If the knee on the neck had been a quick thing, then sure. But the length of time the knee was on the neck makes this more of a complete disregard for life, which would imply 3rd degree murder. Also, a sentence of just 3-5 or so years seems way to short.
But the autopsy data so far suggests that it didn't kill him, as in a healthy person would not die from it, and cops generally don't have access to and actionable interpretation of medical records of a suspect on a whim. Long story short, prosecution has only what is on camera, and digging for any harder charges is going to lead to a highly contested case.
Doesn't matter. 3rd degree doesn't depend on intent. The cop caused the death. If the cop didn't cause the death, you couldn't show manslaughter either. The difference between the two is depraved disregard for life:
What's on the camera and in the charging document is clear disregard for life, not just malpractice. Putting a knee on someones neck, and leaving it there while the person says they can't breathe, then leaving it there after the person stopped responding for nearly 3 minutes, shows a depraved mind. That cop didn't care that he was killing George Floyd. That makes this murder.
The problem here is that these are emotionally loaded phrases that also have certain (dunno how clear) legal meaning that probably is not exactly the same as the common language, emotionally laden meaning you are implying here is.
That part for any remotely experienced cop is the very definition of "tuesday" meme. It's extremely common for suspects to claim that sort of stuff, whether true or not, whether they are resisting or not.
To care he would have to know he was killing him in the first place. Did he know?
The thing is that the Jury is the ultimate fact finder. If I was on the Jury I'd throw that evidence out as falsified.
Unless the whole jury rolls with it, that's a hung jury.
If I ever had a jury trial, this is the kind of mindset I would not want. Disregarding evidence just because you don’t like it and it doesn’t fit inside the narrative you have already created.
It's pretty much what I'm saying. It's a killing that results from not giving a shit whether the person dies. Other examples include shooting a gun into a crowd or playing russian roullette. Here's the wikipedia page.
Nice cut. If you go on, the rest of the sentence pretty clearly shows disregard for human life.
You don't have to know that what you are doing is going to kill someone, just that it can. And apparently, every cop is taught that a knee on a neck is how you kill someone. So he knew what he was doing was dangerous, the man stopped responding for three minutes, there was no reason to keep the knee on the man's neck at all, (or even put it there in the first place, given that the guy fell by himself on the ground). The length of time clearly shows the cop didn't care what was happening to Floyd.
Not really. I was on a jury where I thought evidence ought to be excluded but other people didn't. Since I came to a guilty conclusion from other evidence, and they used that piece of evidence to come to their conclusion (it was evidence for the prosecution), we returned a guilty verdict.
I do recall reading that the family is hiring an independent coroner to look at the body, so that should resolve this.
Technically America has a long history of that, we call it jury nullification.
"Can" is an extremely dangerous qualifier to use. In a sufficiently unusual set of circumstances, all sorts of things you normally would not think about in the heat of a moment *can* kill with some low or not so low probability.
It's part of the charging document, which is in the video linked by @Doomsought. Again, the video has a really good argument for why this is 3rd degree murder, and is worth a watch, given that an actual lawyer is making the argument.
Again, little of that matters. Your taser example would be considered an accident. Here, an extremely charitable jury might give negligence, a just one would probably give depraved heart. As for the training, some of it is common sense. A reasonable person knows that the neck is fragile, even without training.
The disregard for the unresponsiveness following the disregard for the "I can't breathe" claims is what is chilling though. for three minutes, he put his knee into a man's neck who was out cold.
But we know he didn't break the neck, and if the early autopsy data is to be believed, didn't strangle him either. The court is supposed to sentence him for things he has done, not for things he *might* have possibly done but didn't happen.
And that's where procedure and the question of first aid training comes in. After all, he had no access to life sign data, and going limp would simply mean no more resistance.
For now, when the officer doesnt get 2nd degree murder and is dropped of the charge becase they wont go lower expect this to become worse
That's why they've kept the manslaughter back-up charge.
