The Megyn Kelly Show - The Derek Chauvin Trial: What You Need To Know, with Arthur Aidala, Mark Eiglarsh, and Michael Belsky | Ep. 83

Episode Date: March 31, 2021

Megyn Kelly is joined by attorneys Arthur Aidala, Mark Eiglarsh and Michael Belsky, to talk about all the angles to the Derek Chauvin trial, in the death of George Floyd, including the strategies being employed by the prosecution and the defense, the evidence being presented, the charges and what each mean, the make-up of the jury, what to expect next and over the course of the next few weeks, comparing the trial to past ones like the trial in the police officers in the Freddie Gray case, and more.Follow The Megyn Kelly Show on all social platforms:Twitter: http://Twitter.com/MegynKellyShowInstagram: http://Instagram.com/MegynKellyShowFacebook: http://Facebook.com/MegynKellyShowFind out more information at:https://www.devilmaycaremedia.com/megynkellyshow

Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations. Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show. Today on the program, George Floyd and the trial of former officer Derek Chauvin. It's underway. It's been really fascinating to watch and it is emotionally charged. Be careful where you get your information on this case because, you know, you won't be surprised to hear that the mainstream press is already treating this matter as something only certain things can be said, right? Like you can only talk about it in a certain way and you can't raise certain

defenses. And that's just BS. Chauvin is not going to win cop of the year in anybody's estimation. The question here is whether he committed murder or manslaughter. And he very well may have done that. And we're going to get into all of it, but he's entitled to the presumption of innocence, just like any other defendant is. And we have to be able to talk about the defense. And so we're going to do exactly that. And we'll go over what we've learned so far. I'm excited today because we have two of my very favorite lawyers and legal commentators rejoining me. These guys have been doing legal segments with me for, I don't know, 15 years now. We've got Arthur Idalla and Mark Eglarsh, who used to come on, We used to call it Kelly's Court and then just did the Kelly file with me forever. Anyway, they're great. They're super smart.

They're both former prosecutors, now defense attorneys and legit. I mean, trial lawyers in the truest sense of the word involving, you know, representation in some of the biggest cases you've ever you've ever heard of. Arthur just got done representing Harvey Weinstein, which I'm definitely going to give him a little jazz about. That one didn't go his way, which I'm happy about. In any event, we're going to get into all of it with them. And then we're going to be joined by a guy named Michael Belsky, who represented one of the Baltimore Six, one of the six officers charged after the death of Freddie Gray, remember? who was placed under arrest after he had sort of an odd exchange with a cop on a bike and it turned into an arrest and he was placed in a van. And

then he was dead after taken to the police precinct in that van. And the cops were accused of giving him, quote, a rough ride. Anyway, there was a witness in the van who said he heard Freddie Gray hurting himself on the other side, like ramming his head into the wall, yada, yada, yada. They got an acquittal for those officers were acquitted and exonerated. And I'm going to ask him what to expect here. Like, what are the challenges and what similarities does he see between this case and his case? And has he placed the odds of conviction? So we're going to get into all of that in just one second. But first, this. Mark Eichlarge and Arthur Aydala,

so excited to have the gang back together, guys. Yay. Right? And we're all happy. Thank goodness. Thank goodness. I mean, I wish it were a better occasion, but I'm actually really looking forward to getting your take on this case because I will tell you that I never watched the video prior

to today. Today. I saw the highlights and I understood the controversy, of course, but I'll be honest with you. I didn't have it in my heart at the time to take it in. It was just, I just thought it's going to be too painful. And I watched it this morning for the first time, the whole thing, because I watched the prosecution's opening and I watched the defense opening and it was horrible.

And it was, I had tears running down my face. And I understand, you know, I go into this with a law enforcement officer in my family and understanding how hard law enforcement is. And, you know, I defended the cops in the Freddie Gray case. And I was right on that. Oh, my God. I just think like when you look at that, all you can think is where is Derek Chauvin's humanity? Like, where is it? And I left, you know, listening to the openings thinking they have to put him on the stand. I realize it's in question. They have to put him on the stand because you have to prove to me that he's a human being before I can even consider anything other than the most severe charge, which is second degree murder. I need to see he's human and I need to hear him talk personally about why he did this, how on any level he thought it was okay. And I'm sure

since a lot of the jurors had admitted in their questionnaires, they had never seen the tape either. They're having a similar reaction or some of them would be. And this, I'll start with you, Mark, you guys are both defense attorneys now, but you today are going to play the part of Chauvin's defense attorney and help us understand the strategy there, Mark Argyler. So you tell me, because that's the biggest thing they're up against, just the tape, forget charges, forget elements, forget the lead up to and what might've been, you know, you look at the tape, forget charges, forget elements, forget the lead up to and what might've been,

you know, you look at the tape and you think I want to punish him. Yes. But, but is it too early in this podcast to disagree with you on a significant point that you made? No, no. I, I disagree with you. I don't put them on the stand. I don't put them near the stand because any, I understand the desire to humanize him.

And that's going to be my job to tell an opening statement, what kind of person he is. And through witnesses, get in all the people he ever said, God bless you too. I mean, any good act that I can possibly get out, I'll get out. But Megyn Kelly, there is, he will be crucified on the witness stand and any benefits that you will get through humanizing him is going to be significantly outweighed by the hours of agony that he will face during cross-examination. You make this more about science, about how there's another cause of death, that it wasn't him. And you try to argue that narrative, which I don't

think will succeed. But again, that's what you do. You get the experts and you argue science. I you raise a good point. He'll get killed on cross examination. But I guess I mean, it's easy for me to say is like a third party witness. But don't you want to hear him? I want to hear him. I want to hear him say he's sorry, that he was he regrets it, you know, that his heart was in the right place as a human. I want to hear him say he's sorry that he was he regrets it, you know, that his heart was in the right place as a human. I want to hear him say it. I'll say it for him in closing. I'll say it in places that they won't even allow me to say it in trial. I will say it. I will get that point across. He wishes he could take it back. But, you know, he had to do whatever I need to say.

I will say a good lawyer like Arthur and I'll let him speak. You'll get that out, but you don't put him on the stand. If I may, you both may be right. It's just way too early to tell. It really is. If Mark's idea plays out and, listen, there are three different autopsy reports here, three different causes of death to some degree or another if the science plays out so favorably to the defendant then yes you keep them off the stand but megan i i will admit yesterday uh or when i watched the opening statement that was the first time i saw the entire video and i had the same feeling the same reaction that you did first of all like what are you doing and it wasn't just

the video the visual part it was the commentating by the bystanders uh of you know they're giving you basically a play-by-play of what's happening and i could see throwing a hail mary pass because that's what i think would be by putting the defendant on the stand you would have to have him prepped for days and days and you have to have another person from your legal team cross-examine him as if they're the prosecutor in anticipation of all the questions that would be coming his way. And I don't know what reasonable answer he could have after George Floyd is absolutely motionless. And the part that defied all reasonable doubt to me was when the female identified herself as an EMS officer and said, let me just take his pulse.

And that was not allowed. And allegedly, according to the prosecutor's opening statement, Chauvin was reaching for his taser to tase the EMS officer. So I don't know what the answers that would come out of his mouth as to what he would say. His biggest defense, in my opinion, is his size versus Floyd's size. There's a huge difference. But after the guy's not moving for four minutes, I don't know what his answer would be. And he did. You could see him go for his mace when the woman came up. Now, I can understand trying to justify that as a police officer by saying you control the scene. You don't. How does he know she really is? He doesn't know what she's going to do. She could be a troublemaker. it's totally justified. And the general population watching it will find it very disturbing when a cop knows it's okay. And in legally, I'm not talking about this case, but you know, and it may be okay. So I can see him saying step back, lady, but why it took him so long to reach down

and search for a pulse when he could see the guy was not responsive, that he'd become quiet, he'd become limp. He'd become limp. And then, you know, and even if you want to give him the benefit of the doubt there, the the ambulance arrives. He still doesn't get off. Right. Right. The gurney is next to him. See what you want, Megan, is something you cannot get.

You want to hear what he has to say and it makes sense. It will not make sense. If he's human, he gets on that witness stand, which is why I don't put him on. And he says, I screwed up big time. So what essentially he's doing is he's sealing his fate. He's saying that he caused the tragic demise. So I say you humanize him. I agree, but you do it by the attorney working in things that are arguably objectionable, if not completely objectionable, but they hear it. They get to know who he is. They get to know his mindset, but there's nothing to be gained by putting him on the stand. I'll tell you there's one exception, and that's if this client begs me to put him on the stand, I say on the record, it's over my objection, but he wants to

testify. And then he does it. And then I'm like, look, he lost this case and he didn't follow my instructions. It would almost be a gift. You know, before I watched the tape, I was actually talking to my family about this because I was reading, my team gave me a transcript of all the back and forth that we hear on the tape. And it was kind of helpful to read it before I watched the whole thing, the whole 929, as the prosecutor kept saying. And he, of course, wants the jury to believe it's all about that 929. And the defense wants you to believe it's about much more than that. It's about Floyd's reaction, Floyd's behavior beforehand and leading into the event and what the other officers had been through and what Chauvin knew and what he saw himself. Okay. But when I, when I went through it and I, you know, I sanitized it a bit for, you know, my family, obviously it was, you know, I had my

