, I’ll be sticking here to the charges actually brought in this case, meaning second-degree “felony” murder, second-degree manslaughter, third-degree murder, and third-degree assault. I’ll not be addressing any lesser-included offense in a hypothetical sense—if those become real, I’ll discuss them at that point.

With that caveat, let’s dive into the stuff I do know something about, having watched every minute of this trial, and having thoroughly reviewed the relevant statutes, jury instructions, and case law.

Murder in the Second Degree: “Felony murder”: Question of Causation

Let’s start with a look at the second-degree murder charge in this case, really a felony murder charge, with a particular focus on the issue of causation here.

As a reminder, Minnesota use of the term “murder” is much broader than is typical in most states, or how the legal concept of murder is taught in law school.

Conceptually, a homicide (the killing of one person by another) can be unlawful and intentional—what is traditionally referred to as murder—or unlawful and unintentional—what is traditionally referred to as manslaughter or criminally reckless homicide—lawful and intentional—usually self-defense or defense of others—or lawful and unintentional—accident or misadventure.

Most other states use the term “murder” to refer to only that first category of homicide—the unlawful and intentional killing.  None of the killing charges brought against Chauvin fall into the unlawful and intentional category of homicide, and so would not in most other states be referred to as murder.

In the context of the second-degree murder charge brought against Chauvin under Minnesota statute §609.19, that statute has two subsections.  The first deals with intentional homicides, and drive-by shootings—Chauvin is not charged under that section. The second section deals with unintentional homicides, either in the course of the commission of an underlying felony, or under circumstances involving a court-issued order of protection.

Chauvin was charged with “second degree murder” under that second section, §609.19(2)(1), based upon an unintentional killing in the course of the commission of an underlying felony—what is traditionally called “felony murder.”

The relevant jury instruction for this charge is CRIMJIG 11.28, which appears straightforward enough:


Normally in felony murder cases the only real burden on the state is to prove the underlying felony—if the jury finds the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the underlying felony, it usually naturally follows that this also satisfies the requirements for the felony murder charge.

If my use of the word “normally” makes you wonder if things are not so simple in this case, you would be correct.  And that’s because one element of felony murder that’s generally not in dispute in most such cases, but is in dispute in the Chauvin case, is that it must have been the defendant who actually caused the death, or perhaps more accurately that it was the felony in which the defendant was engaged that caused the death.

In most felony murder cases, the cause and manner of death is unambiguous.  Two people decide to commit the felony armed robbery of a liquor store, robber A being armed with a gun, and robber B being unarmed and serving as a lookout.  During the robbery the store clerk is shot and killed by robber A.  Robber A has committed an intentional and unlawful killing—“murder,” as traditionally defined.

Has Robber B committed the offense of felony murder?  Was he engaged in a felony? Yes. Was the felony a cause of the clerk’s death? Certainly.  Boom, felony murder.

And we need that causation component tying the conduct of Robber B, even indirectly, to the clerk’s death, in order for Robber B to be guilty of felony murder. Imagine, for example, that the clerk was not shot by Robber A at all, while the robbery was taken place.  Instead, even as the clerk was getting robbed, at that moment the angry husband of the clerk’s current lover stepped in from the back of the store, and shot and killed the clerk entirely independently of the robbery.  In that case Robber B would not be guilty of felony murder, because the murder of the clerk was not casually related to the robbery.

In the Chauvin case, however, things are more complicated than our robbery scenario, because the issue of cause of death of George Floyd is more complicated than in our hypothetical, raising a real question of causation.

In the Chauvin case, however, things are more complicated, because the issue of cause of death of George Floyd is more complicated than in our hypothetical.

Note that this also distinguishes the Chauvin trial from the Noor case, with which many legal commentators have been drawing parallels (much too broadly, in my opinion).  In the Noor case there was no ambiguity about the cause and manner of the death of Justine Damond, the victim in that case—Noor shot her, and she died of the gunshot injury. Period.

In the case of George Floyd, his precise cause of death has been a subject of hot dispute for roughly half the trial proceedings.  What really killed Floyd?

We’ve heard the state and state witnesses argue, sequentially, that Floyd was killed by a “blood choke” by Chauvin’s knee cutting off Floyd’s blood supply to his brain, by a “respiratory choke by Chauvin’s knee cutting off Floyd’s air supply (a quite different thing altogether), and by positional asphyxia-induced compression of Floyd’s chest and airways (yet another quite different thing).

And that’s just the variable prospective causes of death proposed by the state itself!  At least all of those variations have in common that Chauvin’s conduct played a direct role, and thus is arguably consistent with a theory of guilt.

The defense had other credible theories of Floyd’s cause of death, however, each of which suggested causes and manner of death that had little to do with the placement of Chauvin’s knee or the position of Floyd’s body.  I’ll note as an aside that state witnesses acknowledged the facts of each of these claims, so those facts are not credibly in dispute.

For example, Floyd had substantial blockage of his major coronary arteries—of the three most important coronary arteries, two were 75% blocked and the third 90% blocked.  Thus, his heart was unusually vulnerable to any further restriction in blood flow and oxygen supply, on the one hand, or abruptly increased demand for blood, on the other.

Floyd also had pathological hypertension, with the resultant enlarged heart common to that. This increased the heart’s demand for blood and oxygen under even normal resting conditions, making the heart exceptionally vulnerable under stressful conditions that increased such demands where the demand could not readily be met (e.g., because of profound blockage of the coronary arteries).

Floyd was also an acknowledged drug addict and user of both methamphetamine and fentanyl, as well as other drugs. In the cardiovascular health context, methamphetamine in particular is widely recognized as causing long-term damage to the heart, again making Floyd unusually vulnerable to heart failure, especially under stressful circumstances.

In the context of fentanyl, a reasonable inference can be made that the 11ng/ml of the drug found in Floyd’s system, plus another 5ng/ml or so of the active metabolite nor-fentanyl, also contributed to Floyd’s death.

The state made much of the fact that Floyd did not appear to die a “traditional” fentanyl overdose death, in that he did not simply nod off, stop breathing, and die quietly.  After all, Floyd was observed violently resisting arrest!

First, it’s not clear to me that a fentanyl-type death did not occur in Floyd’s case.  We know from the testimony of Floyd’s friend in the SUV, Hill, that moments before the police arrived on scene Floyd had nodded off, was just about impossible to rouse, and when roused immediately fell back asleep. Indeed, although Hill was in Floyd’s SUV specifically to accept his offer of a ride, she ultimately gave up trying to rouse him as an effort in futility and called her adult daughter to come pick her up.  That sure sounds like fentanyl, to me.

Then, of course, we have a period of activity by Floyd when he’s forcibly resisting lawful arrest.  It must be kept in mind, however, that sedation and stimulation are always forces acting against each other. Someone inclined to fall asleep can be kept awake if prone to substantial stimulation—say, the police attempting to lawfully force you into a squad car.  That doesn’t mean that sedating forces weren’t at play, it merely means that they were momentarily offset by stimulating forces.

Also, there is evidence of Floyd ingesting fentanyl even as he was first contacted by officers while seated in his SUV, and then when he was fighting lawful arrest in the back of squad car 320, presumably to prevent the officers from discovering the illicit drugs.  The effects of this fentanyl would not be expected to be evident for several minutes—and, indeed, Floyd’s energetic resistance to the officers slowly declined exactly over the progress of the next several minutes.  Again, that’s consistent with rapid onset fentanyl overdose.

Further, fentanyl could well have been a substantial contributing factor in Floyd’s death even in the absence of acute toxicity—and it’s quite possible that Floyd had developed a tolerance to fentanyl that would have prevented acute toxicity even at 11ng/ml.

Just because a level of fentanyl is not sufficient to induce fatal overdose, however, does not mean that it’s not depressing respiration.  The state argued that this could not be the case because Floyd’s respiration was purportedly “normal.”  But normal for what? Normal for a resting state, in which the heart’s demands for blood and oxygen are also normal?  Or normal for the demands of a heart that has just forcibly fought multiple police officers for 10 minutes?

If Floyd’s respiratory rate was 20 breaths a minute, perhaps a normal rate at rest, but his physical exertions called for a respiratory rate of 30 breaths a minute, then his respiratory function was profoundly depressed for his actual circumstances—and yet again his heart, already extremely vulnerable to any further restriction in blood and oxygen, would be paying the cost.

The state also made many claims that Floyd’s death could not have been a “heart attack” because there were no indications of the damage to the heart that usually follows a “heart attack.” In this context what is being discussed is an event in which there is an abrupt stoppage of blood flow to a portion of the heart, that portion the heart muscle suffers damage as a result, and that damage can be observed afterwards.  No such damage was visible in Floyd’s case.

But there are other ways a heart can be stopped besides abrupt cessation of blood flow that results in damage, and those alternative means do not leave any such telltale signs of damage to the heart.

In particular, a heart under stress can experience an abrupt arrythmia that disrupts the normal pumping action of the heart.  Without the heart pumping properly, blood and oxygen are no longer being effectively supplied to the heart, brain, or other tissues of the body, and death results within seconds—indeed, a death due to arrythmia is often described as having been instantaneous.

Much as they did in arguing against fentanyl overdose as a cause of death—that Floyd’s fighting lawful arrest for 10 minutes was evidence counter to overdose—the state similarly argues that Floyd’s death occurring during the course of a 9-minute restraint meant that he did not suffer an “instantaneous” death.

Of course, it means nothing of the sort. It’s quite possible that the stresses on Floyd’s heart were increasing gradually over the course of that 9-minute restraint—his heart’s reserves of oxygen were being depleted at a rate faster than they could be replenished because of the increased demands of an enlarged heart, the coronary artery disease limiting blood supply, and the fentanyl depressing oxygenation of his blood in any case—but that the actual moment of death came when those gradually increasing stressors hit the threshold needed to trigger a fatal arrythmia, and boom, that was that—instantaneous death.

I recount all of that argument to bring us back to the issue of causation as a required element of Floyd’s death.  Because, if Floyd’s death was the result of factors largely independent of Chauvin’s use of force, then that use of force did not cause Floyd’s death, and could not be the basis of a felony murder conviction on the facts of this case.

Of course, that raises the question of what “causes” means.  Certainly, the state has argued that if Floyd had not been subject to prone restraint by Chauvin, he would still be alive. Does that mean Chauvin “caused” Floyd’s death?  It’s equally true that if Floyd had not resisted being lawfully placed in squad car 320, he would also be alive.  Did Floyd’s unlawful resistance to arrest “cause” his death?  If Floyd had not been chewing down fentanyl while being subject to arrest, would he still be alive, and if so did fentanyl “cause” Floyd’s death?

Cause is often a complex issue in the law, as the law is applied to complex real-world fact patterns, and that’s where we find ourselves in this case.

Minnesota law defines “to cause” as “to be a substantial causal factor in causing death.”  In the Noor case, again, this was not a question.  Justine Damond was killed by Noor’s bullet, period.  That bullet was not only the substantial cause of death, it was the only cause of death.

In the Floyd case, the question is ambiguous, given the many and varied factors that likely contributed to Floyd’s death.  Indeed, the fairest view of the cause of Floyd’s death is that there was not a single cause, but rather a perfect storm of many causes that resulted in this unfortunate outcome.

Another way to look at this question is this:  If Floyd had fought lawful arrest and placement in the back of squad car 320, but finally been secured in the vehicle, and thus never subject to prone restraint on the street—would he have died anyway?  Was the physical struggle with officers, given the fragility of his cardiovascular system and his substantial (even if not acutely fatal) concentration of fentanyl enough to kill him, all by themselves, without any restraint whatever?

Can we know that the answer to that question is no, and beyond a reasonable doubt? Because if we can’t, then we can’t conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that Chauvin’s restraint of Floyd “caused” Floyd’s death—Floyd was already effectively dead before he was ever put on the street—and then we’ve failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that required element of felony murder.

So, the questions of causation, and whether it has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt given the complex facts of this case, remains a key vulnerability for the prosecution on this charge of second-degree “felony” murder.

Of course, another vulnerability in proving this charge is that as with any felony murder charge it is premised on first proving beyond a reasonable doubt the predicate underlying felony.  In this case that predicate felony is third-degree assault §609.223.  Proving that predicate felony assault charge presents its own challenges to the prosecution, primarily in overcoming the likely defense of justified use of force by a police officer, but I’ll circle back to that in a moment.

The bottom line there, however, will be that if Chauvin’s use of force was reasonable under the totality of the circumstances, then there is no criminal assault, and if there is no criminal assault there is no predicate felony for the felony murder charge—and neither the predicate assault nor the felony murder will have been proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

I’ll come back to §609.223 and the question of justification in a moment.

Third-Degree Murder & Second-Degree Manslaughter: Intent Still Matters

Two of the other charges against Chauvin are third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter, and I’ll address them together here because I think the prosecution faces the same essential challenge with respect to each of these.

I’ve already noted that none of the charges against Chauvin are intentional homicide charges.  What I mean by that is there is none of the charges require that Chauvin intended to take the life of George Floyd.

The relevant portion of the third-degree murder statute, §609.195(a), provides that this offense can apply to a person who kills “without intent to effect the death” of the victim.  The relevant portion of the second-degree manslaughter statute, §609.205(1), simply doesn’t mention intent to kill as an element at all, so clearly intent to kill is not a required element here, either.

That doesn’t mean, however, that intent is irrelevant to either of these criminal statutes, because both statutes require a form of intent independent of an intent to kill.

Specifically, third-degree murder requires a reckless disregard of the danger created to the victim by the defendant’s eminently dangerous conduct. If the state has not proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant’s conduct was eminently dangerous (which bring us back to the issue of causation, above) and that the defendant recklessly (consciously) disregarded that risk, then the state has not proven the crime of third-degree murder.

Further, second-degree manslaughter requires that the defendant creates an unreasonable risk, and “consciously takes chances of causing death or great bodily harm.”  If the state has not proven that the defendant intentionally engaged in conduct that had a reasonably foreseeable risk of causing death or great bodily harm, then the state has not proven the crime of second-degree manslaughter.

Both of these offenses require that the defendant engaged in conduct that was unreasonable, that created a foreseeable risk of deadly force harm, and that the defendant consciously incurred that risk or, alternatively, consciously disregarded that risk.  If any of these conditions are not proven beyond a reasonable doubt, then the underlying crime has not been proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

(Of course, part of the conduct being “unreasonable” would include that the conduct was unjustified, which we’ll come back to in a moment in our discussion of third-degree assault.)

So, did Chauvin’s conduct create a foreseeable risk of deadly force harm to Floyd? Remember that Chauvin would be making any such assessment in the total absence of Floyd’s seriously damaged physiology and toxicology.

That is, Chauvin would have no knowledge of Floyd’s profound coronary artery disease, pathological hypertension, enlarged heart, paraganglioma, nor the possibility that Floyd’s respiration was dangerous depressed, on the one hand, or that he had fatal levels of fentanyl on board, on the other hand, depending on your preferred view of the fentanyl issue.

What would Chauvin have known, or reasonably believed to be true under the circumstances? That he was dealing with a forcibly non-compliant, physically very large and apparently fit and healthy suspect, a suspect who had required the efforts of multiple police officers to subdue, and who they believed might be experiencing an unspecified but likely overdose-related medical crisis requiring the prompt medical attention of an intensity that only paramedics, or higher-level care, could provide.

Chauvin would also have believed that this higher-level medical care would be arriving within moments, a reasonable expectation according to state’s witnesses, and thus that Floyd would (he believed) need be restrained only briefly until that care arrived.

