Front Burner - Rodney King lawyer on George Floyd, Derek Chauvin

Episode Date: April 21, 2021

Today we cover the Derek Chauvin guilty verdict in the killing of George Floyd and hear from a civil rights lawyer, who represented Rodney King, about the long history of police violence in America against Black people.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. CBC Podcast. Additionally, we have made available some 2,000 National Guardsmen. This is a matter that needs to be settled in the courts and not in the streets. That right there is not Minneapolis last night.

It's Los Angeles in 1992, after four police officers were acquitted in the beating of Rodney King. That is also not Minneapolis last night. It's New York in 2014, the year Eric Garner died after being pinned to the ground by police in Staten Island. There. That's Minneapolis last night. After jurors handed down a verdict for ex-officer Derek Chauvin, and George Floyd's death under his knee. We the jury in the above entitled matter as to count one,

unintentional second degree murder while committing a felony, find the defendant guilty. Third degree murder, perpetrating an eminently dangerous act, find the defendant guilty. Second degree manslaughter, culpable negligence, creating an unreasonable risk, find the defendant guilty. This verdict agreed to this 20th day of April 2021 at 1.45 p.m. The verdict led to immediate celebrations in the streets. John Floyd! John Floyd! John Floyd!

My name is Jared Goyette. I'm a freelance journalist based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. And I've been working for the Washington Post covering the death of George Floyd and the community reaction during this trial. No peace! No justice! No peace! And we're going to prosecute the police!

Right now, I'm standing just feet away from where he died. This intersection became a site of mourning and of protest, and over time became known as George Floyd Square. There's chalk messages on the street. There's murals of George Floyd. And right now, the crowd is growing. Michael Chauvin, defendant. Murder count one.

Court file number 27, CR2012646. We had a jury in the above intent. Manner is to count one. Unintentional second-degree murder while committing a felony. Find the defendant guilty. Yes! Go, Pete! unintentional second-degree murder while committing a felony by the defendant guilty. You know, when news of the verdict was played out over a sound system of a jeep that parked nearby, there was a mix of responses. There was some cheering.

And I noticed around me, though, some people just started to cry. We've been praying nonstop, nonstop for this verdict. And we are so thankful. I'm so thankful to God because only a God could do something like this in America. I've never seen it. This is a really traumatic, intense time in the city. And I think a lot of people were very relieved. They also were very happy with what the verdict was. I mean, it was just unbelievable. It's almost, I can't explain in words, just so loved,

just so loved, you know? And then the sunshine through, like, you know. I saw across the street one older Black man, his is named leon sort of stood on a bench and yelled we shook up the world and i recognized him because he was here at the same intersection the morning after george floyd died and at that point there was only a few people here and he was pacing back and forth with a bullhorn like Chance. And now he's here again and he's celebrating anymore with a crowd of hundreds that's growing and following this verdict. For so many people, this was justice, this was vindication. Though also an acknowledgement that this moment, this one case,

does not negate the fact that so many other Black people are not seeing the same outcome here. George Floyd's story, it's of course part of a long history of racialized people in the United States being targeted by the criminal justice system. And this trial and that history is what we're going to talk about a bit today with John Burris. He's a civil rights lawyer based in Oakland, California. He represented Rodney King in a civil suit against the police officers who beat him in 1991. Hi, Mr. Burris. Thank you so much for making the time to speak with us today. We're really appreciative. Good to be with you.

Thank you. So before we get to the big picture, I want to talk to you about what we all heard yesterday, the guilty verdict. The jury convicted Derek Chauvin of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder, second-degree manslaughter. And were you surprised by this verdict? Were you expecting guilty on all three counts? I was. First off, I was very relieved by the verdict. And that is to say, I knew that there was sufficient evidence to convict him on all three counts. But given the history of verdicts involving the police and African-Americans, you know, I had reservations about it.