kids watching it, but I wanted my kids to know what was going on. And my daughter, who's definitely my most sensitive child, um, she got tears in her eyes. And the part that broke her heart was when he was calling out for his mother. And these jurors, they're human. He's a grown man. You can tell he's suffering. He says, I can't breathe 27 times, as the prosecutor pointed out repeatedly. He begged, please, please tell my kids I love them. And he's calling out for his mother. I just think like, this is why the defense tried to plead. This is why they said, please just will plead guilty to manslaughter. And it's also frankly why the prosecutor said no. Megan, you know, the jury is going to hear evidence that the last time he was arrested a year ago, he called out for his mother as well. So I do think that is going to a little bit, just a little bit diminish the fact that he's calling out for his mother as well. So I do think that is going to a little bit, just a little bit

diminish the fact that he's calling out for his mother. That is one of the rulings that the judge has made that the jury will be allowed to hear about Floyd's 2019 arrest. That number one, he resisted arrest. And number two, in the course of resisting arrest, he said, I can't breathe. And number three, he called out for his mother. Now I'm surprised the judge let that in only because the defendant did not know that at the time of the arrest, it would be different if he knew it at the time of the arrest and say, this guy does, this is his act. This is his routine. So I'm surprised that the judge, that was a very good ruling for the defense that that, that is allowed to come in because all of a sudden, Megan, I

wonder what your daughter's reaction would be if you were like, well, he got arrested like 10 months before this, and he kind of did and said the exact same thing. He resisted. He said, I can't breathe, and he called out for his mom, which diminishes the sincerity of it all. You won't be surprised to learn I had seen that, and I shared that with her. I actually did want to know what her reaction was going to be if she knew he had done it before. I'd say it gave her something to think about. I don't think it moved her. Of course, she's nine. All right. She's nine. But I do think it's a valid point that, you know, the defense point is going to be this is his routine. And cops, whether Chauvin knew that about George Floyd or not, see this all the time. You guys know this, right? Mark, it's like all the time. The defendants rarely go into custody joyfully without protest saying the handcuffs feel wonderful. I mean, I can't breathe has become a thing ever since Eric Garner. You hear cops now say every defendant says it. And George Floyd, if you watch the full,

if you watch the police body cam tapes, which were not in the opening statement of the prosecutor yesterday, but I've seen them with it. Nine minutes, 29 seconds if I can't breathe. It's just too long. But here's the question. Did you also tell your daughter of what opioids are, what fentanyl is, the facts and circumstances that got them into that situation? And the reason why I'm bringing this up is not because I think that somehow negates the guilt of the defendant, but that is going to be a defense strategy. It's not about nine minutes and 29 seconds. There's 50,000 pieces of evidence that's coming

in and you'll hear all about how he started the chain of events that led to his ultimate demise. What they're doing there is they are attempting, whether they want to admit it or not, to devalue his life. That's what they're doing. Here's a drug addict, repeated history with law enforcement and problems, and that's what they're doing. I'm looking back now. George Floyd's May 2019 arrest, which was literally one year prior to the incident with Chauvin that led to his death, is coming into evidence. His behavior is coming in. But actually, Arthur, taking a closer look, the judge ruled his emotional behavior inadmissible. So you and I know, and the greater jury pool out there, in other words, our audience

will know that he said this, he called for his mama, but this jury is actually not going to hear that piece of it. So not going to hear that piece of pattern. I think, I think it's just behavioral events at the time that are coming in, but not the statements, not the emotional stuff. So, but in any event, you know, there will probably be some testimony by some police expert from the defense saying it is very common for a defendant to say, can't breathe ever since Eric Garner we knew this even before George Floyd that you know cops will tell you everybody says it now because it's a way of getting the cops off of you which is what all defendants want and the and a cop does have to make a judgment call about whether it's true or it's not now the problem for the defense in this

case is yeah but your guy had your knee on, but your guy had your knee on his neck. Your guy had your knee on his neck for nine minutes. So we had really good reason to believe that claim here. And the commentators, everyone who's on the sidewalk, the guy's saying, you know, you're a bum. He obviously can't breathe. Look, he's got liquid coming out of his nose. He's bleeding from his nose. He's not moving.

Why are you doing this? I mean, it wasn't like an isolated scene where the cops are in some dark alley and there's no one around. I mean, they have people telling them that this guy is clearly in distress. And I know George Floyd is a big man, but there's four officers there. They all have tasers, firearms, and all kinds of weapons. It just, that's the part. For me, the video, the visual part of it was horrible, horrific, but the audio part really told the story. There's a bunch of people there who are basically begging the cop to get off of them. It's not just George Floyd

who's begging for his life. It's civilians who are begging the cop for George Floyd's life. Arthur, how about the 911 operator leading off this trial, one of their own, essentially. Brilliant by the prosecutor, in my opinion. Brilliant. For those who don't know, that she called a supervisor because she was able to visually see what was going on and she had concerns.

Now the defense called the cops on the cops. She's the dispatcher. She called the cops on the cop. Wait, hold on. Stand by, stand by on that. Cause we have a soundbite of that and then I'll, I'll let you pick it up, Mark. In the incident, something's not going right. Whether it be they needed more assistance or if there were, there just something wasn't right. I don't know how to explain it. It was a gut instinct to tell me that now we can be concerned. And what did you decide to do? I took that instinct and I called the sergeant.

And do you recall who the sergeant was that you talked to? It was Sergeant Ploeger. And why did you call a sergeant? The sergeant is the police officer's supervisor. You're not a Minneapolis police officer. No. You haven't gone through like the use of force training no but in your experience you felt something was wrong here that a sergeant needed to know about correct um if this was a form of use of force I was calling to let them know

go ahead mark wow well first of all very cool that you had that clip so I didn't have to explain it there there it is and boy did she water it down? I thought something might have been off, you know, like something just wasn't right. I mean, that's one way to say it. The other way is, oh, my God, I'm watching this cop abuse this man. And it was clear to me and the world. But the defense did the best they could. I don't think they overcame the power of the evidence. But what they argued was, well, you're not familiar with use of force, ma'am. You're not trained in that regard. You don't know anything and how to deal with people. No, no, no, no, no. And that's what the defense did. Well, and I think that, you know, as, as, as kind of shocking as it is to have to call the police on the police, it doesn't, in the end, I think I could handle that as a defense attorney. I think I could say it didn't look good. We understand it. And the defense attorney has made reference to this a couple of times saying, you know,

use of force is allowed under the law and it's never pretty. It's, it's actually uncomfortable to watch usually. Um, but that doesn't really tell you anything. You can't go by, you know, how it looks. The defense attorney, Eric Nelson's handled lots of police excessive force cases. He's going to know how to diffuse the look of in general, um, a police arrest using force. Now that doesn't, that doesn't excuse or, you know, explain away exactly the, the nine 29, which the prosecution so effectively kept saying nine 29 to, and the, and the other thing he was saying, which I thought was really good, was he pulled

like a Johnny Cochran. He was like, he does not let up and he does not get up. He kept saying that about Chauvin. Even when Chauvin is told that he doesn't have a pulse two times, he does not get up. He does not let up and he does not get up. And he kept saying that over and over. And it was a good phrase because it's always helpful to give the jury something that they can stick with or write down in their notes that sums up your case. It was effective. And normally, so when you're in the district attorney's office here in the five boroughs of New York, they give you the little three ring by their handbook of how to try a case as a prosecutor. Usually the first witness you put on is the body ID. So you put the mother on of the dead child or, you know, because you try to get that sympathy for the loss of life.

So this was, and they could have done that here. They could have put someone from George Floyd's family on. And usually the judge gives the prosecutor a decent amount of leeway to talk about how old George was and what did he do and make, you know, make everyone sound pretty and you miss them to death. This was a little unorthodox, but I thought it was very powerful because again, it was like the police calling someone on the police and they asked that question, have you ever done this before? And she said, no. So it showed how extraordinary these circumstances were.

So I want to get to the defense in a minute because it is it's pretty interesting. And I'm I'm trying very hard to keep an open mind, you know, as emotional as I felt watching that tape. I almost feel like it was an advantage that I just saw it the way the jury saw it. Although I had seen, you know, the police body camera footage as well, which they haven't seen yet, but I'm sure will. In any event, I'm trying very, very, very hard to keep an open mind to the defense and the legal elements and see, you know, does the prosecution make its case legally? And so I am open minded to that. But I will say, I think probably the most devastating thing we've seen so far for the defense is the judge's ruling that the prosecution only has to prove that Derek Chauvin's behavior was a cause of George Floyd's death, not the cause. And so

all we're going to get into the defense and the fentanyl and the drugs and all that, which is pretty compelling. But if all I got to prove is the knee on the neck was a cause, I'm feeling pretty good as the prosecutor. Of course. So look, it starts with opening statement. I want jurors who will somehow confuse the law. I do. I don't want jurors to follow the law. I want them to be confused. I want them to erroneously think that that has to be the reason and they failed to prove it. Even though that's not what the law says, I'm looking for people who will confuse things. The second thing is I want as many B people who, who would be described

as BL fill in the blank. And I'm not saying black because there were four blacks, which actually is higher than the 20% that Minneapolis has. I'm talking about blind. I want blind jurors. So they can't actually see the videotape. And I'm joking, but the truth of the matter is once the video is in, that's a problem. Let's look at the defense now. Okay, so we've given a lot of what we're going to hear from the prosecutor. The prosecutor, by the way, is claiming that George Floyd died by asphyxia and that they're going to put on medical experts to say that. Their problem is that there was a medical examiner in this case, the Hennepin County medical examiner, who did rule it a homicide. They did. They did conclude homicide. But they said that George Floyd died of cardiopulmonary arrest, complicating law enforcement, subdual restraint and neck compression, which is a very weird way of saying it. That almost feels like it's been massaged somehow.