He would also have been aware, as testified to by state witnesses at trial, that just-violent persons who became unconscious due to drug toxicity and who were revived often began to immediately fight even more forcefully than they had previously—and it had already taken several officers to subdue a handcuffed Floyd just minutes before. The eminently expected paramedics would have available the powerful sedative ketamine, used for precisely such circumstances.

Further, he would have known, or reasonably believed, that he was facing an explicitly hostile, threatening, and growing crowd, from which there was a genuine possibility of imminent violence—hence, Chauvin’s display of his pepper spray to the crowd.

Under the totality of those circumstances, and the absence of knowledge of Floyd’s exceptionally fragile physiology and drug toxicity, did Chauvin’s restraint of Floyd constitute the knowing creation of a “foreseeable risk of deadly force harm” to Floyd?

To put it another way, if it is fair to ask if Floyd would still be alive but for Chauvin’s restraint of him, is it also fair to ask if Floyd would still be alive but for his fragile physiology and drug toxicity?

Unless the state can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Chauvin knew he was creating a foreseeable risk of deadly force harm to Floyd, and also prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Chauvin has consciously disregarded that risk, they have not proven beyond a reasonable doubt either second-degree manslaughter or third-degree murder.

In this context, I’ve seen frequent mention in the talking head media and elsewhere about a legal doctrine known as the “eggshell thin skull” rule.  The idea behind this doctrine is that an aggressor is bound to accept his victim as he finds him, and that if it turns out later that the victim was unusually vulnerable to the act of aggression, that’s on the aggressor.

To illustrate, if you throw a normally non-deadly punch at someone who turns out, unknown to you, to have an “eggshell thin skull,” and unexpectedly kill them, you still have liability for that death even if it was not reasonably forseeable.

What most are not pointing out, however, is that this legal doctrine has application primarily in the civil law context, not the criminal law context.  In civil court, where you are being sued by surviving family members of your “eggshell thin skull” victim, they need merely prove general negligence on your part, and only to a preponderance of the evidence.

In the criminal context, however, the state is bound to prove each and every element of the crime charged. If the crime charged requires the knowing creation of a risk and/or the intentional disregard of that risk, then an unanticipated risk that may be sufficient to find civil liability is still not sufficient to prove criminal liability beyond a reasonable doubt.

Also often not pointed out by the advocates of the “eggshell thin skull” doctrine in the context of the Chauvin trial, that doctrine applies only where the use of force was not otherwise justified—it requires that the user of force was an unlawful aggressor.

To put it another way, if the person throwing the punch against the “eggshell thin skull” is lawfully defending themselves, they have no liability whatever, because the use of force was legally justified.  In that context, their lawful conduct doesn’t become unlawful simply because the person against whom they lawfully defended themselves turns out to have had an “eggshell thin skull.”

Which finally gets us around to the issue of justification, which I’ll discuss primarily in the context of third-degree assault, but which also obviously has implications for the second-degree manslaughter and third-degree murder charges, as just discussed.

Third-Degree Assault:  Issue of Justification

As previously mentioned, the third-degree assault charge here, under §609.223, is both a criminal offense in and of itself, but also the predicate for the second-degree “felony” murder charge already discussed.

In contrast with second-degree manslaughter and third-degree murder, the assault charge does not require that Chauvin knew he was creating a foreseeable risk of deadly force harm to Floyd, nor to prove that Chauvin has consciously disregarded that risk. Indeed, in order to convict on third-degree assault, the state need not prove that Chauvin intended any particular degree of harm to Floyd at all.

What they do need to prove beyond a reasonable doubt, however, is that Chauvin’s conduct constituted an unlawful physical assault of Floyd, and that this assault inflicted substantial bodily harm—that the harm inflicted was unintentional is irrelevant to this charge.

What is very relevant, however, is whether the purported assault was unlawful, on the one hand, or whether that use of force was legally justified. If the force was justified, then the use of force was not unlawful, and cannot be the premise for an assault conviction of any degree, including third-degree assault.

Normally, here at Law of Self Defense we discuss the justified use of force in the context of force used in defense of persons and property, and such use-of-force justifications apply to both law enforcement officers and to everybody else.

Police officers, however, are also given the privilege to use force under broader circumstances than are non-officers. Conceptually, police officers are privileged to be the initial physical aggressors under circumstances that would not be permitted to non-officers.

These broader provisions allowing for use of force by officers can be found under Minnesota law at §609.06(1)(1), which reads in relevant part that an officer can use force “in effecting a lawful arrest” or “in executing any other duty imposed upon the public officer by law.”

(I’ll note in passing that subdivision (3) of that statute prohibits chokeholds and hogties, but this section took effect only on July 24, 2020, and so is not applicable to the in-custody death of Floyd on May 25, 2020.)

There are also, of course, additional constraints applied to the use of deadly force by police officers.  These additional conditions include, generally speaking, limiting the use of deadly force to the protection of the officer or others from deadly force harm. (Again I feel obliged to note that major sections of this statute, §609.066, including the entirety of section 1a, and some re-writing of section 2, became effective only after Floyd’s death, and those new sections do not apply in this case.)

It’s worth recalling that not even the state of Minnesota prosecuting Chauvin believes that he intentionally used deadly force upon Floyd, or they would have charged him with a crime of intentional homicide, which they have not done. Accordingly, Chauvin is not attempting to raise a justified use-of-deadly force defense, making §609.066 irrelevant in this context.

Chauvin is, of course, accused of recklessly, unintentionally, using deadly force upon Floyd, and of consciously disregarding that risk, but we’ve already addressed the difficulties facing those charges, above.

To put it another way, if the jury believes that Chauvin is guilty of the reckless use of deadly force and of consciously disregarding that risk they will already have found him guilty of either the second-degree manslaughter or third-degree murder charges, or both.

If, on the other hand, the jury has not convicted Chauvin of either the second-degree manslaughter or third-degree murder charge, it means that they do not believe reckless use of deadly force, and conscious disregard of the resultant risks of deadly force harm, have been proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

So, the question in the context of the third-degree assault charge, standing alone, becomes whether Chauvin was justified in using non-deadly force to effect Floyd’s arrest, or for executing any other police duty.

Well, no one disputes that Floyd’s arrest was lawful—the state has suggested it was ill-advised, but that’s a different matter entirely.  Even the state witnesses conceded that everything up to Floyd’s prone restraint was a lawful use of force by the officers.

So was the prone restraint a lawful use of force to effect Floyd’s arrest, under the totality of the circumstances, such that this use of force did not constitute an unlawful assault upon Floyd?

Again, here the facts of this particular case get complicated, and create ambiguity.

The state has suggested that for much of the period of restraint Floyd had stopped resisting arrest, and that from this point forward no further restraint was justified. This is, really, just silly—the state’s own witnesses testified that just because a suspect appeared to have become compliant did not mean they would remain so, and that indeed the fact that the suspect had been violently resisting lawful arrest only minutes before, as Floyd had been here, was a factor to consider in deciding whether to maintain restraint.

Even during the period that Floyd appeared to lose consciousness, continued restraint could well be reasonable. Again, the state’s own witnesses testified that suspects who lost consciousness due to drug overdose, and then revived, were often more violent upon revival than they had been previously—and it had already required three officers to subdue a handcuffed Floyd the first time around.

But in addition, there’s that second justification for the police use of force:  “executing any other duty imposed upon the public officer by law.”

As the state has reminded the court repetitively throughout this trial, police officers have a generalized duty of care to people in their custody.  Is it possible that Chauvin and the other officers were continuing to restrain Floyd not merely for purposes of effecting a lawful arrest, but to meet their duty to care for Floyd in their custody?

The officers had reason to believe that Floyd was suffering from excited delirium, for example—we can hear them discussing the concern on their body worn camera video.  Well, the protocol for excited delirium is full-body restraint of the sufferer, to prevent them from engaging in the over-exertion of large muscle groups that is believed to be the cause of sudden death in these people.

We’ve already noted that suspects who revive in custody are often more violent than they were initially. This applies not only in the context of the officers preventing Floyd from causing injury to them, but also their duty to prevent Floyd from causing injury to himself.  They were prone on a very busy intersection.  If Floyd were released from restraint, then awoke, jumped up, and ran into traffic to be run over by a bus, would the officers have been blamed for failing to meet their duty to care for the suspect in their custody?

Now, that rationale could not apply if the officers believed they were, instead, killing Floyd by restraining him as they did—but as already discussed, even the state does not believe the officers were committing an intentional killing.

If not intentional, however, could the restraint nevertheless have been criminally reckless?  Even if the officers didn’t actually know they were creating a deadly force threat to Floyd—itself a question of causation we’ve already discussed, but assumed here for purposes of discussion—can it be argued that a reasonable officer should have known they were creating a deadly force threat to Floyd?

And here again is where we consider the totality of the circumstances. In a perfect world, perhaps the officers should have recognized that risk.  But this was a far from perfect world.  Floyd was not a compliant suspect, he’d just been fighting off four officers just minutes before—which means, of course, that the officers had been fighting back, a stressful experience for all involved.  Floyd was also on substantial levels of illicit drugs—although the specific nature of the drugs in question could not be known to the officers, creating more uncertainty.  Floyd was large and powerful, as already demonstrated, and not easy to get under control.

The officers also had all the concerns presented by the busy street traffic behind them, itself a potential deadly danger to both themselves and an abruptly revived and perhaps even more violent Floyd.

We also have to consider the presence of the hostile and explicitly threatening crowd.  At one point Chauvin displays his pepper spray to the crowd, a clear indication that he perceived an imminent threat from their conduct.

Further, the apparent danger presented by the crowd was sufficiently real that even the arriving paramedics declined to treat Floyd on site, but rather immediately did a “load & scoot” and travelled three long blocks away before parking to provide intended care.  This effect of the angry crowd would also result in a substantial delay in the Minneapolis Fire Department meeting up with the paramedics to add their own efforts and expertise to Floyd’s care.

Indeed, all the time the officers were restraining Floyd, they were expecting the medical experts to arrive on scene momentarily—even the state’s witnesses testified to the effect that the medical response took much longer than anyone would have had reason to expect.

So given all this—the recent fight with the large and powerful Floyd, the dangers of the street traffic, the apparent danger presented by the hostile and threatening crowd, the unexpected delay in medical professionals arriving on scene—all of this must be considered among the totality of the circumstances in determining whether the officers’ continued restraint of Floyd was reasonable and justified.

And to convict on third-degree assault, the state must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that given the totality of the circumstances the continued restraint by Chauvin and the others was not reasonable and justified, either to effect a lawful arrest, or to meet their duty of care to a suspect in their custody.

Incidentally, to the extent that the reasonableness of the officers’ continued restraint of Floyd under the totality of the circumstances is not disproven beyond a reasonable doubt, that failure would also serve as a perfect defense to all the other criminal charges brought against the officers.  If their use of force was not unlawful period, it cannot be the basis for an assault conviction, and therefore not as a predicate for felony murder, but also cannot be the basis for either second-degree manslaughter or third-degree murder.

If reasonable, it’s not a crime, period.

So, What’s the Predicted Verdict?

I know what you’ve all been waiting for—what’s Andrew’s prediction for a verdict in this case?  I know that because I’ve been asked that question maybe 100 times in just the last couple of days, since the parties rested last Thursday.

First, I hate to disappoint everybody, but I’m a legal professional—I don’t predict verdicts.

Juries are at the best of times dangerous and unpredictable creatures. Their single saving grace is that humans have never yet come up with a superior way to apply law to facts than our American jury system.

Further, in this case we have a great deal of ambiguous facts, and even a remarkably fluid state of the law—in terms of the law, just look at how third-degree murder was in this case, then out, then back in, even as jury selection had already begun.

Now, my inclination is that ambiguity of facts favor the defense—it’s the burden of the state to prove each and every element of the crime charged beyond a reasonable doubt in order to secure a conviction, after all.

Unfortunately for the defense, the video evidence of Floyd’s restraint obviously has had an emotional impact on the public generally, and on many if not all of the jurors in particular, that can easily separate a verdict from a foundation of reasonable application of the law to perceived facts within the constraints of this particular case, to a foundation of emotional outrage and the desire to “make a difference” and “obtain justice” in a broader societal sense.

Also unfortunately for the defense, the political and social dynamics around this case are of an intensity beyond any I’ve ever seen in any criminal trial. Not only are the jurors going to and from the courthouse through riot-like (or even actual riotous) conditions, we now even have a United States Congresswoman on scene outside the courthouse demanding that riots continue if Derek Chauvin is not convicted of premeditated murder—a crime with which he is not even charged in this case.

Either a guilty verdict or not guilty verdict must be unanimous—therefore the entire world will know that every single juror, without exception, will have voted for whatever verdict is arrived at.  Every juror also knows that their identities will ultimately be released to the public, “when safe to do so” if released by the court, perhaps a great deal sooner if leaked.  To what extent are the jurors going to perceive a threat to their safety, and the safety of their families, and to their employment and social standing, if the hand down the “wrong” verdict?

And in this context, it must be said, the “wrong” verdict can only be one of “not guilty.”  While certainly not all protestors are violent rioters, the violence occurring throughout the area of the courthouse specifically and Minneapolis and surrounding neighborhoods generally, is being wrought by those who are demanding “justice for George Floyd,” meaning nothing short of a guilty verdict for Derek Chauvin.

So, however perilous it is to predict the thinking of a jury, and their likely verdict, under the best of circumstances, even for someone who considers himself pretty good at the legal stuff in the legal context, given the tsunami of political and social dynamics around this case, it is difficult to have any degree of confidence that Chauvin’s guilty or innocence will be judged solely on the legal merits of the case.

For what it’s worth, if we were sticking strictly to the legal merits, were I (heaven forbid) on the jury, I would have a sufficient degree of reasonable doubt on each of these criminal charges that I would not be able to vote for guilt on any of them.

That doesn’t mean that it’s a good thing that George Floyd died—it’s definitely not a good thing—nor does it mean that the officers involved did nothing wrong or that they should still be police officers.

It just means that based on the evidence I saw in watching literally every minute of this trial, and having reviewed the relevant law to the best of my abilities, I can’t conclude that these criminal charges have been proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

OK, folks, that’s all I have for all of you today. We will, of course, be continuing to follow the court’s proceedings live, especially tomorrow’s closing arguments and the instruction of the jury.  Once the jury goes into deliberations, we’ll be on VERDICT WATCH! until news of a verdict (or a mistrial) is received.  After that, Professor Jacobson and I will be having an online discussion and Q&A of the case, for your viewing enjoyment, the timing of that obviously being dependent on when an outcome of the case is known. (read more)

Nephew Prince Karl Adolf was said to be named after Hitler

At his wish, Philip’s German relatives attend funeral despite family’s Nazi past

While his mother saved a Jewish family, all 4 of his sisters married German aristocrats tied to Hitler’s party; sister Sophie met, was ‘impressed by charming’ Hitler in early 1930s

Three of Prince Philip’s German relatives were among the small crowd of people who attended his funeral on Saturday, their presence due to his specific request for that side of his family to be represented despite its past Nazi connections.

Two great-nephews and a cousin’s grandson were at the burial procession, held at Windsor Castle, that included just 30 people.

They were Bernhard, hereditary prince of Baden, Prince Philipp of Hohenlohe-Langenburg, and Prince Donatus, landgrave of Hesse.

“It really is an incredible honor and we are all extremely touched and privileged to be included on behalf of the wider family,” Prince Philipp of Hohenlohe-Langenburg said in a statement ahead of the funeral.