I was cautiously optimistic. I was very concerned about the defense's campaign of disinformation and misdirection and talking about George Floyd's health and his drugs and his physical condition. and his physical condition that I was wondering if a juror may have sort of grasped hold of that and created a challenging position to get a verdict. This was likely one of the most important witnesses for the defense, a doctor who says he does not believe Derek Chauvin's actions killed George Floyd. How did the heart and drugs contribute to the cause of death? They contributed to Mr. Floyd having a sudden cardiac arrest. And speaking and making noise

is very good evidence that the airway was not closed. So I was worried about it, but at the same time, I knew that there was more than sufficient evidence to convict him, particularly if they just focused in on the nine minutes, nine minutes and 23 seconds or whatever it was, plus Chauvin's attitude during that period of time. I just figured if they saw that and the time they appreciate he didn't really care, that he wasn't really being mindful of him. And so I thought that the jurors could easily convict on those facts. Can you tell me a little bit more about that? You know, what you think ultimately convinced the jury to convict here, especially on the more serious

counts of second degree murder and third degree murder? When you looked at the nine minutes, murder, and third-degree murder? When you looked at the nine minutes and you had George Floyd down and you had the knee on his neck, during that nine-minute period, there came opportunities for the officer to let up, to basically say that we have him under control, he's not moving, we now have him in such a position, we don't need to have him held down like this. We could have turned him on his side. We could provide him medical attention. And he chose not to do it. So that assaultive conduct ultimately, which was the excessive force in a sense that you went beyond the reasonable period of time. Once you had him under control, then any conduct after that, any force was unreasonable. him under control, then any conduct after that, any force was unreasonable. And so that becomes assaultive. And if that's true, then that would get you to the second degree murder. And that to

me came about when you looked at the officer, when he kept his knee there, he kind of refused to make any adjustments physically when the other officer was saying that maybe he doesn't have a pulse or maybe we should turn him on the side. That reflected to me a disinterested callousness in terms of his state of mind. And if you didn't go back further down to second degree, and there you're talking again about sort of an apathetic view, deprived mind. Well, what you got there is the same conduct, plus even digging his knee in a little deeper, it appeared. So that mattered. And then, of course, the involuntary manslaughter, that's just negligence. You tie all that down with the causation question. And once it was clear that he really died in a substantial part from the shortness of oxygen that he was being deprived

as a consequence of the way he's being held. Well, then that became the end of the story, because once you have causation, then you have physical acts, and then you have death, then you have the elements of the offense. And so the elements were always there. The facts were there completely. Right, right. We've talked about this on this program before. We saw several witnesses testify to that. Mr. Floyd's use of fentanyl did not cause the subdual or neck restraint.

His heart disease did not cause the subdual or the neck restraint. They called the police on the police all right and why did you do that because i believe i witnessed a murder i would have been able to provide medical attention to the best of my abilities and this human was denied that right it's been nights i stayed up apologizing to George Floyd for not doing more not saving his life but it's like it's not what I should have done it's what he should have done Just briefly, you know, the jurors came back with a verdict very quickly. They just started deliberating on Monday, and I understand that they asked no questions.

And so what does that say to you about the prosecution and their case? Well, it meant to me that the prosecution did a very good job of presenting their evidence and keeping it simple, breaking it down so that ordinary, everyday people could see it. And to the extent they had a few professional people on the jury, those professional people could then confirm and corroborate that what the prosecution presented by way of causation was something that they felt to be true, which then, if that were true, that then meant what the defense was doing was not true. When I realized that they were coming back today, I knew it was a guilty verdict just because you take more time to find a person not

guilty in a case like this. And if it went to Friday, I thought it might be a hung jury. But coming back to what Dave clearly indicated to me that the prosecution did a good job in keeping it simple and keeping it straight and was able to ward off the defense arguments. As he desperately pushed with his knuckles to make space so he'd have room to breathe, to make space so he'd have room to breathe the pavement lacerating, lacerating his knuckles with the defendant stayed on top of him for nine minutes and 29 seconds, so desperate to breathe, he pushed with his face, with his face. Right. The defense tried to get a mistrial declared this week, saying that comments by Democratic Congresswoman Maxine Waters interfered with the jury. Waters said that if Chauvin wasn't found guilty, racial justice protesters should get more confrontational. We have to persist in calling for justice. We have to let people know that we're not going to be satisfied