But they say, but they basically say that he, that there was no finding supporting a diagnosis of traumatic asphyxia or strangulation that the underlying health conditions, including coronary heart disease and hypertensive heart disease, likely contributed to his death. So you've got the medical examiner saying he did not die of traumatic asphyxiation. And I'll rule it a homicide because I understand what happened here with the knee on the neck. But he died of something bad that happened to his heart in this moment. Do I have it right, Mark? Is that basically what happened?

That's it. That's perfect. One of the things I said at the top of this show was you focus on the scientific slash medical evidence and you get them to acquit of the most serious charges, obviously, or maybe at all. Recognizing that maybe his conduct was not ideal, and even he acknowledges it because then he wouldn't be in this predicament, but that in order to make a cake, you need all the different elements, same with peanut butter and jelly. You got to have peanut butter, jelly, and bread, and what you're missing here is the essential element that this was the cause of death, and we have shown that there's a reasonable doubt as to

the cause. And you have an obligation. You swore to all of us that you would follow the law, even if you didn't like it. Forget about the crowds inside and outside. You just lay into them that way and hope that they are empowered to make a difficult, courageous decision based upon the medical and the science. I don't think Eric Nelson, I'm not disagreeing with you, Mark, but I don't think Eric Nelson did that in his opening statement yesterday. I know he didn't want to use, you know, uh, the, the, any kind of technology. And he, you know, he just spoke to them and I have no issue with that, but if I was going to use anything, I would highlight the, uh, the report of the very first medical examiner who you know you say folks this guy has no horse in this race he's a doctor he just reports what he sees and here's what he sees

what the prosecutor just told you in their opening statement as far as i know mr blackwell does has a jd not an md and he totally disagrees with what you were just told by this lawyer. This lawyer says he died from his being choked. And the doctor says that's not true. Coming up in one minute, we're going to talk more about the defense strategy and really get into where we think he's going. And we're going to talk about the juries, the jurors that have been selected so far. Who would the defense lawyers we're talking to be looking at as the juror they need? Because keep in mind, when you're a defense attorney, it only takes one to get at least a mistrial declared. And there are a couple on this jury that may seem more police-oriented.

It's tough to read the tea leaves, but we're going to try to. Next. One of the MEs, Dr. Andrew Baker, said if George Floyd were found dead at his home with no other apparent causes that you'd call this an O.D. He's saying I'm not I'm not saying that necessarily is what did in this case, but this is a huge amount of fentanyl. Now, the prosecutor tried to get ahead of this by saying he was an addict and what might kill you or me wasn't going to kill George Floyd because he was a big guy. He was 6'6 and over 200 something pounds. But that's a ton of fentanyl mixed with other drugs. They said that he, he said on tape that he'd been hooping that morning, which we're told, forgive me, is a way of inserting drugs rectally so that you can get high faster. The prosecutor is apparently getting ready to argue. It was a reference to

basketball. They found drugs with George Floyd's DNA on it and saliva on them that he apparently tried to swallow before the cops got there or while they got there. The guy was like ingesting tons of drugs that morning, and he was judged high by the people he gave the $20 counterfeit bill to, and so on and so forth. And so that's the defense, this whole case that George Floyd died because he took enough fentanyl and methamphetamine to kill even a man his size. And Derek Chauvin, they're basically going to say Chauvin was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Yeah. So, so you add to that the drug use coupled with the extensive history of medical issues, coronary disease, enlarged heart, swelling of lungs, all that is the cause of death. And by the way, I think it's time to mention it. We only need one. When I say we, I'm not on the team, but they only need one. And by that, I mean, get one person, one stubborn juror who says, yeah, I think there's a reasonable

doubt as to the cause. I'm not going to find them guilty. Then you potentially get your plea bargain when they consider, not consider when they do retry this case. That's what you want. If you can hang this jury up,'s a victory that's right i think a manslaughter is a victory in my opinion because don't forget there's two charges of murder one charge of manslaughter so if you get some sort of if you get that one mark as you know in a case of this magnitude the judge is going to put enormous pressure on the jury to to try to come to reach a verdict and it wouldn't be the the first time that they say, okay, even though you think he should be found not guilty, and we think he should be found guilty of

the top count murder too, why don't we compromise in the middle and we'll just do the manslaughter, which is the lowest charge facing him. This is 100% manslaughter, at least, right? The only real debate we're having here is whether it's something more than manslaughter. I mean, I realize the defense attorney is going for an all out, not guilty, but my own legal assessment is this is a hundred percent going to be a conviction of at least manslaughter. And what's really at stake here is whether it will be upgraded to murder, either third degree murder or second degree murder. Do you guys, I mean, honestly, do you think there's any reasonable chance of an outright acquittal no that's that's enough answer reasonable no no it's not reason no and i think the murder

three what got me on the murder three because i always i always said it's going to be a manslaughter manslaughter until i really listened and i know i'm harping on this, but the video is bad, but the audio to me is worse, the play by play. That's where it says, that's a disregard for human life. When you have all of these human beings in broad daylight who seem very credible human beings, whether you believe or not, a woman who identifies herself as a fellow public servant or as an EMS worker, and they're saying, you're killing him, you're killing him, you're killing him. To me, that's a reckless disregard of human life. Well, can you just explain, Arthur, the difference? Because we've got manslaughter.

I don't think most people understand second degree, third degree, and then the lowest charge, which is manslaughter, which is the one Chauvin offered to plead guilty to, and the prosecution rejected it. Okay. So the manslaughter, you don't have to have any intent to kill someone. It's culpable negligence and individuals, the culpable negligence. So the negligence that is very obvious creates an unreasonable risk and that the defendant consciously takes chances of causing the death. So it's a chance of causing death consciously takes chances of causing the death. So it's a chance of causing death or a chance of causing bodily harm to another. So you're not trying to kill anyone, but basically what you're doing, either you should know that it

could cause death or bodily harm, or you're so negligent that you create an unreasonable risk of death. So that's the lowest charge. That's what everyone is saying he's definitely guilty of. The third degree murder, which is the next lowest charge, they have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that kneeling on someone's neck for nine minutes is eminently dangerous and shows a depraved mind. So in and of itself, that's a close call, except when you have all of these human beings, again, reasonably credible human beings, they don't seem like

they're people who are mentally deficient, saying, you know, you're killing him, you're killing him. That shows the depravity of his own mind. Well, you can't. That's not true. That's not true. You can't go by that as as sympathetic as the crowd may be to the jurors and everybody else watching this. You can't go by what the crowd is yelling at the cops. And if they're 10 feet away from him, it's not like they're a football field away. And he's not absolutely motionless. And he's already told you, I can't breathe. You have a knee on his back and on his neck. And even when the EMS comes, he still doesn't get off of him. He still doesn't say, step right in and take over. And he's handcuffed the whole time.

I know that you want to know, what were you thinking? Why after four? And this goes right to the heart of whether it's second degree manslaughter or third degree. Like, how do we get from you're negligent? But what was in your mind at that moment? What were you thinking? And can we somehow find you guilty of something lesser because you mitigate your negligence or recklessness, depending on what they find, by you describing to us jurors and the court of public opinion, what the hell were you thinking? And if he's got some type of explanation and maybe he does, and it sounds decent, then maybe you put him on the witness

stand for that purpose. I looked at this under the actual guidelines, the Minnesota guidelines for somebody like Derek Chauvin, who has no priors. And it looks to me like this is according to local newspaper, that there's the presumed sentence for second degree and third degree is 10 and three quarter years to 15 years. And that the presumptive sentence for manslaughter is only 41 to 57 months, which is, I mean, that's why we'll, we're going to see riots if it's only manslaughter. I mean, but the prosecution is arguing for higher sentences than the presumptive sentences than the, than the sentencing guidelines would, would dictate. I mean, can that be done? That seems unusual. Can it be done? It can. Will he? You're damn right he will. I mean, they're not in a

vacuum. If this wasn't a high profile case and an officer had an exemplary record and screwed up one time majorly, then that's when it might be appropriate. But no question this is all about the court of public opinion and he is going to be the sacrificial lamb. Let's just flesh out these charges a little bit more because there was this whole controversy over the third degree murder charge where this judge, Cahill, who, by the way, everybody seems like both sides say he's a fair guy. Everybody expects him to be good. So far, he didn't seem like a lanceto wanting attention. So he said, no, you can't charge third degree murder third degree murder is is an act that's eminently dangerous to others to others it's when a guy robs my store i run after him with my gun

he runs into a crowd and i start firing at him in in the crowd and so that's third degree murder because what i did was eminently dangerous to others and that's why this judge said you can't charge that. I'm not allowing third degree murder. It went up to the appeals court. The appeals court said, you're wrong. You have to let them charge it.

And so this is, the jury's going to have this one. That one confuses me. And I just, if they do it the way you just said it, Arthur, just prove it's quote, eminently dangerous.

Let it hang out there. Forget the part, the part that it's to others. And if it evidences a quote, depraved mind, okay, I could there, forget the part that it's to others. And if it evidences a quote, depraved mind, okay, I could see it. But I don't know how, like, how are they going to find it was Emily dangerous to others? The highest court in Minnesota reversed the lower court judge because they found in another case, not this case, but they found in another case that similar facts fit into the third degree murder. And they basically overruled the trial judge and said, no, you have to keep it

in there. So it's against the trial judges. Now, a trial judge often has the ability, even after a verdict, as you know, Megan, to throw out a jury's verdict if he thinks it's against the weight of the evidence, et cetera, et cetera. So let's see how the judge plays with that or how this plays out if the jury finds him not guilty of murder too, which I think is, that's a bit of a stretch. And what's that one? That's like, I'm going to keep my knee on his neck and make sure this guy dies. I'm in it to make sure he's, if there's premeditation involved. Now, premeditation doesn't have to be for days.