Prince Philipp and Bernhard are descendants of Prince Philip’s sisters, whose marriages to German aristocracy caused awkwardness after World War II due to some of them being members of the Nazi party. Prince Donatus’s grandfather, Philip’s cousin, was also a Nazi party member.

Though no members of the German side of his family were invited to Prince Philip’s 1947 marriage to then-Princess Elizabeth due to their Nazi affiliation, in later years the Duke of Edinburgh maintained contact with his German relatives, with whom he had a close relationship.

In a post on his Instagram page last week, Prince Philipp wrote: “Our grieving thoughts and condolences go with Her Majesty the Queen and all of your family in England. Prince Philip was a true gentleman with a great sense of humor, an incredible sense of duty, and a wide range of interests.”

He also wrote that Duke of Edinburgh was “very familiar with us in Langenburg,” where the family home is located.

Philip had four sisters, princesses Margarita, Theodora, Cecilie, and Sophie, all of whom went on to marry German nobles after the family was exiled from Greece in 1922 following a coup that ousted the royal family.

His youngest sister, Princess Sophie, married Prince Christoph of Hesse, a German SS officer, in 1930. One of their sons — the Duke of Edinburgh’s nephew — Prince Karl Adolf Andreas of Hesse, is said to have been named after Adolf Hitler, who they had met in the early 1930s. Sophie in a late-life memoir acknowledged that they were “impressed by this charming and seemingly modest man, and by his plans to change and improve the situation in Germany.” Later, they “changed our political view fundamentally,” she wrote.

Philip’s eldest sister, Princess Margarita, married Prince Gottfried of Hohenlohe-Langenburg of Germany, who was related distantly to Queen Victoria. In 1937 he joined the Nazi party, fought as an officer in the German army during World War II and was badly injured. However, he was reportedly dismissed from the army in the wake of an aborted attempt on Adolf Hitler’s life in 1944.

In 1931, Princess Theodora married Berthold, Margrave of Baden, who was injured as a soldier in the German army during the war.

The same year, Princess Cecilie married the man who would go on to become Grand Duke George Donatus of Hesse. Both joined the Nazi party in 1937. Cecilie, George and three of her children were killed several months later in a plane crash, while a fourth child died of meningitis in 1939 aged two.

Philip, at the time just 16, attended her funeral in 1937 in Darmstadt, near Frankfurt. A photo from the time shows him surrounded by her family members and dignitaries, many of whom wore Nazi uniforms while crowds lining the streets gave the Nazi salute and reportedly cried out “Heil Hitler.”

While Philip would later go on to serve as an officer in the Royal Navy during World War II, two of his brothers-in-law fought with the German forces.

The three descendants that attended the funeral remain key figures in German aristocracy.

Prince Donatus, 54, is the head of the House of Hesse, the household that Philip’s sisters Cecilie and Sophie both married into. His grandfather, Philipp, landgrave of Hesse, joined the Nazi party in 1930 and was close to Hitler, but later ran afoul of the Fuhrer, who had him imprisoned in the Flossenburg concentration camp. His wife, Princess Mafalda, was taken to Buchenwald where she died in a bombing attack on the concentration camp, the Spectator reported in 2006. Philipp was released from Flossenburg by the Allies, interrogated and later released.

Princess Margarita’s grandson, Prince Philipp, 51, and Princess Theodora’s grandson — Bernhard, hereditary prince of Baden, 50 — are both great-nephews of Britain’s Prince Philip.

The three Germans arrived in Britain last week and underwent their mandatory quarantine at a house near Ascot ahead of the funeral.

While Philip’s sisters became intimately tied to the Nazis, his mother, Princess Alice of Greece, saved a Jewish family by hiding them during World War II, earning her the honor of “Righteous Among the Nations” from Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust museum.

Evy Cohen, whose grandmother, uncle and aunt were saved from the Nazis by Princess Alice, described the “extraordinary” princess in an Israeli television interview broadcast as Prince Philip was being laid to rest.

Alice sheltered the family for more than a year.

“At one time the Gestapo came to her residence because they might have heard that there were some Jews in [there],” said Cohen. “She used her true deafness — she could lip-read very very well — but she used her deafness to say she couldn’t understand what they were talking about. So the Gestapo left and never returned.”

Prince Philip, who died on April 9 at age 99 and was laid to rest on Saturday, made a historic visit to Israel to 1994 — the first by a British royal — to honor Alice, who is buried on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem.

He came to accept Yad Vashem’s recognition of his mother as a “Righteous Among the Nations,” for saving the three Cohen family members, and said in a speech at the event that his mother had never told him about her actions.

He was accompanied on that visit by his sister Princess Sophie, the mother, among others, of Prince Karl Adolf Andreas.

In a memoir, written in her old age, Princess Sophie described her admiration for Hitler after having met the Nazi leader and one of his most senior officials, Hermann Goering, the Daily Mail reported in 2015. The memoir was never published, but in 2015 Britain’s Channel 4 aired contents from the personal chronicle.

Sophie wrote that Goering had been very keen for her and her husband to meet Hitler, which they eventually did, hosting them in 1931 or 1932, before Hitler had become the Chancellor of Germany.

“As Goering was insistent we should meet Hitler personally, we decided to ask him to lunch at our flat,” she wrote. “I have to say here, that, although Chri [Prince Christoph] and I changed our political view fundamentally some years later, we were impressed by this charming and seemingly modest man, and by his plans to change and improve the situation in Germany.” (read more)

Teacher’s Union Head Under Fire for “Jewish Ownership Class” Remarks

Randi Weingarten: “American Jews are now part of the ownership class [who] …. now want to take that ladder of opportunity away from those who do not have it.” Unsurprisingly, she also has a longstanding association with activists Linda Sarsour and Tamika Mallory

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and who is Jewish, faced accusations exploiting anti-Jewish sentiment when an interview she had given to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency emerged.

“American Jews are now part of the ownership class. What I hear when I hear that question is that those who are in the ownership class now want to take that ladder of opportunity away from those who do not have it.”

On April 7th, Fox News reported,


Weingarten’s comments sparked outrage, with some also criticizing JTA for seemingly excusing Weingarten’s remarks by mentioning the fact that she and her longtime [lesbian] partner are Jewish. (read more)

Congresswoman Maxine Waters Demands Guilty Verdict in Derek Chauvin Trial, Without It She Encourages Violent Confrontation In The Streets

82-year-old Maxine Waters is one of the most vitriolic racial antagonizers in the nation.  During the George Zimmerman trial Maxine Waters demanded a guilty verdict.  During the investigation of Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson she demanded a murder indictment based on the demonstrably false “hands-up, don’t shoot” claims.  After the 2016 election Waters demanded that people physically confront Trump officials in restaurants and gas stations, “get up in their faces” and make them uncomfortable; in short, Maxine Waters consistently demands political violence.

There is zero doubt in my mind that Obama’s crew of racial antagonists are orchestrating and manipulating events around the trial of Derek Chauvin in the death of George Floyd.  All political arrows are being deployed from the quiver of racial hate and division.  Even the racially driven comments by Meghan Markle on the eve of the trial beginning were not random.   The activated political leftists are once again drum-beating for violent confrontation.

Following her pattern, the California representative traveled to Minnesota’s riot-plagued Brooklyn Center last night and called for people to get even “more confrontational” if Derek Chauvin is acquitted. She is blatantly endorsing political violence and mob anarchy. “We’re looking for a guilty verdict” she said, adding “If we don’t, we cannot go away, we’ve got to get more confrontational.”
(read more and watch video)

One Parent of New York City [Marxist] Indoctrination School [Student] Has Had Enough

Brearley is a private all-girls school on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City.  Tuition costs $54,000 a year and prospective families apparently have to take an “anti-racism pledge” to be considered for admission.  However, one family has had enough of the indoctrination machine and penned an eloquent letter explaining their reason for removing their daughter.

(read more)

“Data Breach” Weaponized Against Supporters of Innocence Until Proven Guilty with Kyle Rittenhouse

A story in The Hill highlights a “data breach” in the Christian donation site GiveSendGo and how that data breach is being weaponized against people who support the standard of ‘innocent until proven guilty’ in the Wisconsin case against Kyle Rittenhouse.   You can read the article HERE, but what I would draw attention toward is not the details of the people being targeted, but rather the process behind the “data breach.”

We have talked about the weaponization of metadata for several years on this website.  Factually we know with certainty that political operatives within the national security apparatus illegally exploit their access to the FBI and NSA database, the totality of all electronic communication, amid Americans.

The NSA has made those factual admissions to the FISA court who are supposed to be the backstop to protect the fourth amendment privacy of our nation.

The fact that no-one has ever been held legally accountable for violating the law and extracting the personal information of U.S. citizens shows how eroded the constitutional protections really are.  Not a single person has ever been arrested or convicted for exploiting their access… so why would it stop?  Short answer: it hasn’t.

As a result every time I read a story that says a “data breach’ is being weaponized for political benefit, my immediate reaction is now to dismiss the oft claimed “hackers” and focus on the most likely source of privacy weaponization: the known and intentional intrusion by government officials and contractors.

It only makes sense that an ideologically aligned donation site to support patriots would be considered a high value target for exploitation by political operatives who need a system to weaponize against their enemy, wrong-thinking Americans.   Is this “data breach” just another example of that?  The answer is most likely, yes.  If you need another frame of reference think about the admitted IRS target list of conservative donors to Tea Party groups.  Another undeniable and factual example that led the IRS to settle a class action lawsuit.

However, beyond the initial value of targeting donors there is another facet that is even more important to contemplate.  Targeting donors is actually small ball, stopping Americans from donating to groups and individuals fighting against the deep state is a bigger goal.   If these individuals can put fear into Americans that their financial support can lead to targeting, well, that financial support might just stop…. THAT is their bigger goal.

With all of that in mind these are not just “data breaches”, these are battles within the ideological war that need to be adequately contemplated.  Who will stand?  Who will remain in the fight?  Who will put themselves ‘out there’, remain courageous, remain strong in the face of the administrative state?



Steadfast doesn’t mean when it’s easy; the term has no meaning when things are working according to our own convenient interests.

Steadfast means standing strong when it’s challenging, difficult and unnerving. Just as courage is not the absence of fear, rather it is taking action despite being fearful; so too is steadfast a decision.

Often when things are disconcerting, we retreat to the place where we are comfortable. However, steadfast is unwavering despite the obstacles and difficulties. When we don’t hold the words to comfort the grieved, yet we show up and sit quietly just to eliminate loneliness, that is a steadfast commitment.

When we see adversity on the face of another, and we choose to engage with our time and comfort, that is a steadfast decision.

[...] Right now our nation is facing a time of extreme trepidation. Nerves are frayed, emotions are raw and individually we find our compass spinning in a way that destabilizes us. Into this climate the originating value of our core assembly becomes critical. CTH remains steadfast & committed to the best hopes and solutions within us. We strive with purpose.

Each day for over a decade we begin with a simple prayer. We host a candle for those who need prayers and support, and we engage purposefully with the intent to cherish the value, wisdom and skills that each unique person brings to the subject matter being discussed.

My personal commitment toward that end has been to remain steadfast and unwavering in defense of this little corner of the internet. To maintain a place where facts can be discovered, truth can be unearthed and honest discussion/opinion can be afforded.

President Donald J Trump represented ‘We The People‘, and as a consequence those within this corrupt system viewed his appearances with the same dismissive outlook they carry toward those who voted for him.

They want to destroy us, so they need to destroy him. They want to destroy our faith, so they need to destroy hope.

They will fail so long as we remain steadfast.

CTH (The Last Refuge) was founded upon this acceptance long before Donald Trump became president in 2016; and the actions by both wings of the UniParty congress over the past five years have been clear evidence of what we always knew was present.

Our current national challenge is to figure out a way to confront this dynamic and then deal with it. However, we must deal with it in a way that does not destroy the founding principles of our constitutional republic. There are many disappointments around us, but we must remain strong and purposeful with any chosen direction. Misplaced corrective action regardless of intent is neither prudent nor wise.

Above all, those who understand the larger issues must remain united and hold a sense of fellowship toward each other if we are to overcome the challenges.

Right now everything around us seems less focused on the pursuit of happiness and more focused on what happiness we are missing. At the heart of that anxiety is this sense of foreboding. A choking sense of fear and worry; a sense of trepidation. Faith in a loving and purposeful God is now more important than ever, embrace it – share it.

This moment in history is where each person of strength holds a higher level of influence, and we should engage in the lives of others to show that strength. Right now people around you are looking for courage, optimism and hope. If you do not provide that to your family, friends and community, you allow the alternative, despair, to take root.

Despair is the foreboding outcome of the evil systems that create it. Recognize despair when you see it, intercept it and eliminate it when you can… AND you always can. Tend to the flickering flame of liberty & teach others, especially our youth, the skills to defend it.

Do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. We are a majority nation of liberty loving independent and free-thinking people; born under a compact to allow each to live their lives according to their own purpose. They control the mechanisms by which we can identify the scale of our assembly.

Often I use the metaphor of Poland in the early 1980’s to describe where we are in 2021 America.  It was a visit by Pope John Paul, and later Ronald Reagan, that took millions to the streets and suddenly they realized: “hey, there are more of us than them”… and things immediately began to change.   Similar to the former Soviet-era control systems, the intent of the modern Big Tech control effort is to crush the reality of our majority position.

We are the majority….

Do not abdicate the duty to protect individual liberty to anyone except yourself. Your dreams are unique to you.

Stay strong for your family…

Stay strong for your community….

Stay strong for our nation… We need each-other.

Steadfast,… and I mean it!

~ Sundance
(read more)

Steny Hoyer: [Mossad Asset and] Hypocrite of the Decade

If you could mash-up all that is disgusting, evil, hypocritical, and idiotic in the US Congress, the resulting conglomeration would look a lot like House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD). His entire career has been spent gorging himself at the trough of the US taxpayer: he’s never had an honest job.

Hoyer is [a] shameless [Momzer]. A fetid product of the bowels of Washington DC – a 20 term (40 year!) Member of Congress who has never met a war he did not want to send poor kids off to fight. He loves war, he loves the Beltway war machine, and his dedication to Israel and to the continued oppression of the Palestinians is limitless. He even brutally attacked fellow Democrat Member Jim Moran (D-VA) for pointing out the worst kept secret in US history: that AIPAC was instrumental in pushing the US into a war on Iraq that in no way served the US interest but did very much serve Israeli government interests.

He was critically responsible for ginning up then-skeptical Democrat Party support for the Iraq war. And when it became clear to anyone with a brain that the Iraq war was, as the late former NSA Director Bill Odom put it, “the greatest strategic disaster in American history,” Hoyer continued to dutifully lead the charge to keep funding that brutal, immoral, anti-American, and counterproductive occupation and continued war on the Iraqi people.

So what’s the latest beef against this supremely corrupt symbol of American decline? His rank hypocrisy.

Steny Hoyer when President Trump announced that he would remove all remaining US troops from the 20 year failed war in Afghanistan:


Steny Hoyer today when [illegitimate] president Biden announced that he would remove all remaining US troops from the 20 year failed war in Afghanistan:


America: do you want to know why we can’t have nice things? The Steny Hoyers of the country who continue to serve up feces and try and convince us it’s delicious chocolate. (read more)

 “Kissinger referred pointedly to military men as ‘dumb, stupid animals to be used’ as pawns for foreign policy.”

- Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein

The DOJ is Lying about the Ashley Babbitt case

The force was excessive so the DOJ punts on "willfulness"

Three days ago, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia issued a press release explaining their decision to not prosecute the officer who shot and killed unarmed protester (and veteran) Ashli Babbitt on January 6, 2021.