unless we get justice in these cases. And the judge said no to a mistrial, but he did say that Waters' comments could overturn this entire trial on appeal. And I wonder what you think of that. Do you think that that is likely? I don't think that's viable. I think, though, that there could be an argument made that given the highly publicized time in which the case was tried, that a judge could conclude, an appellate court conclude, that it was too much publicity to be tried in the environment in which it was. I mean, that's entirely a possibility. I don't think that the comments made by Maxine Waters in and of themselves would be enough for a mistrial because a mistrial, you'd have to show that the jurors heard it and the jurors reacted to it. The fact that it was a public statement doesn't make it a basis for a mistrial. You've got to have facts. The fact that she made the statement doesn't mean the jurors were impacted by it, because that would be the basis for the mistrial. The jurors say,

look, I've been influenced by this, and now I'm prejudiced in my decision-making. But I will say that given the highly publicized charge of this case, an argument might be made at some later point that it should have been removed from this jurisdiction. Now, one could argue that they shouldn't be moved because it only has two major cities in the whole state. And so, therefore, you don't want to move it to a place that is totally different, different cultures. We met that problem with the Rodney King case many years ago when the criminal case was moved from L.A. Central out to Simi Valley, which was a suburb that was a police haven. So, yeah, so you have to be careful about the kind of moves you make. And then we had a case you don't know much about, the Oscar Grant case.

Meserly is a former transit officer charged with shooting 22-year-old Oscar Grant at a Bay Area Rapid Transit station last New Year's Day. Grant was shot once in the back as he lay face down on the train station's platform. That criminal case had to be moved to Los Angeles. The judge made the decision after Miserly's attorney argued for the change due to what he described as excessive media coverage and racial tensions. So things like that do occur. I want to come back to the Rodney King case with you in a few minutes. But on the idea of an appeal, what kind of options does Derek Chauvin have right now? And do you actually think that an appeal will be successful, even if these arguments are being made about like the kind of attention that this case received? tension that this case received? No, I don't think that there's sufficient arguments. The judge was actually a pretty careful man in terms of judges. And I thought that he played it pretty straight. And it was an orderly trial. It was not one with a lot of grandstanding and lawyers overplaying to the crowd, even though it was a case that was publicized and televised.

So I don't really see any efforts, anything that he wants. I think that he wanted initially was the case to be, the jurors to be sequestered, and the judge ruled against that, and that probably is an okay decision, but probably could have sequestered the jurors, but there's not good history with those because it makes jurors an antsy. Okay. And, and do you think it's likely that Chauvin and his lawyers will appeal here? Oh, absolutely. Every case of this kind, the case gets appealed. And when it gets appealed is, you know, they're lawyers who specialize in appellate work and they will call them over or file closely all the way to the end.

That wouldn't surprise me. Okay. And I should just say, for our listeners, the judge did say that there will be a sentencing coming in the next two months, I think in two months.

How much in anticipation, how worried were you about that? Of course I had doubts. We have doubts every time something happens. People see it on the news and they don't understand, but living here and breathing this energy in every single day, it's so much and it finally feels like the smoke has cleared just a tiny bit enough just to take a deep breath, you know? Mr. Burroughs, this month in Minneapolis, during Derek Chauvin's trial, there was another

high-profile police killing in the same city of Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old black man who was pulled over in a traffic stop. The police said that the officer who shot him meant to actually use her taser, but instead pulled her gun. but instead pulled her gun. This appears to me, from what I viewed, and the officer's reaction and distress immediately after, that this was an accidental discharge.

And in March, there was another killing in the U.S. Midwest. This one in Chicago, a 13-year-old boy named Adam Toledo. And this video has now just come out of the police shooting him. Police officials tonight say Toledo has a gun there in his right hand. The slide extended because the gun's clip apparently had been emptied. That gun ends up a few feet away. His hands move upward and Officer Stillman fires one fatal shot into the teenager's chest. Shots fired, shots fired. Teenagamboons up here now.