It could be for minutes. And you could argue that nine minutes and 29 seconds, you could have plenty of premeditation. I believe the prosecutor said this was not a split second decision. This was, I mean, gave the amount of seconds, 400 and something seconds. But I think that-

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. What's the difference then between first degree murder which is not charged and second degree now you're stumping us i can tell you what is in new york and killing a police officer or a law enforcement officer i kind of that's the difference stumped i thought you were a little off i i think let me just correct you he the the highest charge my understanding for which he could be held accountable, is the second degree unintentional murder, which is that Chauvin caused Floyd's death while he was assaulting him. And I think what they're saying is that assault needs to be like it has to be an unlawful assault. And that's why the prosecutor yesterday was saying or on Monday was saying members of the jury use of excessive force against a citizen is an assault. He's trying to get around preemptively

the jurors knee jerk reaction of, well, a cop is allowed to kind of assault you. I'm like a cop, a cop's allowed to put hands on you that you don't want on you. A cop's allowed to rough you up a little bit. And his point is excessive force is not allowed. And that actually is an unlawful assault. And boom, you're the second degree murder, because if you cause the death while assaulting someone, you've committed this most serious charge. I mean, that's why I wanted that defined properly. There he's looking at 10 and three quarters years, the 15 years. I think that that's what this is. Well, you know that the pressure is going to be

on the jurors. I mean, the jurors have no say in sentencing, but it's common sense, second degree, third degree, one's more serious than the other. You know that they're going to have an enormous amount of pressure. And you started off this whole conversation, Maggie, we're talking about the emotions. And as much as they show the video in the beginning and the opening statements, you know they're going to show that video in the closing statements to pull on the heartstrings of the jurors. Is that the way the system is supposed to work? Not ideally, but it's fair to show evidence in your closing statement. The way it affected you and your family and it affected me, it's just naive to say it's not going to affect those 12 people. Can I add to this? You tell me one person in that town who doesn't know that the city paid out $27 million for the unreasonable, unlawful actions of their officers. That's the presumption going in. They don't know about that? No. But let's talk about the other video. Let's talk about the body cam video because when you watch the whole body cam video from the police vantage point, right, like there, those four guys had body cams on that that caught more than the prosecution is showing us. And that's where you go to before the 929. That's where you go to what what George Floyd was like leading up to the moment he found himself in Derek Chauvin's unfortunate custody. He was belligerent. He was strong. The two police officers trying to get him under control

couldn't do it. He was kicking. He was pushing. He he totally resisted getting into that cop car. Twice they tried to shove him in torso first. He wouldn't do it um they were out of control they were not able to control him that's when Derek Chauvin got there and said is he under arrest and the other cops said yes and Derek Chauvin did a technique that his lawyer is going to put experts on to say is not only allowed but was part of his training. The prosecution's going to dispute this. But the defense told us yesterday they're going to put on experts who say Chauvin was taught this as an acceptable means of getting a defendant, a suspect, somebody you're trying to take into custody under control.

And, you know, that maybe he didn't do it exactly the right way. Maybe he did. We'll see what the defense is going to argue. They're going to try to show the jury. This is a man, George Floyd, a long criminal record. You know, they pointed out before prior to the trial that, you know, he was he served time for just assaulting a pregnant woman by putting a loaded pistol up to her pregnant belly and went away for that and didn't want to go away again. And that's why he was belligerent. He was high. He was on the fentanyl. And these cops didn't know what they were getting here, but they felt threatened. And that's a situation Chauvin came into. And as the defense lawyer pointed out yesterday or Monday, now he's getting surrounded by a crowd, a belligerent, angry crowd, which is not unusual for cops, especially in today's day and age, even prior to this. And they he was scared of them, too. He had to worry about multiple threats. Now that's going to be their story. Yeah, Megan, I'm glad you brought that up because it does two things. It continues on this dialogue that this guy

is not who you think he might be. It's not all about nine minutes and 29 seconds. You got to go back to how he chose to set in motion the series of events. Again, I'm not justifying it, but when I saw what happened before, I went, oh, ooh, you know, that's not on the cops. That's on his choices. But Mark, as you know, a lot of what Megan just said is not relevant unless you could show that the police officer who's on his choices but mark as you know a lot of what megan just said is not relevant unless you could show that the police officer who's on trial knew about that when he entered

the scene did he know he had prior convictions did he know he resisted arrest before did he know he went to jail did he know he put a gun to a woman's belly before all of that is irrelevant unless you could then the judge should never let it in unless the cop knew about it and said hey this is a bad dude he's taken down other cops before he's been in prison he knows how to handle himself he can take a spork and stick it in my neck so i really be better be heavy-handed with him so that's why even though we know that the jury should never know that well i kind of agree with you i kind of't. I think that they need context to know how he got there. So the judge should let all what occurred right before in. But as sure as I'm

sitting here, there is no way in heck that the defendant is going to say he didn't know from his fellow officers what just preceded him putting his knee on his neck. For sure he's going to say that. And the other officers, all of whom are charged with aiding and abetting these murder charges they're on the prosecution witness list the the prosecutor's going to call them so if i'm the defense attorney for chauvin i'm 100 using those guys to get in the body cam from the cops and talk about their state of mind these officers and why they told derek chauvin that George Floyd was under arrest. It's because of all this stuff, the $20 bill, the drugs. And the defense attorney

yesterday made a point of saying there are other witnesses in this case, and they're George Floyd's friends who are going to show the jury just how far gone George Floyd was. And here's actually, we have a soundbite of that. Listen. You will hear from Chris Martin, who is the store clerk at Cup Foods. Mr. Martin observed Mr. Floyd. He watched his body language. He interacted with Mr. Floyd in this moment. And Mr. Martin formed the opinion that Mr. Floyd was under the influence of something. Mr. Floyd's friends will explain that Mr. Floyd fell asleep in the car and that they couldn't wake him up, that they kept trying to wake him up to get going, that they thought the police might be coming because now the store was coming out. And they kept trying to wake him up.

Their point is the guy was almost, you know, not dead, but like he was ODing. That's that's what the defense's point is going to be. He was ODing. And, you know, he went from sort of this drug rage with the cops to ODing. And that's why Chauvin's not guilty, Mark. Well, good luck with that. You've got to argue it. Look, let's Arthur and I both do this for a living.

The bottom line is this is a case you don't want to try, but there's no plea bargain. It's an ultimatum. It's a declaration of war, what they probably put on the table. Therefore, you're forced to try this case. You then look at it. You want to devalue Mr. Floyd as much as possible in front of the jury, even though that's not what you want to say on the record. I could say, cause I'm not in the case exactly what they're doing. They want to somehow, uh, point their finger at him, his prior actions, his actions before the defendant got there and make him look as bad as possible. Hope that you got one juror who doesn't fully understand the law and then pray that they compromise and come up with a lesser charge. So he'll be like, I like the legal analysis there.

Let's let's spend a minute talking about the jury, because as you point out, Mark, that's the dirty little truth of criminal defense work. You only need one. You know, the prosecution needs all for a conviction and the defense needs all for an acquittal. But really, the defense only needs one in order for a mistrial, which is a win, right, for the defense, because then you're in a better position to force a plea. I'm looking at this jury. I think it's extraordinary that it's as diverse as it is, given that this is a predominantly white county. You've got something like, I'm looking at U.S. Census Bureau, black people make up nearly 14% of the residents in Hennepin County where this happened. Whites make up about 74%.

And yet we've got eight white, six black or multiracial on this jury of 14. Two of them are going to be alternates. But it's pretty diverse. Now, they asked every question under the sun of these jurors. I mean, they had to basically, you know, they had to offer their opinions on like global warming, basically, to get on this jury. And here's just a profile of a couple I'd be looking at if I were the defense attorney. he's logical. He hadn't watched video of the death. He had seen some photos. He had some knowledge of the case. He was asked his feelings about Black Lives Matter. He said he supports the movement and the message, but not the organization. Quote, I support the message that every life should matter equally. I don't think the organization necessarily stands for that. I don't know. I mean, these are vast generalizations, but as you guys know, as lawyers, you make just gross sweeping assumptions about people in the limited time you have to assess them as jurors. I'd be looking at him, Mark, if I were the defense lawyer as possibly my one. like this where you just need one and i'll stare at that one and the judge knows i'm staring at that one i walk and i will position myself in front of that one juror in the jury box and just

stare at that one juror and do everything i can and of course include the others but but i know i want that one and i got that one juror in one major trial it's exactly what i did just to tell you megan how how i'm not as good as mark that when i do that, that one juror, so the big hung jury I got in Manhattan. And at the end, I met the jury in the back and I went over that one. And I was like, thank you so much, dude. He goes, you're great, Mr. Aydala. Give me your card. I was like, I knew you with me from the beginning. He goes, with you from the beginning? He goes, I was the one pushing the whole jury for conviction. Your guy is so guilty. He goes, you're amazing. You had six people in there saying he didn't do anything

wrong. And meanwhile, they had him on tape doing something wrong. So I never know who the one is going to be. And I usually shoot for three. I try to get three people who I think are going to go my way. But Mark, you know what you're saying about kind of let's question Mr. Floyd's background. I thought the defense attorney was pretty tepid in his attacks on Mr. Floyd. And yet when you watch some of the news coverage last night, there were a lot of people who were like, Mr. Floyd's not on trial and he was attacking him too much. And it's a real slippery slope and a tightrope that you're walking on and bringing out facts that are in evidence and not offending certain people on the jury who may identify in some degree or another with Mr. Floyd.

