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can we agree that that is a bad take?
No, I can't agree that's a bad take. I analyze the evidence as to whether it supports the actual charges and if that evidence reaches beyond a reasonable doubt standard. The evidence does not support the required elements of the charges as they stand now.
Listen, I was just as angry and upset at the 8 minute video as the next person and thought Chauvin had used excessive force. Within a few days of his death, the Hennepin County DA was giving a presser alongside the US Attorney. At that time the DA stated the investigation was not complete but he wasn't sure there would be any charges. He had seen the prelim autopsy and the body cam footage before saying that.
At the time I was shocked that he said it while Minneapolis was still burning. Even if he had serious doubts about the case, don't express them under those circumstances. It was shortly thereafter that AG Ellison swooped in and took the cases away from the DA.
Ellison was pandering when he vastly overcharged Chauvin and then scrambled to find some tenuous at best charges against the other officers.
There is vastly more exculpatory evidence than there is incriminating evidence
other than the viral video. Problem is the medical evidence doesn't support what we all thought we were seeing on the video.
Defense counsel can blow a hole the size of an 18 wheeler in the prosecution's case. The prosecution witnesses have already had credibility problems. Baden with a malpractice level of an autopsy before the tox report or tissue analysis was complete and the ME with the admission that he would rule the manner of death as accidental overdose. That was on a conference call and then written up in a memo to the file before Ellison filed the charges.