It states that DOJ officials, along with the Metropolitan Police Department’s Internal Affairs Division, “conducted a thorough investigation of Ms. Babbitt’s shooting.” This included reviewing video footage, getting statements from officers and other witnesses, collecting physical evidence, and the results of Ms. Babbitt’s autopsy.

They explain:


You’ll notice there’s no mention of a verbal warning to Ms. Babbitt or other efforts to subdue her without the use of deadly force.

Continuing on, the DOJ maintains that the “focus of the criminal investigation was to determine whether federal prosecutors could prove that the officer violated any federal laws, concentrating on the possible application of 18 U.S.C. § 242, a federal criminal civil rights statute.”

The press release focused on the term “willfully”:

The DOJ concluded:


This conclusion should be no surprise. Not because of the law or the facts, but because of the people in charge of the Department of Justice. The U.S. Capitol Police, like the Park Police, have always had a special relationship with the DOJ – one that includes preferential treatment. This case is no different.

For starters, the three basic elements to a prosecution under 18 U.S.C. § 242 are that the defendant (1) acting under color of law; (2) willfully; (3) deprived the victim of a federally protected right.

Excessive force is easy to establish. The Supreme Court has held that the government must introduce evidence that the action of the officer in shooting to kill Babbitt was “excessive in relation” to a legitimate government objective. Kingsley v. Hendrickson, 135 S. Ct. 2466, 2473-2474 (2015). This is an objective standard – the force must be objectively unreasonable when viewed from the standpoint of a reasonable officer at the scene. Here, Babbitt was unarmed, was climbing through a window and not attacking anyone. In response, she is shot and killed. Easily excessive.

This brings us to “willfulness.”

We have serious doubts about the DOJ position that there was “no evidence” to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that the officer willfully violated Section 242. As an initial matter, the DOJ press release neglects to mention whether the officer used excessive force, instead going right to an analysis on willfulness. We believe this reveals their intent to soften the blow of the press release.

As to willfulness, 18 U.S.C. applies “when the defendant understands that he is unjustifiably invading a legally protected interest, or acts in reckless disregard of the law.” However, the defendant need not have been “thinking in constitutional terms,” as long as his “aim was not to enforce local law but to deprive a citizen of a right and that right was protected by the Constitution.” Screws v. United States, 325 U.S. 91, 106 (1945).

Here, the DOJ exaggerates - and at worst, lies - about its “willfulness burden.” We doubt the DOJ couldn’t prove willfulness in this case.

In fact, the DOJ has brought Section 242 prosecutions with less egregious facts.

As the DOJ has argued in other cases, the officer’s prior training on the use of force could be viewed “as evidence that his conduct was willful.” Are we to think that this officer didn’t have training on when force became excessive?

In another case, the DOJ argued to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals that to establish “willfulness,” the jury was required to find that the defendant “intended to use more force than was reasonable under the circumstances – i.e., force that violated [the victim’s] well-established due rights as a pretrial detainee.”

What makes the Babbitt case different? The victim and the location.

This case should have gone to the jury. If this killing took place in Minnesota or Chicago the results would have been different. (read more)

New: Unsealed Records detail FBI/DOJ Jeffrey Epstein/Ghislaine Maxwell cover-up

Our Summary of the Latest Unsealed Records

They always knew.

Today, the DOJ published records unsealed by court order in the Ghislaine Maxwell case. These included a motion and numerous exhibits detailing what the FBI/DOJ - and in particular, the Southern District of New York - knew about the criminal activities of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell back in 2016.

Recall that Epstein was given a sweetheart deal back in 2007. Notes from a meeting in 2016 - read the document here - reveal that a “US Attorney has said [Epstein] could be prosecuted elsewhere.” They failed to act for years, however. (view documents and read more)

Buried Lead – Washington Post Outlines AG Barr As Key Figure Who Blocked Declassification of Spygate Documents


\The Washington Post has a lengthy hit-piece against Kash Patel where they infer unsourced claims the DOJ is investigating the former Nunes aide and Trump administration official for releasing classified information.

Keep in mind that President Trump granted full declassification authority to AG Bill Barr on May 23, 2019.   I would draw your attention to these two paragraphs buried deep in the reporting (emphasis mine):


It is tradition the NSA and CIA run to the Washington Post when they need a media PR firm to push their position. So this article makes sense considering the NSA and CIA both had something to hide within the criminal activity behind Spygate. [Maybe the timing has to do with recent information about the Durham probe.]

Regardless of what has initiated the need for the intelligence apparatus to turn attention toward Kash Patel I think we all understand exactly what is described inside the paragraphs; the stuff the IC couldn’t deal with…. the institutional damage they feared….. and ultimately the reason Bondo Barr went along with their need to keep it all hidden.

The NSA database was illegally being exploited by FBI “contractors” (likely Crowdstrike), and political opposition against Trump was being extracted and shared with the ideologically aligned Clinton group.   After NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers shut down their access, the FBI opened Crossfire Hurricane to overcome the legal hurdle, and surveillance operations began again.

What the intelligence community fears is the American public knowing there is a process of using bulk metadata gathering of electronic communication for operations against politicians, political interest groups, and any entity deemed adverse to the interests of the leftist administration.

Such an admission would lead to an unrecoverable collapse in institutional integrity.  That is why the entire IC apparatus aligned against the declassification.

Robert Mueller had two goals as special counsel.  Goal #1 was to continue the fraudulent DOJ/FBI “Stop Trump” operation initiated by James Comey, Andrew McCabe and their crew technically named Crossfire Hurricane.  Goal #2 was to bury the illegal action; to create the cover-up needed for everything that took place in the “Stop Trump” operation.

It is the second goal that most people never reconciled; however, it is also that second goal that’s the most important.  Everyone in DC knew Mueller’s objective.  Every person in every branch of government and every federal agency knew Mueller’s real purpose.

When you accept what Mueller’s objective was, I mean really accept it, then and only then can you move to the second part of that awakening.  Everyone else knew exactly what that purpose was, including AG Bill Barr and OIG Michael Horowitz. They all knew.

Everything was essentially a process of systemic contingencies; ‘if this, then that’.  If this happens then we react with that.  If this is likely to come out, then we proactively respond with this – that allows control. That is the nature of a cover-up operation.

From that baseline it becomes an exercise in intellectual honesty to see the bigger picture.

The entire system was united against the ‘outsider’ that Trump represented.  Every action taken by Rosenstein, Barr, Wray, Bowditch, Boente, Horowitz and the special counsel team itself was done purposefully, because they knew the Mueller/Weissmann objective was to cover-up all of the unlawful schemes previously used against Trump.

Generally people accept that Mueller Inc was in place to target Trump.  However, the lesser admitted reality is that Mueller was in place to cover for the branches, agencies and institutions that were part of the originating targeting.

All leaks to the media, by any entity – including the special counsel, were purposeful with this goal in mind.  All information released was done purposefully with this goal in mind.  All action taken by those in support of the Mueller unit were taken with full knowledge of what that second goal and intent was.

No-one was ever unaware of the purpose of Robert Mueller.

Everyone knew.

That list of everyone includes: Bill Barr, Rod Rosenstein, James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Lindsey Graham, Ron Johnson, Chuck Grassley, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Susan Rice, Sally Yates, Loretta Lynch, Mitch McConnell, every member of the Senate intel committee; every member of the House intel committee… and yes, including John Durham and every member of every DOJ office everywhere.

The legislative branch knew. The judicial branch knew.  The executive branch knew. The FISA court knew… All of the insiders knew the Mueller probe was one big vacuum to suck up all of the evidence that would have exposed a corrupt system to We The People.

They did all of this because the scale of the originating scandal was so severe it would be almost impossible for our nation to cope with the consequences.  That fearful knowledge is also what’s behind the reality we are currently seeing with thousands of National Guard troops guarding Washington DC…. just in case.  Another systemic contingency.

On TV some voices railed against goal #1, the investigation itself; however, no-one ever publicly talked about goal #2, the cover-up.  Yet they all knew it.

Bill Barr knew the cover-up operation when he repeatedly praised Robert Mueller.  So too did Lindsey Graham and all of the other voices in/around the DC system.

This is why all of those characters acted with disregard for any information that surfaced. They were all participants; and they knew the system would protect itself from sunlight.

Once you begin to accept this uncomfortable truth, then you start to realize just how far some voices went to keep the pantomime going.  Everything was orchestrated to keep everyone focused on the “injustice” within the details.

Think about the last four years, systemic contingencies everywhere. No-one ever publicly talked about what Mueller was really in charge of doing in the goal of protecting the institutions and systems within them.  The people inside that system all knew that Mueller was their protector.  Mueller was protecting very corrupt people.

Everything now visible, the blatant disregard and the ‘in-your-face’ approach with the JoeBama administration, is downstream from that origination point.  That’s why they all walk around as if they do not care…. because they have nothing to worry about.

Start from the position that everyone knew the purpose and intents of Robert Mueller, including people very close to President Trump, and then you start to realize just how brutally corrupt this DC system is.   President Trump was satiated by people who knew Robert Mueller was protecting all of those who tried, and failed, to keep him out of office and then hamstring him once he entered the system.

Everyone knew.

No one did not know.

The only difference is… some were active participants, and some -out of fear- just sat silent to the cover-up operation.  That reality is why the FISA court did not react to Kevin Clinesmith aggressively.

Everyone knew…  And they could not let Trump win reelection. (read more)

“Every time I hear a political speech or I read those of our leaders, I am horrified at having, for years, heard nothing which sounded human. It is always the same words telling the same lies. And the fact that men accept this, that the people’s anger has not destroyed these hollow clowns, strikes me as proof that men attribute no importance to the way they are governed; that they gamble – yes, gamble – with a whole part of their life and their so called ‘vital interests.”

- Albert Camus. Notebooks, 1935-1942

Adam “Lil’ Homicide” Toledo, R.I.P.

Why are we supposed to be outraged?

A 21-year-old fires 8 shots in the middle of the night. Chicago cops chase him and his 13-year-old sidekick. The older one hands the gun to the kid to avoid being charged as an adult. The kid runs off with the gun, turns into an alley with a cop gaining on him. The kid sneakily throws the gun behind a fence (the cop still thinks the kid is armed). The kid turns around, raises his arms and gets shot in the chest.

I could make a snarky, insensitive remark alluding to a theory proposed by a naturalist also known for his long voyage on the H.M.S. Beagle, but I won't.

Instead, let me quote an inspired source: "stipendium peccati mors est, " Romans 6:23.*

Don't cry for him, Little Village.


* Of course, this Latin phrase can also be found in Christopher Marlowe's, The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus.

P.S. During the best years of the Iberian peninsula, when Christians, Jews and Muslims lived together and worked together, a Toledano, (a man from Toledo) was generally a Sephardic scholar or merchant or both. Did Adam Toledo have that potential? Could his life have been turned around?

P.P.S. I still recall being transfixed as a teenager, standing for more than one hour, in front of "The View of Toledo" by El Greco in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan. Go see it and imagine the glory of medieval Spain before the silver from the Indies corrupted their culture and their economy.

Grand Jury Indicts Texas School Board Members for Alleged Critical Race Theory Secret Meetings

“violated the Open Meetings Act as they discussed a racial agenda that was widely opposed by their constituents”

Two days ago, we ran a story about teachers in California who were told to hide Critical Race Theory materials from parents.

Now we are learning of a similar situation in Texas, involving school board members.

Luke Rosiak reports at the Daily Wire:


Rosiak points out that the hiring of a diversity administrator likely would have led to the implementation of Critical Race Training.

Eric Lendrum of American Greatness emphasizes the same point:

The fact that educators in two different states have been caught secretly plotting to implement Critical Race Training in the same week should ring every parental alarm bell that exists.

The left knows that parents don’t want this, but leftists are advancing their agenda anyway, in secret.

These are not people who care about the well-being of your children. (read more)

Matt Gaetz's girlfriend was reportedly paid $6,500 by Joel Greenberg, alleged sex ring leader

Joel Greenberg, the former tax collector for Florida's Seminole County and accused sex trafficker who is reportedly cooperating with a federal investigation of his friend Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), made at least 150 Venmo payments to young women, including a 17-year-old, The Daily Beast reports, citing several documents detailing years of online financial transactions. Greenberg is the linchpin of an alleged sex ring, and "according to three people with knowledge of the relationship, Gaetz was among the men who tapped Greenberg to access a large network of young women."

The Venmo payments, in installments of $300 to $1,000 or more, were typically labeled as being for "food" or "school," though Greenberg also wrote "ice cream," "salad," "stuff," and "ass" in some transactions, or just use emojis like the lipstick kiss, The Daily Beast reports. The documents show only one new Venmo payment from Gaetz to Greenberg, "for $300 on November 1, 2018, with the love hotel emoji in the memo field."

But the documents also show Greenberg in 2017 making at least 16 Venmo payments totaling nearly $5,000 to a woman who would go on to date Gaetz (not his current fiancée), plus another $1,500 via Cash App over two days in April 2017, The Daily Beast reports. "That woman — who came to Washington, D.C., as an intern in January 2018 — has said she dated Gaetz during and after her senior year in college. Federal investigators seized Gaetz's phone in December 2020, and they took his ex-girlfriend's device shortly after."

Gaetz has denied paying for sex or having sex with a 17-year-old, and the one payment he Venmo'd to Greenberg tied to the the underage girl was after she turned 18, The Daily Beast reports. That woman has recently changed all her identifying information on Venmo and apparently defriended Gaetz and two other women Greenberg paid, The Daily Beast says, and Gaetz has lost at least seven Venmo friends in the past week, since the news organization started reporting on the payments. (read more)

Chauvin Trial Day 14 Wrap-Up: Mistrial Narrowly Avoided, Closing Arguments Monday

Defense offered no practicable opportunity to contest Dr. Tobin’s rebuttal testimony

Welcome to our ongoing coverage of the Minnesota murder trial of Derek Chauvin, over the in-custody death of George Floyd.  I am Attorney Andrew Branca for Law of Self Defense.

Today was mercifully brief in duration, but packed full of action—at least, for certain lawyer values of “action,” so let’s dive right in.

Two notable events I’ve already discussed in a breaking news post was the decision of the defense to call no further witnesses—and this included waiving the prospect of having Chauvin appear as a witness to testify on his own behalf.

Chauvin elected to assert his 5A right to not testify, and when offered to have the jury instructed that guilt could not be inferred from his not testifying, he affirmed he wanted that instruction given.  You can see my previous write-up of those events, including court room video of that discussion and exchange, here:

BREAKING: Derek Chauvin Will Not Testify, Asserts 5A Privilege

The big surprise of the day, however, was the state’s sudden claim that they had discovered “new evidence” that justified re-calling state expert witness Dr. Martin Tobin, pulmonologist, to the witness stand to rebut some of yesterday’s testimony by defense expert Dr. David Fowler, a forensic pathologist.
 
The “new evidence” was purportedly just-discovered data on Floyd’s blood oxygen levels when at the Hennepin County Medical Center.

The state wished to have Dr. Tobin testify about that data to rebut suggestions by Dr. Fowler that given the proximity of Floyd’s face to the exhaust of squad car 320, it was possible that Floyd’s carbon monoxide blood concentration could have been as high as 18%–a level Fowler testified was sufficient to be dangerous to Floyd, and a contributing cause to Floyd’s death, given Floyd’s fragile physiology.