And all of this has led to even more protests while waiting for the decision of this trial. And we've been hearing a lot of people talk about this verdict as a kind of tipping point, right? A reckoning for racial justice in America. But given that these deaths keep happening, I'm wondering what you think. Given that these deaths keep happening, I'm wondering what you think. The deaths keep happening because they've always happened in ways that are startling to me. One thing I've said, that George Floyd's death did not stop police shootings, police deaths, because I've had five since then. And I had two or three right after his death. So I don't think that the police reform comes around on the police shooting as much as any other areas of policing,

whether it's illegal stops, detention, beatings. I think those areas that clearly can't be reformed. The police shooting thing is another question because that's kind of like that's a life or death situation in an officer's mindset. And so until you prosecute enough officers for them to at least think about whether or not this is something we should do or not, and there are consequences to it, I don't see much change there. Do you think this is a tipping point? No, I don't think it's a tipping point one way or the other. I think that this is important in terms of make the possibility of other police officers being prosecuted in terms of stopping police shootings. No. It's a tipping point in terms of maybe we'll get more prosecutions. That's possible.

That's entirely possible. But I don't think it'll have any impact, right, in the near future on shooting cases. I think they just they happen. This is something is an issue that you've been litigating since before the 90s. Your most high-profile case was a civil victory that saw Rodney King paid by the LAPD after the officers who beat him were acquitted in the criminal trial. And can you take me back to that acquittal? What do you remember the feeling being like after that decision? I mean, the videotape was self-explanatory. These are concerned citizens.

We are the people. We are Rodney King's peers. We are Ulamay Love's peers. We are Latasha Harlan's peers. Not that jury. Oh, I tell you, that was a horrible, horrible feeling. It was almost a feeling of distrust. But I almost felt like my heart was yanked out of me.

That there was no justice. And the term came out, no justice, no peace. And that really was a function that there was no justice. After a beating of that magnitude, I mean a true beating, a man was struggling for his life and he was constantly being beaten. But the police were able to say that he was the fault. And shades of him being the fault was somewhat captured in a George Floyd case. But that was that was horrible. And it caused a volcanic explosion in the African-American community because the anger and the disappointment was so high and that people just couldn't take it anymore. It was just volcanic. No justice, no peace. No justice, no peace. We ain't got nothing to say.

This should never have changed, people. This should never have been a change of venue. And I'm the lawyer and I was upset about it, really upset. But, you know, and even now you don't know this, but two of those officers were later convicted in a federal criminal trial, if you don't know that. But that was a year and a half, two years later. And then I did the civil case three years later. Okay, okay. I didn't know that. They were later convicted of beating Rodney King in a federal criminal trial. Federal criminal trial.

Okay, okay. Two of them were convicted. When you saw that eruption, I'm assuming you're also talking here about the 1992 LA riots here. Let me out! Can you tell me, when you looked at that unrest on the streets then, what did you see? I saw people who were angered, angry, not angered, angry. They had simply lost all sense of proportionality.

They were striking out at everything they could find. They were looting and stuff like that that was taking place that was not cool. But, okay, that's what I saw. It was horrible. You know, Mr. Burroughs, comparing the George Floyd case to the Rodney King case, you know, what differences and similarities do you see? King. Number two, obviously, Sabine. But I think that the public support for George Floyd was far greater than it ever was for Rodney King. And I think that the lawyers were better. They did a better job.

There was a diversity on the jury that mattered. So there were a lot of elements that were different. They both went through this whole issue of being demonized by the defense councils. They were very successful with that with Rodney King, but they weren't successful in George Floyd. So it was a matter of presentation as well, but also it's 30-year differences. I think I've read it before. At Rodney King, they had not seen brutality. The public had not seen brutality. So that had to be his fault, Rodney King, they had not seen brutality. The public had not seen brutality. So that had to be his fault, Rodney King's fault. Whereas with George Floyd, it's been 30 years of that. And so people know that police do bad stuff and are much more willing to acknowledge that they engaged in misconduct, whereas before they were not.

Mr. Burris, thank you so much. We really appreciate the time. Thank you. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem, brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people

and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income? That's not a typo. 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together.

To listen to this burner and just a quick note uh in tuesday's episode i mentioned that we would have a whole episode on child care while we are working on that episode and you can expect it in your feed very soon.