You and I both know we're not there to win over the talking heads on TV. No, I'm worried about the jurors, though. If I'm offending the talking heads, maybe I'm offending a juror as well. I don't give you know what about what these people in the studios are saying. I'm concerned about what those jurors are saying. And my only chance, one of my greatest weapons is to put the blame more on the decedent than my client. And that is standard procedure.

And if you don't do that, then you're not the lawyer for the job. And if it offends people, well, that may happen, but you may not offend any of the jurors. You may offend some of them, but it only takes one to not be offended and go, you know what? All right. So maybe we should reduce the charge. You know what offends me a little bit, Megan, is all of these people who don't work in the prosecutor's office who are coming in as pro bono people on this prosecution.

Yeah. What's up with that? That's just not supposed to be how the system works. And I honestly, if I'm that prosecutor, if I'm Keith Ellison, I think it's almost an insult to my office that what my staff isn't good enough to handle this relatively simple. I don't want to use the word simple, but relatively straightforward prosecution. Oh no, we need to bring in four or five pro bono people who've been the head of this division and ahead of that division. And they're in private practice and they're federal former prosecutors. Like, no, no, no, I don't need anyone. And this is my office and my people are competent enough to handle it. How did that happen?

I'll take the other side on that. I disagree. In other words, look, if my ego is not my amigo, I'll take whatever help I can get to win a trial that is absolutely necessary to be won from the prosecutor perspective. If someone's willing to offer some assistance, I'll take whatever they're willing to offer. As a leader, Mark, as a leader, what does that say to your chief of the homicide bureau? If you're the DA or you're the attorney general, what message are you giving to the head of your division that he can't handle it himself or she can't handle it themselves and I got to bring an outside force? Arthur, that is your message. Your ego is telling you that that's the message. My ego says I'm not afraid to welcome anyone who wants to come onto my dream team.

As long as they know their boundaries, they know their place, they're certainly willing to contribute. I'll take more people. Why not? As long as they don't undermine my effort in any way. Well, I thought this guy, Jerry Blackwell, who I don't understand it, to be honest, he's assisting the prosecutors pro bono. He's the founder of the Minnesota Association of Black Lawyers. I don't understand drafting somebody in like a ringer to try the case for the prosecution. And what does that say to every other person who gets killed and there's another murder trial? Are you going to bring in someone? Is one life more important than the other or one defendant

is more important than the other? Then are you going to have all this extra help on every murder that takes place in a certain community? It's not community? Are you going to pretend that this case is like every other case? Really? Well, you know what? You're supposed to try. That's part being part of the system. You're supposed to try to treat equal justice under the law. Period.

Amen. Well, I mean, listen, it's he's better than Keith Ellison, the attorney general of Minnesota, who's a nightmare and an anti-Semite. And that's been pretty proven and is in love with Louis Farrakhan. All right. I'll take this guy, Blackwell, over Keith Ellison any day of the week and twice on Sunday. And my impression of him, along with the defense attorney, Nelson, for that matter, is they both seemed reasonable. They both seemed sort of calm, almost avuncular. They didn't seem like hotheads in any way. They both, in terms of manner, I think they're on par. I'd give maybe a slight edge

to Blackwell, the prosecutor. I would have liked to have seen a little more energy out of Eric Nelson. I'm not a big fan of starting off a defense opening statement right after all of this blistering stuff from the prosecution with the words reasonable doubt to me that's almost waving a right white flag i mean i would have started off with saying stand up derrick five foot nine 140 pounds think of yourself ladies and gentlemen walking it it's david versus goliath two six six 260 pounds think of the disparity. It's the heavyweight champ against the featherweight champ, something that's going to pull them into your side a little bit.

Golden rule objection. Asking them to put themselves in his position. But anyway. You know it. You get the point. Just to clarify, you're not allowed to make the jury, well, you're not allowed to make the jury for its own safety, which is the one I was thinking of, but you're not allowed to, what, make the jury? All the great not allowed to make the jury for its own safety which is the one i was thinking of but you're not allowed to what make the jury all the great stuff

that you see in cheesy law dramas on tv where i yell and my wife can't stand watching those shows with me because i go you can't say that you can't do that yeah well you know what megan i i go by the rule i'd rather ask for forgiveness than permission objection sustained what the jury didn't just hear what i just said oh i think it's a hard drive that just got wiped out from their memory so let me so let me ask you arthur in in the, in the Harvey Weinstein trial, you said, Mr. Weinstein, stand up so the jury can see, Oh wait, Oh, put your Walker to the side, sir. Sorry. I had to, you feel better now? I do. You feel better. You got it out of your system. You can't ask yourselves in the position of the, of the defendant, but you do it creatively.

The minute they object, you just say, you go from, imagine you're in his position. Instead of that, you just say, imagine a person, blah, blah, blah, and you just change it. You just shift it very slowly. Mark, you're telling me when you have like a one witness ID case and you're the defense attorney and the witness is not the pillar of society, in closing argument, you didn't say, Mr. Foreperson, would you even let him hold your wallet for five seconds? Would

you trust him with your driver's license or your $20 bill? You wouldn't trust him with that, then you can't trust him with my client's life. Arthur, I will do whatever it takes that I can get away with to win the case. So yes. Well, listen. So one of the biggest problems that Chauvin's going to have, even given the size differential, is they're going to put on testimony, the prosecutor, from the police chief, his police chief, according to the prosecutor, saying this was not an appropriate use of force,

it wasn't lawful, and it wasn't within the police department's policy. That's not good, right? I mean, I don't like, I don't know. I feel like the police chief saying that, and that's what I'm expecting. Like the defense is going to argue the opposite, but the police chief is on the prosecution side and they fired Chauvin the next day. That's a bad fact for officer Chauvin. Uh, no one's been marked. I'm not disagreeing with you, but hold on. on i will so what am i doing on the defense side i say you know my client became the sacrificial lamb you know people were going crazy there were riots you know he had to say that this was not something he

was taught and that's just not true and we're going to show you how the techniques that were taught to him, he implemented and he did it properly. If you could say that with a straight face. I'm going to give you another juror that's interesting to me if I'm the defense lawyer looking for one, looking for one white woman in her 40s, works in insurance, bachelor's degree in communication. She has not seen the bystander video of George Floyd in its entirety, obviously until the courtroom. She believes there's discrimination in the criminal justice system against black people and other minorities, but also said the police make her feel safe and she has strong respect for them. Somewhat favorable view of Black Lives Matter, but is not involved in the movement herself. Also said she has a, quote, very favorable view of Blue Lives Matter and said she would be, quote, terrified if the police departments were dismantled. But she does believe some change needs to happen. Now, keep in mind, they did dismantle the police in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It was a disaster. They already had to refund the defunded police because it was such a nightmare. But I think she's interesting. Very favorable of Blue

Lives Matter. Mark, I'd be looking at her too. She's worthy of extra eye contact for sure. But I still think the best case scenario, Megan, is what you said is the manslaughter. I mean, I think that's the victory for the defense and that's kind of a loss to some degree for the prosecution. Yes. So, all right. So one other thing just to get people up to speed on, like I would say the prosecution's biggest witness so far was not the 911 operator, though she was fine. It was not the woman who just they used just to introduce a tape she had taken from across the street of the incident, which I thought added absolutely nothing.

And clearly the woman didn't want to be there. And the biggest buzz about her on Twitter was about her false eyelashes. But it was the third guy, Donald Williams. And he was the one who he was the most vocal guy that you hear on the videotape. Like, you're a bum. You're a bum. F in this, F in this at the cop. And I would say, frankly, he's sort of the voice of the people as you watch the thing go down. You know, you're rooting for Donald Williams. You're on Donald Williams' side.

And it turns out he's a mixed martial arts expert and basically got certified to testify. I thought this was kind of unusual because he wasn't actually certified as an expert, but they're allowing him to be an expert in mixed martial arts, talking about how Chauvin had him in sort of a blood hold

and it was inappropriate. It was cutting off the airway. And Nelson, the defense attorney, got his chance to cross-examine Williams on Tuesday and really went after him about how he's got an ax to grind against cops. And he's too angry to be an objective witness in this and here's just a transcript of what happened uh on on the stand on tuesday morning defense attorney you told the bca that you wanted to quote beat the shit out of the police officers williams that's what i felt nelson you were angry williams no you can't paint me as angry I was controlled with professionalism Nelson you called him a fucking pussy ass bitch Williams if that's

what was heard on the video I guess I did that's good it's good cross shouldn't he have just owned his anger yes I was angry a man was being killed right we were all angry I mean the truth is we were all angry and I think that guy given the play by play, you know, I don't anyone would be angry. So it's not like he comes off as being unreasonable by calling the guy those curse words that you just said, because I felt the same way. I mean, I was watching that thing. I was yelling at the TV. I know obviously what happened, but come on, get off him, get off him. And that's, I think that those emotions, you know,

you can't overcome that when you're a juror. I mean, the best, again, the best case scenario is Mark Iglar gets his one or two jurors who say, no, I want to walk him out of the courtroom. And they say, we ain't walking them out of the courtroom. We'll compromise and we'll give you the manslaughter. And, you know, by the way, Megan, all these jurors now, because it's so easy, they all cheat, right? They're not supposed to look at the law. They're not supposed to see what the sentencing is. Now, when Mark, well, at least when I was trying cases,

they'd have to go to the library and pull out a book and find it. Now they just say, hey, Siri, what's the sentence of manslaughter? And so they'll probably know. They're not allowed to, but they do it. They do it all the time. They go on Google. They did a thing recently, one of the bar associations, and they asked jurors anonymously, how many of them did go on social media during the course of the trial? And it was like a ridiculous number, 35%, 40% said that they do. Wow. It's just so easy. And a case like this,

if they leave the courthouse and they get into a cab, there's going to be radio on in the cab. There's going to be TV on the cab. You're going in an elevator now. It's there. It's omnipresent. Back in the day, when I was trying cases, they'd be sequestered in a murder case. They would be in the custody of the court officers. No newspapers, no radio, no TV. They'd go from the courthouse to the hotel room, back to the courthouse. And they'd be able to talk to their family on the phone where the court officers are listening in. They were really, it was really much more pure than it is today. I'm less concerned about them checking this possible sentence as I am about what's going on

outside of the courthouse. The minute they habitually check their social media and then they see all the posts, it's unavoidable. They know that there is intense pressure for them to find this cop guilty of the main charge. They know that. They feel it. That's the toughest thing as a defense lawyer. I have a very similar case where there's a lot of pressure down here in South Florida on a guy that I'm representing. And I'm studying this trial because, you know, there's there's you've got to take this on. You've got to get them to promise you that they're not going to, you know, they're not but they're going to.