As these things tend to go in court, the argument over whether to allow Tobin to be re-called as a witness for this rebuttal purpose took about twice as long as did his actual testimony—but for good reason.

Obviously, this demand for rebuttal by the state, particular on this blood data “discovered” just after Fowler’s testimony ended yesterday afternoon, and with notice provided to the defense only about 5 o’clock in the evening, was about as late in the course of the trial as could be imagined.

Further, the defense expert witness on this subject matter, Dr. Fowler, was presently on a plane flying home while the state was arguing in court for their own expert, Dr. Tobin, to be recalled.

During the discussion about whether Tobin should be permitted to provide additional testimony, the state set out four areas that they wished Tobin to testify about.

First, the state claimed that the Hennepin County Medical Examiner, Dr. Thomas Baker, after hearing Fowler’s testimony yesterday on the carbon dioxide issue, had somehow dug into the hospital’s records and found that Floyd’s blood concentration of CO had, in fact, been measured at the time—but had never been previously produced when the parties had subpoenaed Floyd’s medical records.

The state now wanted these data to be shared with the jury and explained by Dr. Tobin, to rebut Fowler’s claim that Floyd’s CO concentration could have been as high as 18%.

Normally, of course, the state would have been expected to make such arguments in Dr. Tobin’s original testimony, and their failure to do so would not be a good reason to suddenly allow Tobin to re-testify now.

An exception to that normal prohibition on re-testimony, however, can be made if the defense itself had “ambushed” the prosecution with scientific arguments for which they had not provided the state with notice.

Prosecutor Blackwell argued that Fowler’s reference to CO concentrations as high as 18% had never previously been disclosed to the state, and so qualified as just such an “ambush” that justified Tobin’s re-call to the witness stand.

The defense countered that Fowler had explicitly referenced CO as a possible contributor to Floyd’s death in his expert report shared with the state weeks before trial began and had even recommend that the state test the blood for CO concentration.

It was only the state, not the defense, that had possession of the blood.  As a result, the state was on notice with respect to the CO issue, and if they failed to address that issue in a timely manner, that was on them.

Judge Cahill agreed with the defense with respect to this “newly discovered” blood gas level data, and informed the state that if Tobin so much as hinted at this new data, the Judge would order a mistrial had occurred.

That said, Cahill said he would allow Tobin to speak to the CO concentration issue if he only referenced data that had long been available to both parties.  That opened the door to the prosecution having Tobin reference Floyd’s oxygen (rather than carbon monoxide) levels, and use the O level to infer possible CO level.

This is possible because O and CO both compete for the same binding location on hemoglobin, and only one of them can bind any particular hemoglobin protein.  So, a protein bound by O cannot also be available to be bound by CO, and the reverse.

Because the parties were aware that blood gas measurements had indicated that Floyd’s blood had O levels of 98%, it could be inferred that his CO levels could be no greater than the remaining 2%, which was well within normal.

There was also another entirely separate issue that the state also wanted Tobin to provide rebuttal testimony on, and this involved Fowler’s claim yesterday that he had been unable to find any scientific studies supporting Tobin’s earlier claim that the hypopharynx could be narrowed by pressure placed on a person’s back.  Fowler said he had searched the major scientific publication database, known as PubMed, and come up with no results.

The state claimed that Fowler’s reference to this PubMed search was “new evidence” not previously shared with them, again qualifying as “ambush” testimony, and again providing the exception necessary for them to have Dr. Tobin testify on this issue on rebuttal.  The state indicated that Tobin would testify that there were, in fact, a number of scientific papers and studies that supported his claim.

Naturally the defense objected, saying that they would not have any opportunity to research Tobin’s claim of such papers and studies existing, much less of actually reading these materials in order to understand if they supported Tobin’s claim or were subject to effective impeachment.  Further, again, the defense expert witness Fowler was on a plane and not available to the court.

Judge Cahill ruled that Tobin would be permitted to testify as to the existence of such papers on rebuttal, in a summary fashion.

The state also wanted to be permitted to have Dr. Tobin testify again on his earlier claim that the cause of Floyd’s death was hypoxia, or low oxygen, claiming that Dr. Fowler had contested that claim in yesterday’s testimony.

Fowler had claimed that it wasn’t low oxygen induced by positional asphyxia that caused Floyd’s heart to fail, as Tobin had argued, but rather that it was Floyd’s heart failing that had resulted in a low oxygen state.

This was the weakest argument for rebuttal testimony offered by the state.  Really, both Tobin and Fowler agreed that Floyd had evidenced a low oxygen state by various symptoms, such as a particular convulsive leg kick.

Their only disagreement was the precise mechanism that had led to that low oxygen state—Tobin claimed positional asphyxia as the cause, and Fowler claimed cardiac arrest as the cause.

Cahill ruled that Tobin would not be permitted to testify as to this issue on rebuttal.

So, in the end, Tobin was permitted to speak to the issue of inferring a maximum CO concentration in Floyd’s blood of no more than 2% based on the measured O level of 98%, and to inform the jury that he was aware of some 12 to 20 scientific papers that supported the notion that smaller lung volume resulted in a narrowing of the hypopharynx.

Here is that discussion among the parties and Judge Cahill:

(video)

State Direct Questioning of Tobin Rebuttal

That direct questioning on rebuttal was conducted by Prosecutor Blackwell and took only about 8 minutes.  Excitement, of the legal type, occurred about four minutes into direct when Tobin appeared to reference the blood gas data that Cahill had cautioned would result in a mistrial.

Nelson immediately objected, and the court went into a couple of minutes of sidebar, during which I’m sure the defense was asking for a mistrial.

Frankly, in my professional opinion, a mistrial in this case would be entirely warranted, if not from this particular incident in isolation, then from the accumulated harms done to the defense by the state’s untimely dropping of thousands of exhibits on the defense even as the trial proper was taking place, averaging nearly 500 new exhibits each day of the trial.

At the end of that sidebar, however, Blackwell returned to continue his direct of Tobin, so no mistrial, and presumably he was cautioned to avoid mention of the prohibited blood gas data.

(video)

Defense Cross-Examination of Tobin Rebuttal

After Tobin’s rebuttal testimony on direct, there was another lengthy pause in the proceedings, conducted off microphone (and perhaps even in the judge’s chambers rather than in the court room), during which I’m confident that Nelson was once again arguing for a mistrial.

Apparently that argument was to no avail, however, because Nelson did return and conduct cross-examination of Tobin.

Without any real way to prepare for this unexpected testimony, there really wasn’t much he could accomplish.  As a natural consequence of this constraint, his cross took only about two minutes, and you can view that here:

(video)

That ended Tobin’s rebuttal testimony.

Judge Advises Jury to Expect Closing & Deliberations Monday

At this point the state and defense both made the final announcement that they were resting their case in chief, and Judge Cahill turned his attention to the jury.

They would be dismissed for the day, and until Monday at 9:00am CT, at which time they would return to court to hear the closing arguments of the state and the defense, receive their jury instructions, and begin their deliberations.  They were reminded that they were to be sequestered during deliberations, and so were cautioned to “pack a bag.”

On the topic of how much to pack, Cahill suggested that they plan for a long sequestration, and hope it turns out to be a short one, but that ultimately only the jury could decide how long deliberations would take.

The jury was then dismissed.

Discussion re: Charging Conference (Jury Instructions)

After the jury had left, there was a brief discussion about the charge conference for this trial.  The charge conference is where the parties meet with the judge to iron out the precise jury instructions to be given to the jury to guide them in their deliberations.

Obviously, because those instructions guide the jury to either a guilty or not guilty verdict, each party has an interest in trying to bias those instructions in their own favor, both by ensuring that particular desirable instructions are included among those given to the jury, as well as that any customization of the instructions be favorable to their own interests.

Minnesota, like most states, has standardized jury instructions for criminal trials, but standardized instructions are always subject to some customization by a trial judge to best fit the particular facts and legal arguments in a given trial.

I’ve covered the relevant standardized jury instructions likely in this case in a blog post early this week, here:

LIVE: Chauvin Trial Day 12 – Meet the Jury Instructions, Bring On The Defense Case

The selection of the specific instructions to be given to the jury, and discussion of any possible customization of those instructions, are what is hashed out during the charge conference.

Unfortunately for us, Cahill announced that the charge conference in this case will take place in chambers, so will not be subject to observation.  I do expect we will be able to observe the actual reading of the instructions to the jury in court on Monday, however, and if I obtain physical copies of those final jury instructions, I’ll share them, as well.

UPDATE: State & Defense Discussion of Jury Instructions with Judge Cahill [AFB]

Hey, folks.  Apparently the parties spent a couple of hours with Judge Cahill in chambers discussing the jury instructions, outside of the view of cameras, and then came back into the courtroom to establish a 30-minute summary of key points for the court record.–and that 30-minute in-court discussion was made publicly available.

Accordingly, here’s the video of that in-court discussion:

(video)

And that wraps up our coverage of the Chauvin trial for today, folks. Expect to see us back with live coverage of the court’s proceedings on Monday morning, and perhaps a post to carry us over the weekend if some interesting topic strikes my fancy in the interim. (read more)

Western man towers over the rest of the world in ways so large as to be almost inexpressible. It’s Western exploration, science, and conquest that have revealed the world to itself.

Other races feel like subjects of Western power long after colonialism, imperialism, and slavery have disappeared.

The charge of racism puzzles whites who feel not hostility, but only baffled good will, because they don’t grasp what it really means: humiliation.

The white man presents an image of superiority even when he isn’t conscious of it.

And, superiority excites envy.

Destroying white civilization is the inmost desire of the league of designated victims we call minorities.

- Joseph Sobran, April, 1997

White Supremacist - A Caucasian who is not a white submissionist.

White Supremacy

Social Justice Usage

…


New Discourses Commentary

As the above remarks make clear, Critical Social Justice does not (always) use the definition for “white supremacy” that most of us think goes with this term, which would evoke images of Neo-Nazis and the KKK. Indeed, Robin DiAngelo (also along with Ozlem Sensoy) specify repeatedly that they are not using that common-parlance definition and mean something else entirely, namely white power and privilege. Similarly, Collins completely equates white supremacy with “Eurocentrism,” which doesn’t carry anything remotely like the meaning most of us associate with “white supremacy.” These terms, like so many in Social Justice, are designed to explicitly connect happening to be white with participation in a system of dominance and oppression that marginalizes people of color and aims to preserve unjust white advantages in society (see also, privilege). (NB: Some authors do restrict the meaning of “white supremacy” to something nearer to the common-parlance meaning of the term.)

White supremacy, in common parlance, refers to the belief that there is something about being white that renders people intrinsically superior to those of other races (and, in the extreme, that this is necessarily actionable). Under Theory, especially Critical Race Theory, white supremacy typically means something entirely different. In Social Justice, then, “white supremacy” is the name given to the “racist” system, an attitude of “support” for that system, being comfortable in that system (see also, white comfort, white equilibrium, white innocence, and white ignorance), or witting or unwitting complicity with that system (see also, white complicity). Complicity in this sense is usually taken to mean anything short of actively fighting against systemic racism as prescribed by critical race Theory. Thus, a white supremacist is anyone who is not actively antiracist, according to the critical definition of antiracism, which is to say anyone who is not sufficiently woke with respect to race (especially if that person is also white).

It bears repeating that while in the preceding paragraph, the phrase “an attitude of ‘support’ for that system” appears to lend legitimacy to this understanding of “white supremacy,” the idea of “support” is defined very broadly under Critical Social Justice. Supporting the system—which Critical Race Theory assumes is racist, even if this assumption wouldn’t bear scrutiny or skepticism—includes just about everything. In particular, critical theories (e.g., whiteness studies) consider as “support” not actively dismantling the entire system in which it is alleged to occur, i.e. a social revolution, and taking active steps to facilitate that program. It also includes supporting things like liberalism, science, reason, civility, dialogue, free speech, and any number of other fundamental principles one might not immediately assume have anything to do with “whiteness” or being “white” (see also, ideology, equality, individualism, meritocracy, human nature, universalism, and master’s tools.)

For examples, belief in or support for activities including keeping a schedule, working to accomplish an agenda, or asking for evidence to back up one’s assertions can all be filed under a rubric of “white supremacy” as Critical Social justice sees it. This seems strange, but it is because those things are considered within Theory to have been created by white people as features of “white society” that implicitly or explicitly “do work” to support white privilege. Acceptance of these attitudes by white people will be modeled under internalized dominance and by people of color under internalized oppression, particularly internalized racism or internalized anti-blackness (see also, acting white), which are all forms of false consciousness that are believed to maintain and uphold social injustice (see also, hegemony, critical consciousness, Neo-Marxism, and Cultural Marxism).

This is because Critical Social Justice scholars have Theorized those things as cultural artifacts of the very “white supremacist” culture that they are attacking, sometimes because of legitimate historical connections to white supremacy (see also, race and Critical Race Theory) and sometimes because the majority of the people involved in those concepts happened to be white and/or European (see also, structuralism, social constructivism, and Foucauldian). Under the model of knowledge and its relationship to power operative in Critical Race Theory (see also, discourses and postmodern), all knowledge is merely a product of the culture that produced it, and after Critical Race Theory took pains in the 1980s and 1990s to reify race and racial identity for the purpose of identity politics, cultures and all artifacts of those cultures are assumed to intrinsically carry the racial biases of the people who are “dominant” within them (see also, position, racial knowledge, and standpoint epistemology).

Among other things, like calling essentially every white person and any person of color who disagrees with the Critical Social Justice ideology (especially Critical Race Theory) a “white supremacist” (see also, white fragility, white silence, and white complicity), this alternative meaning for the term allows critical race Theorists to link the relatively minor racial discrepancies of today to the genuine white supremacy upon which institutions such as slavery were built (see also, 1619 Project). This is a tactical redefinition of an extremely morally salient term—a Trojan Horse in the form of vocabulary. (read more)

It doesn’t really matter. As black-pilled E. Michael Jones always points out, the federal courts’ role is to enforce the wishes of the oligarchs. The Supreme Court’s role is to come up with legal mumbo jumbo to make the wishes of the oligarchs the law of the land. The tyranny of the minority.

Most Americans were against gay marriage. Tough, the oligarchs wanted it so the Supreme Court made it the law of the land.

We’ve already seen Kavanaugh and ACB (“I cried over George Floyd’s death… my black children”) betray Trump and 74 million-125 million Americans by not bothering to even hear the post-election fraud cases. But what does it really matter that 125 million don’t trust the “democratic” process.

America is “on the clock”, as oncologists say about stage 4 patients.

- Anonymous

EXCLUSIVE: Daunte Wright had a warrant out for his arrest for attempted aggravated robbery charges after 'choking and holding a woman at gunpoint for $820 in 2019,' court papers reveal

•Daunte Wright was shot dead by Brooklyn Center Police Officer Kimberly Potter Sunday after he was pulled over for 'expired license plate tags'
•DailyMail.com can reveal that Wright, 20, had a warrant out for his arrest for attempted aggravated robbery charges at the time
•Charging papers allege Wright and a second man, Emajay Driver, attended a party in December 2019 at the home of two women in Osseo, Minnesota
•The women allowed the pair to crash after they said they didn't have a ride home
•The next morning, after one of the women went to withdraw $820 in rent money, Wright allegedly held her at gunpoint and demanded she give him the cash
•His bail was originally set at $100k with orders that he should not contact the victim or any witnesses, refrain from drugs and alcohol and not have any weapon
•It was revoked in July last year due to his 'failure to not possess a firearm or ammunition' and not keeping in touch with his probation officer  
•DailyMail.com has also learned that online speculation that Wright did not know there was a warrant out for his arrest is false

Daunte Wright choked a woman and threatened to shoot her if she did not hand over $820 she had stuffed in her bra, court papers obtained by DailyMail.com allege.

