There is a curious belief that there is some duty on the part of the court to make trials available for all to see from the comfort of their couch, as if this lends legitimacy to a trial that wouldn’t otherwise be tolerable if unless every person who wanted to watch had complete access at their fingertips. It’s not about the case, or even the defendant, but about you, random watcher, and your entitlement. Strange days, indeed.
But without detached explanation, do people understand what they’re watching? The prosecution called the teenage clerk at the store where Floyd passed the counterfeit $20 to testify. While the testimony is proper and necessary as background for what followed, that wasn’t the part that’s being emphasized.
At the counter, Mr. Floyd can be seen offering the teenage clerk, Christopher Martin, a $20 bill in exchange for a pack of cigarettes. Mr. Martin said he quickly realized the bill was counterfeit; the blue pigmentation gave it away, he testified. For one brief moment, Mr. Martin thought to let it go and put it on his own tab — the store’s policy was that fake money would be deducted from the paycheck of the employee who accepted it, he said. But then he changed his mind.
Why would a teenager eat the loss for the sake of some random guy passing a counterfeit bill? Makes no sense, but then the testimony comes after the fact of Floyd’s death, so it’s colored and reimagined in that light.
Mr. Martin became emotional in court when shown surveillance video of him standing outside the store, clutching his head as Mr. Chauvin knelt on Mr. Floyd’s neck.
“Disbelief and guilt,” he said of what he thought at that moment. “If I would have just not taken the bill, this could have been avoided.”
That Martin feels guilt about a death that he, in part, set in motion is understandable, but what relevance does this have to the case? It’s emotional. It’s inflammatory. It’s utterly irrelevant to the question of whether Chauvin committed a crime. And here’s the kicker: the case is still in the background phase. There has not, as yet, been any evidence offered to show that a crime was committed or that Chauvin committed it. Minor details, like cause of death, remain an unknown at this point, even if we do know the pain and regret of a store clerk.
But there is method to this madness. The problem is that people watching the trial, and reporters writing about it, don’t get what’s happening or why. Even inexperienced lawyers, or those too caught up in the outcome to step back and take a detached look, seem unable to figure it out.
I wonder if this will play as well to the jury as it does on twitter.
I suspect not. https://t.co/a1JjTYJPS4
— Scott Greenfield (@ScottGreenfield) March 31, 2021
From the prosecution’s perspective, the first few witnesses are primarily offered to inflame passions. This could be because they want to win the trial, but the fact that this trial is being televised likely explains the strategy better. They’re playing to the public, because these witnesses establish no fact necessary for conviction. Even worse, they may tend to help the defense more.
On cross, Williams was evasive, belligerent and dishonest. Of course he was angry. “I was being professional” is going to come back to haunt him in summation, because it’s nonsense. But as much as Williams’ testimony contributed little for the prosecution beyond feeding the public desire for melodrama, it assists the defense in establishing that while the four cops, including Chauvin, were atop Chauvin to restrain him, their attention was divided between Floyd and screaming, angry bystanders.
The point isn’t that Williams’ said mean things to police who were busy killing a guy, boo hoo. The point is that the police who were restraining a guy had to concern themselves with a growing mob of onlookers, including this increasingly agitated matrial arts instructor, Williams, screaming obscenities at the cops. Would he loose it and attack the cops? How would they know, but they had to be ready because it could happen. What that means is that the crowd’s actions contributed to their lack of focus on Floyd. What that means is the prosecution gave them their witness to prove this point. And Williams did exactly that.
And one additional details that appears to elude most watchers. Cops restraining a guy, even with a knee on a neck, happens all the time. Whether it should isn’t the question, but that it’s hardly unusual is an important point that will certainly be established by the defense when it puts on its case. The witnesses’ feelings on what happened, as well as the observations of most people watching, is to indulge in a logical fallacy. At the time they’re watching Chauvin and the other cops pinning Floyd to the ground, nobody knew he would die as yet. What happened later, that Floyd died, might be known now, but Williams didn’t know that at the time he was screaming at the cops.
It might be snarky to react, “Oh look, Williams was being mean to cops while they were murdering,” but what does that contribute to the public understanding of what they’re seeing? None of this is to suggest that the cross was particularly well done or that the strategy will be effective. There’s plenty of trial to come. But what’s clear is that the public would rather argue the point than understand what’s happening and why, and lawyer are either arguing their motivated ignorance, or they lack the ability to understand trial tactics, to contribute to the public’s ignorance.
Chauvin won’t be convicted by twitter jury. It’s understandable that so many baby lawyers want to play to the emotions of their passionate pals on social media, who only want to hear how guilty Chauvin is and how terrible the defense of this killer cop is. If that’s what televising trials is going to produce, then it fails miserably to serve its purpose in making people understand the law and trials, and instead is just another soap opera to vent emotions and validate one’s priors.
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