There's no way to avoid it. Right. Right. Because the jury, the jury's not sequestered. So they are. I mean, they might be once the deliberations start, but they're not right now. So they are out there. And you're right. It's everywhere. But but they know the judge, Cahill, didn't agree to the change of venue motion. Because he's like, good luck finding a jury anywhere that doesn't know about this case or know about this video. Moving it to the country is not going to be any more fair to him than moving it, you know, than having it here in the city.

I think you could make an argument. I actually think I disagree with him on that. But, okay, it's happening where it's happening. But that's going to weigh on these jurors. Everyone knows what happens in today's day and age. Look what happened in Ferguson, Missouri, when they didn't indict over Michael Brown's death. Right. Like we had riots and we saw everything burned and everything burned even after George Floyd was killed. Never mind a jury had its say. And I do think these jurors are going to be scared. Frankly, can we be honest? It's a little scary just talking about it, isn't it? It's a little scary just being honest about

the fact that George Floyd did have a pretty decent criminal record and he was on drugs and there may be a defense here. Like, you know, everybody says you're racist if you say that, but this is a legal case. You got to be able to make a defense. Well, it's even bigger than that, Megan. I mean, look, George Floyd was a victim. He was definitely a victim. In my opinion, he's not a hero. He's not a martyr. He's not someone who should be, he's not a role model and people are making him into that. And you know, whatever, I may get thrown off your podcast for saying that, but I mean, that's the truth. Do I want Luca to be like, Hey, you want to grow up and be like George Floyd?

No, you don't. I mean, you don't want to be like the defendant in this case or, or like George Floyd, who was clearly, I mean, the guy's eating drugs in the amount that would put down a small horse on top of his criminal record, et cetera, et cetera. So I have no problem saying I totally disagree with this exalted view of George Floyd. With that being said, the guy definitely did not deserve to die. The guy definitely was mistreated. The police officer, in my opinion, used absolute excessive force, especially after the guy was absolutely immobilized, not moving handcuffed down there for four minutes.

But, you know, is he a hero? Not in my eyes or anyone who I know who's being reasonable about his eyes. He's not a hero. He's a victim and he should be mourned as a victim. All right. I'm going to let that be the last word for now, but stay up on your homework, guys, because we'll have you back often and continue to follow this. I just feel like there's going to be very few places we can go for truly fair coverage of this trial, right, for the very reasons we're discussing. I really want this to be one of them. And I know you guys well enough to know we'll get that. So may I say a pleasure, pleasure talking to you again. Thank you, Megan. Be well.

We're going to get to our next guest in just one second. But first, I want to bring you a feature here on the Megyn Kelly program that we call Asked and Answered, where we try to answer some of our listeners' questions. And our executive producer, Steve Krakauer, has got one for me today. Hey, Steve. Hey, Megyn. This one comes to us at questions at devilmaycaremedia.com, and it's relevant for today's show. So it comes from Joe Humphrey. He wants to know, I know you ultimately branched out from practicing law, but do you have any advice for someone preparing for law school?

Don't do it. No, no, I don't mean it. Preparing for law school. I mean, I remember when I was in that position, you don't really have to do anything to prepare for law school. But when you actually get law school, you have a lot to do. And that is to treat it like it's your full time job. You know, I used to get to the law library at eight in the morning and I did not leave all day except to go to class. But in between class, I went right back to the law library and I studied every waking minute that I wasn't actually in class being taught. Because that's frankly great training for the law. You know, the law is a jealous mistress and it will always be with you. It will always be trying to seduce you into another tryst. And unfortunately, you're going to have to give it to her. So you might as well start now

understanding that lifestyle and throwing yourself into it. Law school is an enormous opportunity to develop your brain, to just become a greater intellectual, to improve your thinking. So why wouldn't you? It's a gift. You get into law school, you hit the lottery. You should be thanking your lucky stars every night if you can afford it. Because I would say, you know, greater than any other experience I've had in my life, that was critical to the way I think as a human, my three years in law school. I love my time at Albany Law School. I have nothing but great things to say about the school and my time there. But it is what you make of it. You want to phone it in, you just want to like learn black letter law or try to like learn enough to ace the exam.

Okay. A better way might be to actually try to enjoy it and let it sink in and, you know, throw yourself into the Socratic method where they make you stand on your feet and take you down the lane of an argument that may or may not be correct. And like the, like the mouse in the maze, you discover too late, you've gone down the wrong lane. You got to back up, but that's fun. You know, logical reasoning thought through to wrong lane, you got to back up. But that's fun. You know,

logical reasoning thought through to its successful point or unsuccessful point is fun, I think, for the brain. For me, I love moot court. That was also an important skill to develop as a professional, and you could use that doing anything. So just enjoy it and take it deadly seriously, deadly seriously. You just you can't, you can't phone that in. Uh, and there's no better prep for what's coming your way after. Uh, so good luck. Uh, okay. We're going to get to Michael Belsky in one second, but first this. Michael Belsky, thank you so much for doing this. I've been wanting to talk to you for a long time. I want to talk to you about Freddie Gray's case. I want to talk to you about this case. But you're somebody who knows a thing or two about defending a police officer in the national spotlight in a case that there's all sorts of considerations at play. It's not just about the evidence. It's about the public pressure. It's about public servants, they, they got to do what they got to do, irrespective of what the law may dictate. I think

we're looking at a lot of that in this George Floyd case. Um, so you tell me, cause you, you've actually been there. You represented police officer. I call him the Baltimore six, uh, charged in the Freddie Gray case. And you've got a complete exoneration for your client, Lieutenant Rice. He's been exonerated. But you tell me whether you see similarities between Derek Chauvin's trial and the trial that you handled. Sure. I mean, there's a lot of similarities, you know, and a lot of differences. Every case is different, and that's why we have juries. But from just an optic standpoint, there are a lot of similarities. Number one, there's a tremendous amount in both cases of public scrutiny and public interest in it. Just procedurally, there were settlements in both cases on the dawn of trial.

There were protests and significant public interest in it in both cases. You know, from a factual perspective, there are a lot of similarities. There's allegations in both cases that the police used unreasonable force, that the police didn't treat the situation as a reasonable police officer would, you know, just in even more specific factual similarities. In both cases, there were literally allegations of a resistance of arrest to the point that a vehicle began rocking. I mean, just eerily factually similar allegations. But there are also a lot of differences. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So but before we get to those, let me stop and ask you about one of the things that I'd like to flesh out. I mean, on the eve of of trial, in this case, it was announced that the city of Minneapolis entered into a settlement with George Floyd's family in which they get paid twenty seven million dollars. That's a big settlement. And, you know, if I were the defense attorney, I would have been going nuts about that being made public when it was and renewing my change of venue motion, which this judge really didn't want to entertain anyway. But you tell me whether that plays into the prosecution's argument. You know, it's an admission by the city. Like I'd be up there saying Chauvin was fired the next day. You're going to hear from the police chief that this was excessive force and the city paid $27 million to the family. So what are we doing here? Just convict and let's put an end to this. Right. I mean, it puts the defendants at a

tremendous disadvantage, right? Because you're right. It is a tacit admission by the government that a wrong was committed. And it's very difficult to divorce yourself as a lawyer from that conclusion. But like every fact, it is also a double-edged sword because a juror could look at the situation and look at the facts of this case and have questions and say, well, some element of justice has been served. And I'm now sitting on a criminal trial, not a civil trial. And because some element of justice has been given, maybe I'm going to err on the side of caution and give the benefit to the officer. I don't know. I don't know what the 12 people think. But like every fact, it could go both ways.

But, yeah, it's a very, very difficult fact to get around if you're defending this case. There's a lot of prejudice incurred by the fact that the state is tacitly admitting wrongdoing. The same thing happened in the Freddie Gray case. On the dawn of trial, there was a civil settlement and it's difficult. When I watched the opening statements, you know, you could see the clear strategy that for the prosecution, it was 929, nine minutes, 29 seconds. That's what this case is about. And the defense was broad, broad, broad, broad, all the stuff leading up, you know, the broader crime scene when it was happening, the crowd getting in Chauvin's head and making the officers feel in danger and making Chauvin have to focus on them and not just on what was happening to George Floyd. You know, one wants it very, very narrow, one wants it very, very broad.

