I didn’t follow the Chauvin case closely, and I didn’t hear the evidence or arguments the jury heard. Like everyone else, I was appalled at the first video that came out, but I also saw some other videos, and I’ve heard some things that cast doubt on Chauvin’s guilt. Still, absent some clear evidence of misconduct, I think it’s best to assume the jury did their job and reached the right verdict. <\/p>\n
But we have to face the fact that they were operating in a very ugly environment. Hanging over their heads was the threat of widespread rioting and looting if they did not convict. Most of the media presented the case as a foregone conclusion, and said the only possible way to a not guilty verdict was if the jury was racist. (I am so sick of that accusation.) <\/p>\n
There were clear threats of violence if the jury did not reach the “right” verdict. The jury members may have feared not only for the safety of the city, but for their own safety, or the safety of their families. The mob insisted on having its way, and the civil authorities have shown a reluctance to stop them. <\/p>\n
This is not the way justice is supposed to work. <\/p>\n
We have become way too accustomed to people leaping to conclusions before the facts are in, and we’ve also been way too accommodating of this mob mentality. <\/p>\n
This is not a new thing. According to this article,<\/a> there were similar pressures in the Sam Sheppard case, on which the movie Fugitive was based. And it seems every culture has to fight a constant battle against mob justice. <\/p>\n Right now — no matter what you think of the result of the Chauvin case — the battle seems to be going in the wrong direction. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I didn’t follow the Chauvin case closely, and I didn’t hear the evidence or arguments the jury heard. Like everyone else, I was appalled at the first video that came out, but I also saw some other videos, and I’ve heard some things that cast doubt on Chauvin’s guilt. Still, absent some clear evidence of … Continue reading “I’m uncomfortable with our slide towards mob justice”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1231"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1231\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1234,"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1231\/revisions\/1234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}