Judging Freedom - Ex-Cop Kim Potter sentenced to 16 Month behind bars

Episode Date: February 18, 2022

Kim Potter sentencing: Ex-cop who killed Daunte Wright hit with 16 months behind bars.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Resolve to earn your degree in the new year in the Bay with WGU. With courses available online 24-7 and monthly start dates, WGU offers maximum flexibility so you can focus on your future. Learn more at wgu.edu. Hello there, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here with Judging Freedom. Today is Friday, February 18th, 2022. It's about 2.35 in the afternoon here on the East Coast. And Kim Potter, you may remember that name, former police officer Kim Potter of the Brooklyn City Police Department in the state of Minnesota, was just sentenced for a tragic, tragic event. Now, you may recall, this is the case where a female police officer stops a driver and learns that he has an arrest warrant out for him and sees that he has a gun and she

goes to grab her taser and by mistake she grabs her Glock and she pulls the trigger and kills him and of course they stop immediately and attempt to give him first aid and they call EMS immediately but he was gone he was dead It's a tragedy of monumental proportions. There was a time, my friends, when police officers were not charged for this, but in this era in which police excess has come front and center, the prosecutors in Minnesota charged her, and they charged her with second-degree murder, which is the reckless, excuse me, second-degree manslaughter, which is the reckless use of a dangerous instrument, in this case, her weapon. At the trial, a lot of experts testified, some for the government saying it's

impossible to mistake a gun for a taser. Some for her saying, yes, they're very similar. And in the heat of the moment, you might grab the wrong instrument. Tasers used to be yellow and made of plastic and were very thick and bulky and didn't resemble a gun at all. Now they're the same color as a handgun and even look a little bit like a handgun, and therein is the danger. She basically took the witness stand in her trial and said it was a mistake. It was very emotional testimony. She wailed and wept. Unfortunately for

her, mistake is not a defense to second-degree manslaughter. She was convicted, and she was exposed to seven to eight years in jail. Today, she was sentenced to two. Now, that will be controversial in many communities. It's a relatively light sentence. This particular sentence, two years, means 16 months, a little less than a year and a half, and then the balance served probation and some sort of home arrest from her home. You know, there's a reason that judges do sentencing and not algorithms, because there's a lot of mitigating factors in cases. She had no animus toward him. She wasn't trying

to harm him. She didn't even know him. She expressed profound remorse for him. She had a 26-year unblemished record in which she won awards for safety and for training young new officers on the use of weapons. The judge took all this into account. The dead young man's mother looked Kim Potter in the face and said, I can never forgive you. I hate to hear that. I know how difficult it is to forgive, but you have to let go of these things and wait for another world when everything is peaceful and happy. But the way to get to that world is to forgive those who've harmed you. I don't know what I would have done as a trial judge. I am generally pleased with the sentence.

She can't get no jail time, but seven years is not the appropriate time for this defendant. I think the 16 months and the remainder of probation is a good, decent, and just sentence, and I commend the judge for that. Judge Napolitano, judging freedom.