Criminal Arguments Should Aim for the Obvious
Apparently, Jerry Blackwell, the prosecutor in the George Floyd murder trial, left jurors with these final words before deliberation began: “The truth of the matter is that the reason (Floyd) is dead is because (his murderer Derek) Chauvin’s heart was too small.”
Well, that’s quite a statement, considering that:
• In the 21st Century, we’re a good 500 years past the point that we believed the heart is the locus of our feeling of compassion and decency.
• We’ve left the role of the heart in our personal affairs to our small children who, to this day, enjoy “How the Grinch Stole Christmas.” Our kids and we ourselves recall how, after Mr. Grinch found his conscience, the film concludes, “The Grinch’s heart grew three sizes that day.”
• Whoever the criminally deranged character that Chauvin actually is has far more to do with his mind than his heart.
So what gives a person like me the right to comment here? I am unlicensed to prosecute a criminal case for jaywalking, let alone something that, once again, highlights that our country deals with barbarity like this on a day-to-day basis.’
Having said that, I may have gone with something a bit more direct, perhaps:
The defendant used his power as a member of law enforcement personnel to purposely torture a defenseless captive to death. There is nothing fancy to be said here, and certainly nothing about a white cop’s deliberately executing a black person in full public view. This country may be arguing over the role that race played in this case until we’ve colonized Mars, but nothing will ever change the basic facts of that horrible day.
Let’s look at the obvious.
This figure is up markedly from the 52% who felt this way six weeks ago, but that was before the January 6th Committee’s televised hearings.
This is true, but it would be quite silly to believe that the attack is over.
Nothing says “we simply don’t care about the future of our kids” any louder than our cutting funding for public education.
In 2016, U.S. voters elected a truly evil man to become the most powerful person on Earth. Four years later, a sufficient number of the folks had realized Trump’s true nature and that his re-election campaign was doomed to defeat, and so he began to weave the narrative into the Republican base, “The only way I will lose this election is if it’s rigged.”
This is what’s known in logic as a “false dilemma” or “false dichotomy.”
I would love to know how many times the conversation here has played itself out across this great nation of ours.
From the Sierra Club:
Many of us live in fear that American society will never regain its capacity to discern truth from lies, and that the impact Trump has made on his base has permanently transformed our nation into a citizenry that can no longer think rationally.
I don’t see the need to do anything further than bringing criminal charges against those who provided material aid to the insurrection.