That is the case that led to a warrant for his arrest at the time he was shot and killed by police officer Kimberly Potter in Minnesota on Sunday, leading to days of unrest.

And online speculation that he did not know there was a warrant out for his arrest is false, DailyMail.com has learned. A letter returned to the court for having a wrong address was giving notice of a court date in August and had nothing to do with the warrant.

Wright, 20, was shot dead in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota on Sunday by Potter, 48, a 26-year veteran in the Brooklyn Center Police Department.

She says she mistakenly grabbed her gun instead of her taser. After the gun fired, she is heard on body camera saying: 'Holy s**t I shot him.' Potter and Brooklyn Center police chief Tim Gannon both resigned on Tuesday.

Wright was allegedly pulled over for having expired license plate tags, although he called his mother and told her it was for having an air freshener hanging on his rear-view mirror. While checking his details, Potter and other officers learned of the warrant.

When they tried to handcuff him, Wright got back into his car and at that point Potter shot him in the chest after warning fellow officers to get out of the way by shouting, 'Taser, taser, taser.'

Wright was due to face trial on a charge of attempted aggravated robbery - with a possible maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.

Charging papers say he and a second man, Emajay Driver went to a home shared by two women in Osseo, Minnesota 'to party' in December 2019. At the time, Wright was 19 and Driver was 18.

The women asked them to leave around 2.30 am on December 1, but they said they didn't have a ride and the women - who are not identified in the court documents - allowed them to sleep on the floor.

In the morning, one of the women went to the bank to get her $820 rent money which she gave to the other woman and then left for work. As Wright, Driver and the second woman were leaving, Wright allegedly tried to hold up the woman.

'The three of them were walking to the door to exit the apartment and defendant Wright turned around and blocked the door preventing victim from leaving,' says the report, written by Osseo Police Officer Shane Mikkelson.

'Defendant Wright then pulled a black handgun with silver trim out from either his right waistband or his right coat pocket and pointed it at victim and demanded the rent money,' continued Mikkelson.

'Victim said "Are you serious?" Defendant Wright replied: "Give me the f**king money, I know you have it."

When the woman again asked him if he was serious, Wright is said to have replied: 'I'm not playing around.'

Mikkelson's report said: 'The $820 cash was tucked in the victim's bra and defendant Wright placed his hand around victim's neck and choked her while trying to pull the cash from under her bra.

'Victim was able to get loose from defendant Wright and started to kneel down and scream.'

After more yelling, Wright allegedly told the woman that he was going to shoot her unless he got the money.

'Give me the money and we will leave,' he allegedly said. 'Give me the money and we will go.'

Mikkelson added: 'Defendant Wright then tried to choke victim a second time and tried to take her money. Defendant Driver was telling her to give defendant Wright the money.

'Defendant Driver then said: "Let's go," and the two defendants left and got into a white Cadillac and left the scene,' wrote Mikkelson.

'Afterwards, victim found that the cash was still in her bra.'

Mikkelson said the woman identified both Wright and Driver through photo line-ups.

Wright's bail was originally set at $100,000 with orders that he should not contact the victim or any witnesses, refrain from drugs and alcohol and not have any weapons. A bond bailsman paid $40,000 for his release.

But his bail was revoked in July last year due to his 'failure to not possess a firearm or ammunition' and not keeping in touch with his probation officer, court papers show.

At that time a judge issued a warrant for his arrest, that was still outstanding on the day he died.

In recent days several people have claimed on the Internet that Wright may not even have known about the warrant because it was sent to the wrong address and returned to the court by the US Postal Service.

But that letter, sent out on February 2 and returned to the court three days later was just to advise Wright of a change of date for his court hearing.

It was sent to an address in Minneapolis and marked 'Return to Sender. No such number. Unable to forward' by the USPS.

Wright's killing, just 10 miles from the scene of George Floyd's death in Minneapolis last May, has led to unrest in Minnesota and nationwide.

Overnight protests broke out in New York, Washington, D.C., Portland, Seattle and elsewhere.

Police officer Potter's five-bedroom home was surrounded by cops unloading barricades on Tuesday after her address was leaked online.

A police source told DailyMail.com that they anticipate protests later and said they are taking precautions to prevent the home being wrecked.

'We learned from [Derek] Chauvin. His house got totally smashed up in the protests,' the source said.

Potter left the property late last night with her 54-year-old husband Jeff and their sons Sam and Nick.

Jeff Potter, retired from cop work with the Police Department in Fridley, Minnesota, in 2017 after 26 years. He now works as a corporate investigator at Allina Health. A relative was also spotted at the home on Tuesday morning, taking a series of cardboard boxes out of the property and loading them into his car.

Police sources told DailyMail.com that Potter and her family have left the area entirely.

In an interview with Good Morning America on Tuesday, Wright's parents Katie and Aubrey said they could not accept their son's death was a mistake.

'I cannot accept that. I lost my son, he's never coming back. I can't accept a mistake, that doesn't even sound right,' Aubrey said.

'This officer has been on the force for 26 years.'

Wright's mother added that she wants Potter to be held accountable for 'everything she's taken from us'.

His aunt, Naisha Wright, had earlier called for Potter to be jailed for 'not knowing the difference between a fully loaded pistol and a taser'.

'Accident? An accident? No, come on now! I own a 20,000 volt taser. They don't feel nothing like a gun,' she told CNN. 'My family's blood is on their hands.'

Naisha has denied that her nephew's license plate tag was expired, as police have said. She also said a misdemeanor warrant that was out for her nephew was 'just for some weed'.

Wright's shooting death has sparked violent protests and unrest in the city that is already on edge because of the trial of Derek Chauvin, the first of four police officers charged in George Floyd's death.

Police Chief Tim Gannon released footage of the incident from Potter's bodycam that showed her and two other officers approaching Wright's car after he had been pulled over for the traffic stop.

The footage showed one officer trying to handcuff Wright as a second officer told him he was being arrested on a warrant. Wright immediately jumped back into his car in an apparent attempt to flee.

A struggle then broke out between the officers and Wright, who was still sitting inside his car.

'I'll Tase you! I'll Tase you! Taser! Taser! Taser!' Potter could be heard shouting in her bodycam video.

Immediately after, Potter can be heard saying: 'Holy sh*t. I shot him'.

Potter and Tim Gannon both resigned on Tuesday amid mounting pressure for Potter to step down.

In her resignation letter, Potter - who has worked for the department for 26 years - did not address the deadly shooting that has sparked two days of violent protests and unrest across the city.   

'I have loved every minute of being a police officer and serving this community to the best of my ability, but I believe it is in the best interest of the community, the department and my fellow officers if I resign immediately,' Potter said.

Potter, a married mother-of-two, had been on administrative leave since the shooting.  

Brooklyn Center Mayor Mike Elliot also announced the resignation of Potter's police chief boss.

Gannon was the one who revealed during a tense press conference a day earlier that Wright's death was the result of 'accidental discharge' after Potter mistook her taser for a gun. 

The resignations came as pressure mounted for Potter to be fired, including from Mayor Elliot.

Police have said a struggle broke out as they tried to arrest Wright after running his name and realizing he had an outstanding warrant.

Authorities have not confirmed the nature of the warrant but court records show Wright was being sought after failing to appear in court last month on misdemeanor charges that he fled from officers and possessed a gun without a permit during an encounter with Minneapolis police last June.

His aunt has said the warrant was for marijuana possession.    

The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension is the agency investigating Wright's death.

Ben Crump, a civil rights attorney who helped the family of George Floyd win a $27million legal settlement against the city of Minneapolis, is also representing the Wrights. 

In a tweet, Crump said he believed that Potter 'knew exactly what she was doing' in a previous case which he said she told officers how to 'obscure accountability'.

He wrote about the previous incident involving Dimock-Heisler and Potter, saying she 'taught officers who fatally shot Kobe Dimock-Heisler how to protect themselves & obscure accountability'.

Crump, quoting a Hennepin County Attorney's Office report, wrote that Potter had previously instructed two police officers in the previous case to 'exit the residence, get into separate squad cars, turn off their body worn camera, and to not talk to eаch other.

'Of course Kim Potter knew exactly what she was doing. She knew how to obscure the truth. In that instance, her actions were clearly intentional,' he wrote. 

Wright's mother Katie Wright has previously described her son calling her in the moments before he was shot to say police had pulled him over for having air fresheners dangling from his rear-view mirror.

It is illegal in Minnesota to have anything hanging from a rear-view mirror.

She said he called her to get insurance information for the vehicle because she recently gave the car to him.

Describing the call, Wright's mother said: 'I said when the police officer comes back to the window, put him on the phone and I will give him the insurance information.

'Then I heard the police officer come to the window and say, 'Put the phone down and get out of the car.' And Wright said 'why'. He said, 'We'll explain to you when you get out of the car.''

'A minute later, I called and his girlfriend answered, who was the passenger in the car, and said that he'd been shot and she put it on the driver's side, and he was laying there lifeless,' Katie told gathered media on Sunday afternoon.

'I heard scuffling, and I heard police officers say, 'Daunte, don't run,'' she said through tears. The call ended, and she dialed his number again. His girlfriend answered and said he was dead in the driver's seat.

Speaking before the unrest broke out, Wright's mother had urged protesters to stay peaceful and remain focused on the loss of her son.

'All the violence, if it keeps going, it's only going to be about the violence. We need it to be about why my son got shot for no reason,' she said to a crowd near the shooting scene in Brooklyn Center.

'We need to make sure it's about him and not about smashing police cars, because that's not going to bring my son back.' (read more)

Documents for two cases Insider reviewed are publicly available via a records website run by the Minnesota court system.

First case: Wright was accused of carrying a weapon without a permit and fleeing from the police.

Documents in the case are filed under 27-CR-21-4400.

They detail charges that Wright carried a pistol without a permit and ran from the police.

A complaint filed on March 4 said that Wright had had an encounter with the police on June 30 in Minneapolis.

It said officers responded to a call about a man with a gun and found Wright in a car with other people.

The complaint said Wright ran away from the officers, who chased but did not catch him. It said a loaded handgun was found in the car

BREAKING: Derek Chauvin Will Not Testify, Asserts 5A Privilege

State recalls Dr. Tobin, pulmonologist, to rebut yesterday’s testimony by defense expert Dr. Fowler

The defense has announced that Derek Chauvin will not testify on his own behalf, instead asserting his 5A privilege. He has also asked Judge Cahill to give the relevant jury instruction that he is not obligated to testify, and that guilt cannot be inferred from his declining to testify.
[...]
Finally, the defense is calling no more witnesses, and will rest shortly.

The state, however, is calling Dr. Tobin to rebut some of Dr. Fowler’s testimony later. (read more)

Chauvin Trial Day 13 Wrap-Up: Solid Day for Defense With Forensic Expert Witness

Blackwell scored no major points, hit with “My Cousin Vinny”-style response

Welcome to our ongoing coverage of the Minnesota murder trial of Derek Chauvin, over the in-custody death of George Floyd.  I am Attorney Andrew Branca for Law of Self Defense.

Overview

Today saw the testimony of only one witness, but it was a witness of great importance to the defense, and therefore one whose testimony the state would perceive as important to damage.

This was the defense medical expert witness Dr. David Fowler, a retired forensic pathologist.

To not bury the lead, Dr. Fowler did what the defense needed done today, and did it well. That’s not to say his performance was perfect—he took a few hits off Prosecutor Jerry Blackwell during cross-examination, and could have done better deflecting some of those attacks.

At the same time, however, Blackwell’s rather over the top cross-examination of Fowler was initially too aggressive for Judge Cahill’s liking, resulting in a rapid sidebar and a more restrained Blackwell moments later, and Blackwell’s resort to snark led him to overreach several times, providing opportunities for defense counter-attack that defense counsel Eric Nelson did not pass up.

So, overall, a good day for the defense today, when they very much needed one, especially after the weak performance of defense expert witness Barry Brodd yesterday.

I’ll dive into the testimony of Dr. Fowler in some detail in a moment, but first let me touch upon a couple of housekeeping matters that were addressed this morning prior to the jury being brought into the court room.

First, the defense finally made its motion for acquittal, the prosecution argued against that motion, and Judge Cahill denied the motion. This was all entirely predictable.

The legal standard for acquittal that Cahill was obliged to apply was to assume that everything the state claimed was 100% true, and then decide if a reasonable jury could possible arrive at guilty verdict under those circumstances.

Unless the prosecution is entirely inept—and this one is not—or the evidence was unambiguously lacking on a required element of a charged crime—and the prosecution made sure that wasn’t allowed to occur—there is always at least some evidence for a jury to consider.

Once that’s the case, and we are required to view that evidence not impartially but in the light most favorable to the prosecution, a guilty verdict is always at least theoretically possible.

So, that took care for the motion for acquittal, as expected.

The next housekeeping involved Morries Hall, the male passenger in Floyd’s Mercedes SUV at the time of his in-custody death on May 25, 2020, who is also reported to be a drug dealer and who is currently in jail with his own legal challenges.

[Editor's note: Hall, when asked by the park policeman to identify himself, answered, "Ricky Ricardo." Was that a criminal alias or a nickname?]

The defense had originally planned to call Hall as a witness in this case, focused particularly on Floyd’s drug use and intoxicated behavior when officers first approached the Mercedes SUV.

Hall eventually realized, however, that he was potentially on the hook for third-degree murder over Floyd’s apparent drug overdose death, and through his public defender he informed the court that if called to testify he would plead the Fifth Amendment.

There were various arguments made at various times about the extent to which it might be possible to have the defense subpoena Hall into this trial to testify, but in the end that was all resolved this morning.

Hall asserted a blanket 5th Amendment privilege to any and all questions he might be asked having anything to do with George Floyd on May 25, 2020, Judge Cahill acknowledged that privilege, and thus expired any hope the defense might have had to get Hall on the witness stand.

Frankly, I’m not sure it really matters that much. Given the toxicology results showing fentanyl and meth in Floyd’s system, the pills coated in Floyd’s saliva found in the patrol car, the testimony of the Cup Foods clerk that Floyd appeared “high,” and the testimony of female SUV passenger and Floyd ex-girlfriend Shawanda Hill of Floyd apparently succumbing to a fentanyl overdose while in the vehicle, I’m not sure how much more Morries Hall would have added to an unambiguous narrative of Floyd being intoxicated.

In any case, that took care [of] any questions over Hall’s assertion of his 5th Amendment privilege and whether he would testify in the Chauvin trial—he would not.

Defense Expert Witness Dr. David Fowler, Forensic Pathologist

As already noted above, Dr. Fowler was a very solid expert witness for the defense today, and generally presented as extremely experienced and competent.  His South African accent probably didn’t hurt, either. Despite the accent, Fowler had worked as a forensic pathologist for a couple of decades, primarily in various senior medical examiner-type roles for the state of Maryland.

Before we dive in further, recall that the prosecution really has to prove two distinct arguments in order to win a conviction on the legal merits in this case.

First, they have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Chauvin’s conduct was a substantial contributing factor in Floyd’s death.

That alone, however, is not enough. They must also prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Chauvin’s use of force was not legally justified.  A justified use of force that even directly caused Floyd’s death would not be criminal conduct.