What were your impressions of the openings? I mean, Megan, that's such an astute observation. And that was exactly my observation of the opening statements was that the government was myopically focused on the nine minutes, as they should be, that their focus was on those nine minutes and the defense was painting a much broader picture, that there's a crowd gathering, that there's a danger to the people around, that there were situations that unfolded leading to the nine minutes. And my perception of the opening statements was I think the state, the government, did a very effective job in talking about those nine minutes in a way that, that, that honestly I hadn't thought about before. You know, focusing on those last four minutes and the amount of time that went by after Mr. Floyd stopped speaking. I thought they were very effective with that. I think there were ineffective in certain other aspects. And I think they sort of sort of omitted everything that surrounded

those nine minutes and surrounded where Chauvin and Mr. Floyd were. Similarly, I think the defense did a very good job at painting a very broad picture and sort of allowing us to see and feel and hear what Officer Chauvin saw around him, and not just with Mr. Floyd, but the crowd and the minutes leading up to the situation. But at the same time, I think there are questions left unanswered by the defense's opening statement about what happened during those nine minutes, particularly the last four minutes. And so I think you're right. I think both sides focused on what they wanted to focus on. I walked away from opening statements asking myself, these are two totally different stories, two totally different tellings of the same story. And I have a lot of questions. I'm eager and hungry for the facts to understand exactly what did happen both in those nine minutes and in the moments surrounding it. So you tell me, because the prosecutor was saying, Blackwell was saying, you got four minutes

and 45 seconds where George Floyd was crying out for his life. You got four minutes and 44 seconds where he was unconscious, breathless, or pulseless, and the grinding went on just the same. That's how he put it. And reminded the jury that use of force has to be evaluated from moment to moment. So even if you can say the knee on the neck, if the defense can prove that this was an acceptable technique generally, and that even that it was an okay technique for George Floyd for the first 445, how do you prove it was okay for the second 444, right? That seems to be where the prosecution is going but my impression was although the it would have been helpful if the defense had made this more clear um he's definitely going to say the technique was okay and it was taught to chauvin

and and chauvin was small and florida was big and that's why the first half was okay and i think his explanation for the second half is going to be the crowd it's interesting because the prosecution's painting the crowd as a bunch of heroes they took the time to put a screen grab of the crowd on the screen for the jury. And they're going to call, they've already called a bunch of them. The children came on Tuesday, the younger people who watched it. And so the prosecution say, these are citizen heroes who saw something wrong and tried to step in and videotaped it. And without the videotape, we probably wouldn't be here, right? Because cops tend to get protected. That's their, that's going to be their case. And the defense is going to say it, the crowd, maybe their heart was in the right place, but they were a bigger problem than they were an asset for George Floyd and everybody else there because they were distracting the officers who, unlike you or me, do need to worry about an angry mob surrounding a crime scene and police officers who are now outnumbered.

Yeah. So two points on that. One, I think you're right. You asked the question or you suggested that maybe the defense could have done a better job in explaining sort of those last four minutes or the crowd. But what's interesting is I think that was intentional because I think there's a question mark as to whether Officer Chauvin, even at this point, is ever going to take the stand one way or the other to explain what the crowd meant to him. And I think that ambiguity, that grayness was sort of intentional because the defense doesn't necessarily at this point know where they're going. But you're right. I mean, the crowd is an issue and the defense will go there because Officer Chauvin had a duty to protect not only himself and Mr. Floyd, but the crowd.

And if Mr. Floyd, based on Chauvin's perception, presented a danger to the crowd, he has a responsibility to protect them. But the interesting thing from the state's perspective, the government's perspective about the crowd is this, and I haven't heard a lot of people talk about this, but there's been a lot of focus about this one person in the crowd who had medical training. And I suspect, and you can mark my word on this, that this is going to become a part of the state's theory down the road relative to, in the very least, the manslaughter case, is that in those last four minutes, if what started out as an innocent use of force became a crime, and in

those last four minutes, even if the cause of death wasn't related to anything Officer Chauvin did and defense can prevail on that, there's going to be this related to anything Officer Chauvin did, and defense can prevail on that, there's going to be this argument that if Officer Chauvin had stopped using force when Mr. Floyd stopped moving or stopped speaking, there would have been an opportunity, perhaps, for somebody from the crowd to intervene and alter the outcome. And that's going to be an argument relative to the manslaughter charge. But how, that's smart. And you're probably right about that because,

I mean, for sure, we saw the prosecution talking about how he didn't even get off George Floyd's neck when the EMTs had arrived. It wasn't until they had the gurney next to George Floyd's lifeless body that Chauvin finally removed the knee. And there had been pulse checks by that point, which didn't produce a pulse. And still he was on there. So that's definitely going to be, those are key moments. But I also think that, you know, if I'm Nelson representing Derek Chauvin, I'm going to say, members of the jury, how did he know this woman really was a firefighter, an EMT worker? She's yelling obscenities at them. And by the way, this is going to be, again, a defense argument. How do I know George Floyd is actually

unconscious or subdued or whether he's just pretending or whether he's fallen asleep. How do you know as a police officer? Because you're taught, this is going to be the argument, this is a safe technique. This is a technique that doesn't cause death. And yet here you have a defendant saying all the stuff we've heard defendants say many, many times, I can't breathe. I mean, that's actually one of the sad things is that it's been used so many times now that I think there are some officers who dismiss it easily. But anyway, I think they'll easily be able to dismiss the EMT because it's like, how does he know? From Officer Chauvin's perspective, you're right.

I mean, you're absolutely right. How did he know? And how could he have known that that would have altered the outcome? But from a pure legal perspective, from a manslaughter charge and the necessity to prove causation, it could be an issue even if he didn't know. But I think you're absolutely right in what the defense is going to argue in this case. feigning, not that Mr. Floyd did this, and I'm not saying that, but people feigning non-movement, people saying that I can't breathe again, whatever. Those are tactics used by people all the time to resist arrest. And I'm not saying that's what happened in this case. I'm not saying that it isn't, but you're right. How was Officer Chauvin to know whether that was genuine or not? And that's going to be a part of the defense of this case for sure. And what matters is what's in his mind. You know what I'm finding, Mike?

I'm finding like when I discuss this legally with lawyers or when I think about it logically, I can argue the case. You know, I can argue the case for the defense. And then you see the videotape again and you're like, hell no, this guy's got to go to prison. He's got to go to prison for as long as we can possibly send him to prison because you have to send a message to him and every other cop out there that we will not tolerate this kind of inhumanity when there's another life present. The prosecution kept saying yesterday, they opened with the duty of a police officer in Minneapolis to protect with courage and serve with compassion, serve with compassion. And that even when they have somebody in their, in their custody, that they would never employ unnecessary force or violence. It's like he, he violated his duty to the community, to George Floyd in, and you're going to have a parade of cops up there. You know, the, the, the police community, there's going to be some to defend him, but they're not largely behind Derek

Chauvin. Right. Yeah. I mean, the video tells a very damning story. It does. And it's going to be very hard to defend against the optics of that video, period. End of story. But the video is only a part of it. The defense was right in their opening statement by saying there's a lot more to this case than the video. And that's why we have jury trials. That's why we have 12 people sit there for a month and listen to the medical examiner explain what the cause of death was. Listen to people talk about what reasonable use of force is and isn't. But at the end of the day, the video is a video and it does be a damning picture, one that defense is going to have to figure out how to mitigate. It's so emotional. It's emotional. It's like one side, you can make the logical argument, the fentanyl and all that. But when you see the tape, it's emotions take over. And honestly, just common sense takes over. It's like, get the hell off his neck. Get up. Get up. That's how you feel when you watch it. The same way the narrator of the tape feels, know donald williams um let me ask you about judge

versus jury because in the in the case of the baltimore six correct me if i'm wrong but didn't you guys have judge trials so we did megan it's that it i mean it was interesting how that came to be but we ultimately did we started with a jury trial. The first officer that went at a jury trial, it resulted in a hung jury. And by a series of very fortuitous circumstances, we ended up with a court trial on the least egregious of the six officers, which allowed us to sort of watch the judge and understand his perspective and listen to his ruling and dissect it and come to understand where he was coming from,

which sort of led the way to the other officers, including my client, ultimately taking court trials. So yeah, we had court trials. So how does that play? You know, you guys, you have six cops who were exonerated by a judge versus this case where you've got a jury who are subject to all the same pressures and pulls as any other human being is, notwithstanding the admonitions they'll get from the court to maintain their fairness and decide the case based on the evidence only in the courtroom? It's, you're playing to 12 people instead of one. And you're, you said, you can look at this as a lawyer and you can analyze the legal issues in a detached and objective way, which is what a judge is equipped to do. Juries don't have the experience of doing

that and they're much more emotional and visceral as they should be. And, you know, it's talking to 12 people who are not lawyers is very different than talking to one judge who is a lawyer. And it's a challenge. But there are 12 people, and 12 people that come from different avenues and different walks of life with different life experiences. And I, you know, it depends on who those 12 people are as to how you talk to them. Um, but it's a very different game talking to 12 people than to one lawyer for sure. What, what about you represented a cop accused in a case where his fellow cops were also accused.

So in that case, um, forgive me cause it's been a while. It's back in 16, this trial took place, but I thought everybody had their own lawyer. Each cop got his own lawyer. And but and now and now that's the same situation. So each of these other cops, there's three others. They've been charged with aiding and abetting second degree murder, third degree murder and manslaughter. And we're told that the prosecution is going to call them. So how do you see that situation? The three versus the one? Are their interests aligned? What's going to happen there, you think? I mean, their charge, as I understand it, with crimes at this point, the prosecution calls them.

