The judge in the trial of former cop Derek Chauvin admonished U.S. Representative Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) yesterday for demanding a guilty verdict in the trial and threatening unrest if the jury didn’t deliver one.
Judge Peter Cahill said Waters’ remarks might create the chance for Chauvin, falsely accused of murdering drug addict and career criminal George Floyd, to appeal if the still-deliberating jury convicts him.
Cahill’s remarks came after Chauvin’s attorney, Eric Nelson, asked for mistrial because of the threat. Cahill denied the motion, but said Waters and other politicians must shut up and let the courts work without interference.
The Conversation
On Saturday, Waters showed up in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, at a protest over the death of Daunte Wright, a fugitive shot while resisting arrest.
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“We’ve got to stay in the streets,” Waters said:
“We’re looking for a guilty verdict. We’re looking for a guilty verdict…. I hope that we’re going to get a verdict [that says] guilty, guilty, guilty, and if we don’t, we cannot go away.”
And if the jury doesn’t return a guilty verdict, she warned, “we’ve got to get more confrontational.”
The remarks invited House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy to say Waters had to be punished. Representative Majorie Taylor Greene wants Waters, who has called for violence and harassment before, expelled from Congress.
But those sentiments don’t help Chauvin, who is on trial for “murder” despite an autopsy report that said Floyd died of a drug overdose.
“There is a high probability that members of this jury have seen these comments, are familiar with these comments, and things that have happened throughout the course of this trial,” Nelson told the judge:
I was advised of two television shows during the course of the past few days that specifically involve references to this particular case and the reactions of the characters in these stories to this particular case. This jury despite all best efforts has been bombarded with information relevant to this case. It is impossible to stay away from it unless you literally shut off your phone or you shut off your TV, you shut off your computer. And no such instructions have been given during the course of this trial.
And so Nelson moved for a mistrial.
Cahill denied that motion, and said he had instructed the jury, very clearly, ”Don’t watch the news, pure and simple.”
Nelson observed that seeing or hearing news about the trail is unavoidable, not least because of smartphones that carry alerts and news about it.
The judge conceded that Waters might have given Chauvin a reversible case. “I’ll give you that Congresswoman Waters may have given you something on appeal that may result in this whole trial being overturned,” Cahill said.
But then he targeted the unhinged congresswoman and others like her:
I wish elected officials would stop talking about this case, especially in a manner that is disrespectful to the rule of law and to the judicial branch and our function. I think if they want to give their opinions, they should do so in a respectful manner and in a manner that is consistent with their oath to the Constitution, to respect a co-equal branch of government.
Their failure to do so I think is abhorrent, but I don’t think it has prejudiced us with additional material that would prejudice this jury. They have been told not to watch the news, I trust they are following those instructions and that there is not in any way a prejudice to the defendant beyond the articles that we’re talking specifically about the facts of this case. A congresswoman’s opinion really doesn’t matter a whole lot.
Supported a Murderer
Actually, her opinion will matter if a jury returns a verdict her supporters don’t like. It goes without saying that Antifa and Black Lives Matter will begin rioting, burning, and looting if Chauvin is found not guilty.
They won’t need encouragement from Waters. Yet Waters won’t likely condemn the rioting given that she already declared that more “confrontation” will be necessary if Chauvin is acquitted. In other words, anything Waters says might worsen the highly anticipated riots.
That said, Waters has been a troublemaker for decades.
As Tucker Carlson, Michelle Malkin, and others have noted, Waters involved herself in another high-profile case almost 30 years ago.
During the 1992 Los Angeles riots, Damian Williams and some fellow thugs pulled Reginald Denny from his truck and beat him to a pulp. Williams smashed Denny in the head with a concrete block. Famous footage of the crime showed that it was attempted murder.
Yet when a jury convicted the defendants on greatly reduced charges, Waters supported the verdict. Later, as Carlson noted, Williams murdered someone outside a crack house.
