Comments from political leaders could be used to support a potential appeal from Derek Chauvin
Derek Chauvin’s murder conviction was faced with extensive approval among those looking for justice for George Floyd, but the trial’s outcome may not firm thanks to comments from powerful political leaders such as Representative Maxine Waters, and the President himself.
Waters, who had visited Minnesota before the verdict was declared, said that if Chauvin is not convicted of murder, protesters should “stay in the street,” “get more active,” and “get more confrontational.” In a New York Post news report, former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy informed that this alone would be justification an for appeal.
“Because of her, this isn’t over,” McCarthy wrote.
McCarthy said that Waters, who represents California, went to Minnesota “to interfere in its judicial system” in violation of a curfew. He stated that “her remarks can only be interpreted as an incitement to violence” and that she needs to be investigatated.
Biden had also put his two cents in on the case before the verdict was declared, telling reporters that he was “praying that verdict is the right verdict” and that “I think it’s overwhelming, in my view.”
The president says that he only said this because the jury was already secluded, but McCarthy argues that is not an excuse for making those comments.
“He is a lawyer and former Senate Judiciary Committee chairman who well knows that sequestration does not make jurors impervious to prejudicial publicity,” McCarthy wrote. “And if he’s been following the case as he claims to have been, he knows trial judge Peter Cahill has pleaded that public officials stop commenting on the trial — under circumstances where, even before the Bidens and Waters piped up, there was already substantial reason to doubt that Chauvin could get a fair trial in Minneapolis.”
McCarthy was far from the only one to condemn Waters and Biden for their remarks.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, said that “sometimes a fair trial is difficult to conduct” and that “it is certainly not helpful for a member of Congress, and even the president of the U.S. to appear to be weighing in in public, while the jury is trying to sort through this significant case.”
Randy Zelin, head of the criminal practice at Wilk Auslander LLP and an adjunct professor of law at Cornell University, told Fox News that the defense has “so many different directions for the defense to go” in arguing that the trial was not just, including Waters’ remarks and possibly Biden’s.
Fox News contacted Chauvin’s attorney Eric Nelson asking if the comments from Waters or Biden will be quoted on appeal, but he did not respond straight away. Nelson did argue before the verdict was declared that Waters’ statement and other parts should be reasons for a mistrial.
Judge Peter Cahill agreed with Nelson that “Waters may have given you something on appeal that may result in this whole trial being overturned.”
Cahill also said that he wanted elected officials to stop referencing the case “especially in a manner that is disrespectful to the rule of law” so as to let the judicial process play out as intended.
Fox News’ Brittany De Lea, Paul Steinhauser and Paul Conner contributed to this report.