What are they going to do? Are they going to invoke their right not to testify? Are they going to testify? I mean, there's a lot of avenues and a lot of off-ramps that this could take. And I don't know how that's going to testify? I mean, there's a lot of avenues and a lot of off ramps that this could take. And I don't know how that's going to play out. You know, I could certainly envision a world where they take a stand and invoke their fifth amendment right because they have pending trials. What's interesting in this case is that the government elected to try the most culpable person first and the less culpable people second. Often you see it, and certainly in our case,

you saw it in the reverse, where the government wanted to get the information on the less culpable people before they took their shot at the more culpable person. So I don't know how that's going to play out. That's going to be interesting, and that's going to be a decision that those officers are going to have to make at the time. If I were advising them, I would be very reluctant to allow them to testify knowing that they have pending trials, but you don't know what's going on behind the scenes and what conversations are being had about potential immunity or potential deals. I don't know. You've got, as I look at the transcript, you've got the one guy, Officer Lane, who appears to be the only cop who's expressing any concern that mirrors what the what the crowd is saying. Like Lane says, roll him on his side and show and says, no, leave him staying put where we got him.

Lane says, OK, I just worry about the excited delirium or whatever, which is a thing where you that's the defense is going to argue that I think excited delirium, as I understand it, which is like, so excited that that it becomes dangerous that your adrenaline is flowing. And if you have underlying conditions, as Floyd did, it could become obviously problematic. Then Floyd says, again, I can't breathe. And Chauvin says, that's why we've got the ambulance coming. Lane, okay, I suppose, Chauvin, it's fine. Lane, I think he's passing out. The crowd starts screaming that Floyd's not breathing. Lane, he is breathing. And then Kung, I think it's King is how you pronounce the other guy. Yeah, he's breathing. Lane, want

to roll him on his side? Chauvin doesn't verbally respond. Lane checks the pulse. You got one? Kung responds eight seconds later, I can't find one. And then anyway, but my point is, if I'm representing Lane, I guess my first thought is I'm better off than the others because I have a guy who's trying to take into consideration the state of George Floyd. I think you could also make the case, maybe he's more culpable than the other two because he recognized there was cause for concern and he did nothing. Just saying a few words isn't good enough. Right. And if I'm him and I'm his attorney advising him, I'd be very nervous to put him on the stand and testify in this case absent some cushion or some understanding that what he testifies to is somehow protected. Because there are innocuous or potentially innocent statements

that he may believe he's going to make that could come back, you're right, to haunt him. I don't know. I'd be very nervous if I were him in that situation. And I'm sure these are conversations that are all being had behind the scenes right now. By the way, that guy, Lane, all four of these guys were fired the next day. It was his first week as a Minneapolis police officer. He was 37 years old. I mean, the thought that he's going to be able to sort of overrule the 20-year veteran who's in control,

I think is a lot to ask of a first week cop. The other guy, Kong, 26. He's for what for what it's worth. He's mixed race. He identifies as African-American. It was his first week as a Minneapolis police officer. And then there was Tao Tao, who you see quite a bit on the tape trying to keep the crowd back. And he he had been there a longer time, I guess. But what can you can I just ask you about the complaints against Derek Chauvin? We're told that in his 20 years or so on the force, he had 17 complaints against that against him, He had six complaints against him. None resulted in disciplinary action. He was only 34. Chauvin's 44, so has more time in life and on the job. How do we know whether, is that bad? Should we be looking only at the disciplinary action or should we be looking at the number of complaints? I mean, I'd want to know more about the complaints and what they were, obviously.

Police officers have a lot of complaints brought against them for benign things like, you know, being late to work depending on what they are. I'd want to know more about them, but certainly he doesn't come in with clean hands in that respect. But that doesn't surprise me. I really would want to know more about what those were. They say he was also, Chauvin also received a Medal of Valor in 2006 and 2008, a commendation medal in 2009. One of those was for handling a case in which they had to restrain somebody and he that the medical professionals had said used for him and against him saying you knew how to do a proper arrest. You knew how to do a proper restraint. You were even given a commendation for it. You know, why didn't you do it here? Why didn't you do it here? Exactly. That's every fact, every fact in this case is going to be a double-edged sword. I mean, every fact, um, could be used by the state or could be used by the defense. And certainly that is the perfect example. Yeah. So if you have to take odds on what's going to happen, what do you think? I think, wow, I hate that question. I know. But I think those last four minutes are troubling. I really think the defense is going to have an uphill battle getting

an all-out acquittal based on the fact that four minutes went by at the very end, where he continued to use force at a time where force probably wasn't wanted to. It's going to be what caused the death of Mr. Floyd. Do you think this is a manslaughter case or a murder case? I would want to know more facts. I watched the opening statements and I learned things that I didn't know that that that moved me in both directions. And so I'd want to know more specifically about the causation issues and what ultimately caused the death. There were things that I didn't know in both ways that moved the needle for me. And I want to hear the medical testimony before I make that decision. I certainly think that manslaughter

is certainly on the table. And I certainly think that murder could be, depending on how the evidence comes out, and it could not be. I want to know more. I'm hungry for facts in this case. I want to know more. And I think that we all should. The medical testimony, as much as you want to hear it and I want to hear it, is going to be disappointing because you're going to have dueling experts who say exactly the opposite. It's going to be sky is blue, sky is not blue, grass is green, grass is not green. And it's up to the juror, the jury to sit there and assess the credibility of each witness and decide who they believe. But don't expect some learned expert to take the stand and say, this is definitively how

he died. And, you know, that's the end of it. There's going to be dueling experts and it's going to be unsatisfactory. Right. But you do have the medical examiner's report, which tends to not necessarily support states. No, it says he didn't die of asphyxia. It says like it wasn't and that there was there was no bruising to the neck. And I mean, this guy, his report suggests that Chauvin didn't actually hurt George Floyd that's right but then you have this weird jury instruction or law in Minnesota which is the law in most places and that is the state need not prove that officer Chauvin actually caused the death but that his actions were a substantial contributing factor to the death right that's

that's what the law is and I didn't hear the state really say that a lot. And I was actually a little surprised by that because I think at the end of the day, those words are going to be the grovement of this case, substantial contributing factor. And the medical examiners report where they ruled that the death was a cardiac event that was complicated by him being subdued. And the jury is going to have to take all those words and make sense of it. And I think that's the conversation that's going to be had by the jury ultimately. Yeah. I mean, good luck convincing the jury that Chauvin had nothing to do with this, right? It's like, I agree with it. It's like, you know, the prosecution made the case on Monday.

Yes, George Floyd was an addict. To suggest like he'd been an addict for a long time. He'd been an addict in the cars on the road playing basketball living his life. He never died. It's like to suggest it was pure coincidence. And I guess you know, the defense will say it wasn't just coincidence. It was the fact that he had so much fentanyl in him. He was popping methamphetamines like they were, you know, fruit. And and even if Chauvin, it's just been something that really frustrated me that those six officers were, they were exonerated. You know, you had a DA in that case making, you know, very public statements that we shouldn't have heard. A mayor in that case who seemed to have their thumb on the scale. There was a lot of problems in that case. But still we hear Freddie Gray's name mentioned as somebody who's on the list of people we're supposed to think was unfairly killed by police, even though that was never proven at all.

Anyway, how is your client doing, Lieutenant Rice? Is he back on the force? And how would you say having gone through this has affected him? Sort of caveat that by saying not only was he exonerated in a court of law, but also all six of the officers were exonerated by internal trial boards within the police department. And it has, you know, obviously taken a tremendous toll on them. There's no doubt that there is a systemic problem in this country with the relationship between community and police officers. And the fact that these six officers from my case were sort of poster children for that problem weighs very heavily on them. That case is very different than this case. You know, as we started

this conversation by saying, very different., and it's, it's, it's hard on them being lumped into, you know, very real cases of police misconduct. Um, you know, but yeah, he, my client is back on the force. He's doing his thing and, um, you know, and life goes on, uh know, but it's it's very difficult. There is a real problem in this country. It really is. And I think we all know it. That was not the case. The Freddie Gray case in this well may be the case, but every case is different. And here we are. Yeah. I mean, even the prosecutor in this case said was sure to point out to the jury, this case is not about all police. And I do think that's an important thing to remember. You know, you can you can back police, you can black, you can back Black Lives Matter and still come to an independent assessment of the facts here. And that, in fact, is the obligation of the jury.

And I also think of those of us who are, you know, in a privileged position to talk about it publicly, you know, not to rush to judgment anyway, to keep an open mind. But if we get to the point of guilt, or not guilty for that matter, then we have to accept it. We have to respect the jury's decision one way or the other. This is going to be a tough one. It's an emotional one. Thank you, Mike. Thank you, Megan. It's good talking to you. And our thanks to Mark and Arthur, our legal dream team, as well as to Mike Belsky,

who we'll have on again to talk about this case as it goes on. And I want to tell you, do not forget, go ahead and subscribe to the show right now because we've got Jordan Peterson on Friday. I mean, that's a dream come true. He's agreed to come on and I can't wait for this conversation. So seriously, do subscribe so you don't miss it. If you're subscribed, then we sort of give you the knock on the shoulder, the tap on the shoulder on Friday morning saying, hey, here it is. Do you want to download or not? And you do. And then send me a review.

It's funny because when I was on break these past couple of weeks, but we put a lot of interviews in the hopper, which hopefully you guys have been enjoying. And I do read all the reviews, as I said. And I read a couple of people like, I don't believe you that you read the reviews. Well, I do. I'm still reading all of them. And I do love hearing from you. So if you have thoughts on any of the interviews on this case that we've just been discussing, please go to the Apple reviews and let me know what you think.

And, you know, sort of weigh in because I do listen to you all. And on this one in particular, the Chauvin trial, I'd love to hear what you have to say. It's just so fraught, isn't it? It just makes me feel uncomfortable. But we've got to keep talking. A lot of our subjects make you feel uncomfortable. But the only way through is through. Keep talking.

And we'll do that on Friday with Jordan. See you then. Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear. The Megyn Kelly Show is a Devil May Care media production in collaboration with Red Seat Ventures.