Yesterday’s testimony by defense use-of-force expert witness Barry Brodd was intended to establish reasonable doubt on the justified use of force question, and that didn’t go particularly well, as we noted here:  Chauvin Trial Day 12 Wrap-Up: Defense Use-of-Force Expert Witness Falls Short

Today’s testimony by Dr. Fowler was intended to establish reasonable doubt that Chauvin’s conduct was a substantial contributor to Floyd’s death. As noted, Fowler did a reasonably good job today. Whether it was sufficient to the needs of the defense, ultimately only the jury can decide.

Fowler Direct Questioning

As is always the case with expert witnesses on direct, the first 20 minutes or so were spent by defense counsel Eric Nelson stepping through Fowler’s education, experience, publications, professional associations, and all the other facets of his career that imbue him with the necessary authority and credibility to serve effectively as an expert witness.

One interesting facet of Fowler’s testimony is that although currently retired from his full-time jobs, he apparently consults for a private enterprise panel of various medical experts.  My sense was that this was in effect a business designed to provide high-end scientific consultancy to the legal community.

This arrangement also allows any single member of the business to involve others with distinct scientific expertise to inform their own scientific analysis, providing a much broader base of scientific expertise than any individual was likely to possess.

Now with the defense presenting its case in chief, the mission for defense counsel Nelson is to establish reasonable doubt on either of those arguments.  That is, establish either a reasonable doubt that Chauvin’s use of force was unlawful, or establish a reasonable doubt that Chauvin’s conduct was a substantial contributor to Floyd’s death.

As one should expect from a retained expert witness, Dr. Fowler was prepared to say the magic words that the defense needed said, in the context of having formed an opinion, to a reasonable degree of professional certainty, as to the cause and manner of George Floyd’s death.

And that opinion is:


Contributory conditions that led to this fatal outcome included Floyd’s existing heart disease (substantial coronary artery occlusion, and pathological hypertension resulting in an enlarged heart), fentanyl and methamphetamine toxicity, an existing paraganglioma, and another factor mentioned for the first time today, exposure to carbon monoxide from the exhaust of squad car 320.

In his direct questioning of Fowler defense counsel, Eric Nelson touched upon a broad array of issues where the prosecution during its case in chief had raised apparent vulnerabilities for the defense.

For example, the state had made frequent reference to the death certificate citing the manner of death as having been “homicide.”

Most of us will recognize that the use of the word “homicide” on a death certificate has solely medical consequences and is not a legal finding of any sort.  Indeed, even in a legal context a homicide is not always a crime.

There is always the risk, however, that a jury will apply the lawman’s meaning of “homicide” to mean “unlawful killing,” and Nelson took steps to address this.

First, he reminded the jury of the medical versus legal application of homicide with respect to the death certificate. He also had Dr. Fowler step through the various components of a death certificate to clarify where an actual cause of death was being asserted, and by what means.

Nelson also had Fowler step through the five options for manner of death—homicide, suicide, accident, natural, and undetermined—to which he would circle back later.

The real take home message in all of this was that Fowler agreed that low oxygen played an important role in Floyd’s death—but it was the manner in which that low oxygen state was achieved that made the difference in this case.

More specifically, the state was essentially arguing that it was the subdual restraint by the officers upon Floyd that induced positional asphyxia, a low oxygen state, and a consequent fatal arrhythmia in Floyd’s heart.

Fowler’s view, however, was that it was not a profound low oxygen state induced by the police via subdual restraint and positional asphyxia that caused Floyd’s heart to stop, but rather that it was Floyd’s exceptionally fragile physiological condition—a condition unknowable to the arresting officers—that made his heart exceptionally vulnerable to even the modest shortfall in oxygen caused by Floyd’s decision to fight arrest, resulting in the cardiac arrest.

According to the defense narrative it was, in effect, Floyd’s own physiological fragility that killed him when he chose to subject himself to the justified use of force by police officers compelling his compliance with lawful arrest, including his forcible 10-minute struggle with multiple police officers and subsequent restraint.

This fragile physiological condition was the result, again, of Floyd’s severe coronary artery occlusion, his pathological hypertension resulting in an enlarged heart, his [long-term] abuse of fentanyl and methamphetamine, not to mention smoking both marijuana and cigarettes, his paraganglioma tumor, and even his acute exposure to carbon monoxide while being restrained by police.

As one might expect, Nelson had Fowler step through the various facets of this narrative of Floyd’s “death by fragile physiology” in considerable detail, touching upon every major component of that narrative in a well-informed and expert manner, delivered in a tone of quiet competence.

This was a sharp contrast from the expert witness testimony of use-of-force expert Barry Brodd, whose narrative on defense was rather scattershot, not at all as comprehensive as the defense needed it to be and left many points of vulnerability for attack by the prosecution on cross-examination.

Again, I’m not sure how much of that mess was the fault of Brodd and how much of Nelson, but I am sure that it is Chauvin who is on the hook for that misstep, either way.

I won’t touch upon every single facet of Fowler’s scientific testimony in the detail given at trial—I’ve provided the videos of this testimony below for that level of detail.

Here I’ll just note that Nelson had Fowler explain why Floyd could have died of a cardiac arrest even in the absence of apparent damage to heart muscle cells; how a sudden arrhythmia would have resulted in a low oxygen condition; how Floyd’s enlarged heart induced by his pathological hypertension would have made him particularly vulnerable to even a modest drop-off of oxygen and other resources; how Floyd’s profound coronary artery occlusion made him even more vulnerable in this manner; how Floyd’s heart disease primed him for a fatal arrhythmia; and perhaps an abrupt release of adrenaline from Floyd’s paraganglioma found in his lower abdomen.

All of this fragile physiology was further primed for catastrophic failure by various environmental factors, including Floyd’s fentanyl toxicity, which reduced respiration and thus desperately needed oxygen; Floyd’s methamphetamine use, which increased the heart’s demand for resources even as it reduced his body’s ability to deliver those resources, as well as fostering failure of Floyd’s biological “pacemaker” that prevents fatal arrhythmia; the adrenaline released by the “fight or flight” response triggered by Floyd’s decision to physically resist arrest; and perhaps even acute exposure to carbon monoxide being exhausted from squad car 320, whose exhaust pipe was only about a foot or so from Floyd’s face, which would have bound up a substantial portion of Floyd’s hemoglobin and further reduced his oxygen-carrying capacity.

Nelson also had Fowler address the lack of any indication of physical injury, not even bruising much less broken bones or cervical damage, to Floyd’s neck and back, when in Fowler’s lengthy experience in working with such cases signs of injury were common.  Nelson also took the same approach to the state’s arguments that it was pressure on Floyd’s hypopharynx that caused his death—Fowler had never seen that occur and found no reference in the literature to it having ever occurred, as a result of external pressure (as opposed to some ingested obstruction, such as a chunk of food, or an internal tumor).

Nelson also had Fowler speak authoritatively with respect to a number of studies of positional asphyxia that substantially undermined the state narrative that this was a clearly deadly restraint procedure that any reasonable officer should have known created a lethal danger to a suspect.

Indeed, the studies indicated that even lengthy periods of subdual prone restraint while subject to weights of as much as 225 pounds showed little tendency to induce hypoxia in otherwise healthy subjects.

As we’ll see, this part of Fowler’s direct testimony would prove particularly offensive to the state, as revealed during cross-examination.

Obviously, all of this presents quite a different image of Floyd’s death than the “blood choke” described by MMA “expert” Donald Williams, the external or internal respiratory choke claimed by another state witness, the forcible compression of Floyd’s respiratory physiology claimed by still others, or any of the other state narratives of how the conduct of Chauvin or the other officers was a substantial, rather than lawful and incidental, contributor to Floyd’s death.

In short, as one should expect, there was little drama in the direct questioning of Dr. Fowler, which you can view here:

(video)

Fowler Cross-Examination

The cross-examination of Dr. Fowler was conducted by Prosecutor Jerry Blackwell, whose performance here is perhaps best described as contemptuous, argumentative, full of snark, and misleading to the point of arguably qualifying as propagating outright false narratives to the jury.

Before I go on, I do feel obliged to note that as negative as that description of Blackwell’s performance is, that does not mean that it was ineffective. Many prosecutors intentionally adopt such aggressive cross-examination precisely because it works.

It can throw the witness off-balance and badger the witness into passively acceding to the angry attorney’s portrayal of the testimony, if only to make getting off the witness stand come sooner than might otherwise be the case.

Please, just make it stop! I’m afraid we saw a bit of this yesterday during Prosecutor Schleicher’s equally aggressive cross-examination of defense use-of-force expert witness Barry Brodd.

And, it must be said, there was a bit of that reaction from Fowler, as well.  When I write that Fowler did a solid job, but not a perfect job, I’m referring to those portions of his cross-examination where he appeared off-balance and malleable to the pressures being applied [by] Blackwell.

Blackwell began his cross-examination on fire, with contempt dripping from his voice, and engaging Fowler in a manner that to this small-town attorney was outrageously disrespectful and argumentative.

This aggressive approach to Fowler began with a line of questions that superficially asked Fowler how an expert should reasonably approach a case, but which were obviously intended to suggest to the jury that Fowler had approached the case in an entirely unreasonable manner.

You would agree that an expert witness should be objective?  Yes. Fair? Yes. Impartial? Yes. You agree that you should be thorough? Yes. In order words, that you should do your [damned!] homework before coming into court? Yes. [AFB: Emphasis added.]

An expert shouldn’t jump to conclusions? Yes. Shouldn’t connect facts in a way that’s biased? Yes. Shouldn’t cherry pick facts? Yes. Shouldn’t intentionally confuse the jury? Yes.

I was about ready for Blackwell to ask Fowler to agree that an expert witness in a trial shouldn’t fornicate with barn animals.

By this point, however, Judge Cahill, who has rigidly enforced at least nominal signs of respect among the parties and towards witnesses while in his court room, had had enough of Blackwell’s argumentative conduct.  He called a brief sidebar, and it was a somewhat subdued Blackwell who returned to continue his cross-examination of Fowler.

If the contempt had been ratcheted down, however, Blackwell cranked the snark knob up to 11.

He was particularly offended by the sudden references by the defense to the possibility that carbon monoxide from squad 320’s exhaust was a contributing factor in Floyd’s death. Frankly, I’m not sure why the state would be surprised by this angle, as it was covered in Fowler’s expert report delivered and shared with the prosecution way back in February.

Blackwell asked if it was true that there was nothing about CO in the autopsy report? Well, everyone knew that, because medical examiner Baker hadn’t considered the issue during autopsy.

All these EPA and CDC and California car exhaust studies and regulations about carbon monoxide that you cite here in court—you’ve never actually been an industrial hygienist, have you, Dr. Fowler?  He had not ever been, and frankly I’m not at all sure that Blackwell didn’t just make that job title up out of thin air.

Can you tell the jury exactly what level of CO Floyd had in his system when he died? Well, naturally not, because the state of Minnesota had never bothered to look.

Blackwell also began to start tripping himself up in his cross of Fowler.

Do you even know if the squad car was running?  There were indications it was running, such as moisture dripping from the exhaust.  So ,you just assumed it was running? (I mean, we all know that if you assume, you make an “ass” out of “u” and “me,” right?). No, answered Fowler, I didn’t assume anything. I made an inference from the evidence.

Ouch.

Have you ever even seen this squad car in real life?  Well, no, answered Fowler.

Sensing the possibility of a kill shot here, Blackwell jumped.  Unfortunately for Blackwell, it was his turn to do the “step on the rake” routine.

Do you even know the make and model of this vehicle, he asked in a voice of outrage, certain that Fowler would not know, and would therefore have profoundly undercut his credibility.

Yes, answered Fowler—it was a Ford Explorer, Police Interceptor Model.

Well, fine, but do you even know what exhaust arrangement that vehicle has?  Again, in a tone of moral outrage, and with the confidence that Fowler would know nothing of the sort.

I do, answered Fowler—it has a four-pipe exhaust arrangement, with two exhaust pipes at each side of the rear of the vehicle.

Double-ouch.   I mean, man, that’s right out of the movie “My Cousin Vinny” (by the way, the best legal movie ever made, in my humble opinion).

Blackwell stepped back to asking Fowler for data he knew very well the consulting pathologist wouldn’t have.

Do you have actual data on the carbon monoxide levels in Floyd’s breathing zone while he was in subdual restraint and neck compression?  Of course not, nobody knows, it was never measured.

Incidentally, Blackwell worked hard to repeat the phrases “subdual restraint and neck compression” and “9 minutes and 29 seconds” as frequently as possible during his cross-examination of Fowler. Apparently, these are his equivalent of Johnnie Cochrane’s “if the glove don’t fit, you must acquit” during the 1995 double-murder trial of OJ Simpson.

You might LOL at that, but in fact such repetition is a proven method of persuasion.

In any case, I recommend you prepare yourself to hear those phrases repeated frequently during closing arguments, assuming Blackwell participates in closing arguments—and I’d be shocked if he did not, given the racial overtones to this trial.

Blackwell’s asking for data or findings he knew very well did not exist, and which Fowler had never claimed to exist, was a common theme throughout his cross-examination of the pathologist.

Agree that Dr. Baker, the medical examiner, found no evidence of carbon dioxide poisoning as a cause of Floyd’s death? Well, first of all Fowler didn’t claim CO poisoning as a substantial cause of death, but merely another among many complicating factors that may have contributed to Floyd’s death.  Second, Baker didn’t report any CO findings, because he never looked, which is a different matter than CO not playing a possible role.

Blackwell also asked a great many questions that appeared intended to cast doubt as to whether Floyd had self-ingested fentanyl/meth tablets when approached by police.

During direct by Nelson, Dr. Fowler had been asked if he’d spotted a small white object in still photos of Floyd as he was held at gunpoint by Officer Lane while still in the driver’s seat of his SUV.  Fowler did make such an identification.

Now Blackwell showed a short video from inside Cup Foods of Floyd holding a banana. Can’t you see him chewing food in that video?  Fowler agreed that Floyd’s mouth was moving in a chewing type manner, but I don’t know why, I personally didn’t see anything of the sort.  What I did see was Floyd staggering visibly, but that went unmentioned in court today.

How could you possibly know the white object in Floyd’s mouth while seated in the car wasn’t food, rather than a pill.

Well, answered Fowler, I never said it was a pill. I merely said it was a white substance, and that was quite intentional.

Indeed, the only person to explicitly label the white object a pill was Blackwell himself, another misstep on his part.

Another consistent behavior by Blackwell was to preface his snarky questions with the phrase, “In order to avoid confusing the jury, …”. I saw a number of comments in today’s live post asking why he kept repeating this phrase.

The reason is that he likely believed it would gain him more freedom of action in asking questions that the court might otherwise find objectionable.  This is because the reason expert witnesses are allowed to testify about their opinions, which normal fact witnesses are not allowed to do, is because the expert’s role in the trial is to help the jury understand issues that would not be understood but for the expert’s opinion.

That is, to help the jury avoid confusion.

So, if Blackwell could cloak his snarky question as being intended to meet that core purpose of an expert witness, by prefacing it as being asked in the interests of avoiding confusion of the jury, perhaps Cahill would be more inclined to let the question go.

It’s much akin to the scene in the original Star Wars movie where Obi Wan Kenobi waves a hand slightly in front of two Mos Eisley stormtroopers and informs them that these are not the droids they are looking for.

Yet another rhetorical trick used by Blackwell was to purport to impeach Dr. Fowler’s direct testimony by reading extensively from various textbooks, studies, and even an old affidavit from a prominent scientist on the subject of positional asphyxiation, and from a deposition of Dr. Fowler himself from an unrelated legal proceeding.

I have a couple of observations on this “trick” by Blackwell. First, to my mind Blackwell’s conduct here grossly exceeded reasonable attempts to impeach Fowler, and actually became Blackwell himself offering testimony in front of the jury. And that is not supposed to be allowed.

Second, nearly every instance this “trick” came back to bite Blackwell on the buttocks. Why? Because on re-direct of Dr. Fowler by Nelson it was revealed that Blackwell had read selected portions out of context, mischaracterized other readings, and sometimes skipped portions that, when read aloud by Nelson, effectively reversed the meaning claimed by Blackwell when read by him on cross.

For example, on direct Fowler had testified that a noted scientist who had been very prominent about the dangers of positional asphyxia had ultimately retracted his concerns after conducting a variety of clinical studies on the subject.

On cross-examination, Blackwell read from an affidavit of that same scientist, in which he stated that he remained concerned about positional asphyxiation.  Proof that Fowler was wrong, or untruthful, about the claimed retraction of concern?

Not so much.  On re-direct by Nelson it turned out that Blackwell had skipped some important content in the affidavit—the positional asphyxia that the scientist remained concerned about was not general in nature, but applied only to suspects who were obese or who suffered from congestive heart failure.

Well, Floyd was not obese, and the officers had no reason to infer congestive heart failure, so Floyd would not be among the suspects about whom this scientist would still believe positional asphyxia to be a real concern.

Yet another trick that Blackwell made great use of was to ask Fowler if the pathologist had done any “qualitative modeling” in his analysis for this case.

You’ll recall that one of the state’s purported expert witnesses had shown up in court with a bunch of demonstrative exhibits that claimed to quantitatively measure Floyd’s blood oxygen level, with single-digit percent precision, based on body worn camera, bystander, and surveillance videos.

Of course, Fowler had done nothing of the sort of this quantitative “modeling,” because Fowler’s not a scientific hack, but it opened the door for Blackwell to continually argue about quantitative models he knew very well Fowler hadn’t made, for the perfectly good reason that they would have been nonsense.

Did you quantitatively model the pressure to Floyd’s body? No. Did you quantitatively model oxygen reserves? No. Did you quantitatively model EELV?  No. Did you quantitatively model how much air Floyd took in with each breath during that subdual restraint and positional asphyxia over those 9 minutes and 29 seconds?  No.

This was all, to my view, ridiculous.  That doesn’t mean, however, that it might not have appeared compelling cross-examination to the jury.

And this is one of the areas in which I felt Fowler dropped the ball.  He could have almost certainly prevented this repetitive scolding by Blackwell by simply answering the first time, “No, I didn’t quantitatively model anything in this case.”

Then if Blackwell had attempted to pose the quantitative modeling framing repetitively, as he did in actual cross-examination, Nelson could have immediately objected that the question was asked and answered, and Judge Cahill would almost certainly have upheld an objection on that basis.

Blackwell also attacked Fowler with respect to question of whether Chauvin, who weighed a mere 140 pounds, could have possibly applied enough pressure, based on his position relative to Floyd, to have had fatal effect.

You know police officers carry equipment? That equipment has weight? Did you consider the weight of all equipment in coming to your conclusions?  No, Fowler conceded, he had not.  This was another relatively rare poor response by Fowler.

Another soon-to-be exposed gaffe was committed by Blackwell when he attempted to mislead the jury on the issue of Floyd repeatedly declaring he could not breathe long before he was placed in prone on the street.

Could you not see Floyd being choked by the officers even as they were trying to get him into the squad car. I don’t recall seeing that, answered Fowler.

So Blackwell asked for some still photos to be pulled up.  Do you see officer Chauvin’s arm around Floyd’s neck in that photo? And, indeed, Chauvin’s arm was rather loosely draped around Floyd’s neck.

Was that a point for Blackwell? Was Fowler too unobservant to see that Floyd was being choked at every point that he claimed he could not breath?  Not for long, as Nelson would circle back to this point on re-direct.

In summary, I didn’t feel that Blackwell scored any major hits on Fowler on cross—or, perhaps more accurately, what hits appeared to be scored on cross were exposed as misdirection (to put it nicely) by Nelson on re-direct.

There is, of course, a great deal more detail to Blackwell’s cross of Fowler, but I’ve shared the most important facets already.

(video)

Fowler Re-Direct

Nelson did a really excellent job on re-direct of Dr. Fowler, with particular emphasis on addressing any apparent blows that Blackwell might have appeared to land during cross-examination.

On the issue of Fowler not having considered the weight of Chauvin’s equipment, Nelson asked if the state of Minnesota had ever provided access to that equipment so it could be weighed? They had not. To your knowledge has the state of Minnesota ever made weight measurements of Chauvin’s equipment. Not that I ever saw.

Then Nelson turned the whole “you didn’t even bother to consider the weight of the equipment, you dummy!” talking point back on the prosecution.

Whatever the weight of the equipment, after all, it would only have made Chauvin heavier, which was the state’s point in bringing it up, more weight more pressure, more pressure more lethal effect. But of course, more weight and pressure would also be expected to have other consequences.

You said you saw no evidence of bruising to Floyd’s back? I did not. Not even from Chauvin’s knee and shin? No.  When you consider not just Chauvin’s weight, but also the weight of his equipment, would that make it more probable that we should have seen injury if undue force was used?  Why, more likely, of course. But yet no bruising, no hemorrhage, nothing? Correct.

With respect to Fowler’s alleged [failure] to conduct CO studies or testing, Nelson asked if his report had mentioned CO as an issue? It had. And when was that delivered to me, and by me to the state?  In February. And to your knowledge has the state of Minnesota conducted any tests or experiments on CO exposure of this type? No.

Nelson also had an opportunity to touch upon the state’s continually-minute dumping of exhibits on the defense. You studied photographs of the bottom of squad car 320? I did, answered Fowler. Provided by the state? Yes. Provided since this trial started? Yes, just the last couple of days.

I doubt the jury understood the significance of this exchange, and can’t see any ready means to help them understand it, but it’s now part of the record of the proceedings, and will be available for reference should an appeal of a conviction be necessary.

Recall Blackwell’s attempted misdirection on the matter of the white substance in Floyd’s mouth, which he desperately didn’t want presented as a pill.

Nelson asked Fowler, can you say what that white substance was, with any specificity?  I cannot, answered Fowler.  But you agree that white pill fragments were found in squad 320? Yes. And those white pill fragments tested positive for saliva? They did. And that saliva tested positive for Floyd’s DNA? They did.

It was at this point during re-direct that Nelson exposed each of the misleading “readings” by Blackwell of various textbooks, studies, affidavits, and depositions, as already described earlier.

Nelson here also circled back to Blackwell’s claim that Floyd had been choked by officers at every point that he claimed he could not breathe, including when he was still forcibly resisting being placed into squad 320, long before being put prone on the street.

Nelson pulled up the same photos used by Blackwell. What side of the car is that? That’s the street side of the car. Is that where Floyd got into the car, or was pulled out of the car?  Out of the car.  Was he saying at this moment that he could not breathe? He was not. Was Chauvin’s arm positioned to choke him? No, it was loosely draped around Floyd’s neck, with clear space between the front of Floyd’s neck and Chauvin’s arm.

Nelson pulled up slightly earlier photos. What side of the car is this? The sidewalk side. Where Floyd is being put in the car? Yes. When he’s saying he can’t breathe? Yes. Is he being choked here? No.

In summary, I thought Nelson was very strong on re-direct of Fowler, and you can watch that testimony here:

(video)

Fowler Re-Cross Examination

There was also a very brief re-cross examination of Fowler by Blackwell, but it didn’t amount to anything substantive—did you see Floyd spitting pills out in squad 320? As if Floyd’s DNA on the fragments didn’t give that game away—and it provided an opportunity for Blackwell to recite the “subdual restraint and positional asphyxia” and “9 minutes 29 seconds” a couple of more times.

Incidentally, the defense objected to the catch phrases each time, here, and Judge Cahill sustained both objections

At that point, Blackwell had no further questions, and the court was done with Dr. Fowler.

You can watch that brief re-cross of Fowler here:

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Summary

In summary, it was a good day for the defense on the cause of death front, with a job done very well, if not quite perfectly, by expert witness forensic pathologist Dr. Fowler.  It was also a nice contrast from yesterday’s performance by use-of-force expert witness Barry Brodd.

Whether today is enough to create the reasonable doubt on the issue of cause of death is, however, questionable. And that’s assuming merely the legal merits of the case, and not the fact that the jurors are now apparently commuting through riot-like conditions simply to arrive at the court each day.

One way or another, however, we should expect to know the final outcome of this case soon, and certainly by this time next week.

And that’s about all I have for all of you this evening for our end-of-day wrap-up commentary and analysis of today’s court proceedings. Don’t forget to join us again in the morning for our LIVE streaming and LIVE blogging of tomorrow’s court proceedings, as well as for tomorrow’s end-of-day wrap-up commentary and analysis. (read more)

When Google's Fancy Lawyers Screw Up and Jeopardize Sheryl Sandberg, at $1500/Hour

A[n improperly] redacted document showed extremely sensitive information. Google's lawyer accidentally made it public.

Henry Adams, one of the most important thinkers in the 19th century and an ardent anti-monopolist, believed that corporate secrecy was the enemy of self-rule. "From whatever point of view the trust problem is considered,” he wrote, “publicity stands as the first step in its solution; and there is reason to believe that the further the government is willing to go in its statutory definition of publicity the greater likelihood is there that it may be excused from the necessity of exercising direct administrative control." When Congress originally designed the corporate tax system in 1909, the goal was to make corporate tax returns public. (This actually happened for one year in the 1920s, but was quickly ended.)

Today, big business in America is far too secretive, with an endless thicket of confidentiality rules, trade secrets law, and deferential judges and enforcers who think that revealing public information about big business is some sort of scandal. It’s so bad that when the FDA asked pharmaceutical companies where their manufacturing plants were at the beginning of the pandemic, some firms cited trade secrets rules and refused to divulge the information. This is a consistent problem - we didn’t know why the FTC refused to bring a case against Google in 2012 until a leak this year, and the information would have been incredibly useful had the FTC and Google not engaged in a decade-long cover-up. a posture is ridiculous and obnoxious, so I find it immensely pleasurable when the antitrust fancy world screws up and accidentally reveal information the public should know. And that just happened.

In a response to the complaint of a group of state attorney generals, Google’s lawyers - Paul Yetter at Yetter Coleman - filed a response, but accidentally forgot to redact critical information. So now we know a few important new details about the Texas adtech case. This case includes an allegation that Google’s large online advertising marketplace - think stock market but instead of stocks they trade ad slots - is riddled with secret rigged auctions.

The redacted details show something called “Project Bernanke,” a scheme engineered by Google in which had one arm of its ad business front-running trades for ad inventory, awarding itself hundreds of millions of dollars a year by giving itself a better position in the auctions. Project Bernanke (cute name guys!) was kept secret from publishers.

In addition, we now know more details about a deal between Google and Facebook to give Facebook some preferred position in those ad auctions, supposedly in return for Facebook not competing with Google in the online advertising auction space. As the Wall Street Journal notes, “The agreement was signed by, among other individuals, Philipp Schindler, Google’s Senior Vice President and Chief Business Officer, and Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s Chief Operating Officer.”

Zoink. Cartel deals aren’t just illegal, they are criminal. So double zoink.

Here’s Jason Kint on the screw-up.

I’ve asked around, and Yetter is likely to be getting $1500/hour, or more, for his legal advice. There are a couple of things to learn from this mistake. First, judges redact way too many details, often protecting what they perceive as business proprietary information but is in fact simply evidence of cheating. The court system is supposed to be a public accounting. And second, fancy lawyers aren’t Gods, and we should stop acting like that the hundreds of millions (or perhaps one billion plus), that Google spends on legal services, means it can avoid obeying the law. That myth is a way of getting the public to give up before the battle even starts.

I don’t think there should be a problem with leaks, because I don’t think there should be very much information kept secret in the first place. But to be clear, this isn’t the first leak in the case. When the Texas AG sent around his proposed complaint to the other state attorneys general, someone leaked the full complaint to the press. And one of Google’s lawyers - Eric Mahr from Freshfields - was outraged. "It's difficult for us not to believe that had plaintiffs not been for whatever reason rushing to file in December,” he said, “that additional confidentiality measures couldn't have been taken that would have avoided the leak."

Yes, don’t be too hasty, biglaw, you might reveal something truthful. (read more)

WOKE = Divide & Conquer

I seriously doubt that people understand the true implications of how these governments have handled this pretend pandemic which has a kill ratio of a minimal 0.028%. This has been a grab for power and it will not end with everyone getting vaccinated. Even after the deluge of vaccines, they may allow the reopening of theatres, cinemas, hotels, and restaurants. People may return to commuting to work (unlikely), but the idea that this pandemic is nothing but a bad memory and they will put this all behind us, well, no such thing will take place.

This pandemic has been orchestrated right from the start. The United Nations sold pandemic bonds, and if they declared there was a pandemic, they did not have to repay. They fleeced all those investors and now only a mindless idiot would dare buy another. There have been countless after-effects from bankruptcies, job losses, countless fake studies with predetermined conclusions, and teenage suicides because their dreams of a future vocation were erased. All the pension funds and unions have been destroyed during this fake pandemic. There is no hope of returning to normal.


From here on out, every time society sneezes, governments will exert this newfound power. In their goal of wiping out the next disease, they can lock down the people and revert the world into a communistic prison camp. There will be endless emergences of new variants resistant to the current vaccines, for viruses are a form of life that will adapt to carry out their objective — to reduce the population whenever possible. There will be new lockdowns while waiting to produce billions of doses of new vaccines that will once more get emergency approval without long-term testing. Where governments were once there to protect society from untested drugs, today they are in league with the pharmaceutical industry because it justifies their power.

The discussion of climate change and overpopulation continues behind the curtain and this is no different from mass genocide to save the planet. We will have to endure this treatment every year, for decades to come; for this disease and no doubt for many others are now the source of political power. We will then have to decide if life is worth living in an internment camp, which is what they are transforming society into while simultaneously pushing the cancel culture and this woke movement designed to keep society divided to prevent a revolution.

Even Amazon’s internal documents exposed that the company rates their stores [and warehouses] using a “diversity index,” and determined the threat of unionization is “higher” at stores with “lower diversity.” This is what the WOKE movement is all about — DIVIDE & CONQUER! Julius Caesar was able to conquer Gaul despite being outnumbered more than 10 to 1 because the Gauls never united until it was too late. Even in the final battle during September 52 BC, Julius Caesar sealed his fate as a legendary military commander at the Battle of Alesia where his army of 50,000 Romans defeated 200,000 Gauls in what is now modern-day Burgundy, France. The Celtic tribes were never united. Caesar defeated the Belgae tribes as well as the Helvetia. Had they all united, Caesar surely would not have conquered Europe. Hence, keep your opponents divided and you will win. This is the entire object of the woke movement — divide and created hatred between the groups. (read more)

“[T]here is nothing sinister in so arranging one’s affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible. … Everybody does so, rich or poor; and all do right, for nobody owes any public duty to pay more than the law demands: taxes are enforced exactions, not voluntary contributions. To demand more in the name of morals is mere cant.”
Learned Hand, a 1947 dissent


“Anyone may so arrange his affairs that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which will best pay the Treasury; there is not even a patriotic duty to increase one’s taxes.”
Learned Hand, Helvering v. Gregory, 69 F.2d 809, 810-11 (2d Cir. 1934)