Bias: Chauvin juror Brandon Mitchell
This article in the British Daily Mail is headlined, “Derek Chauvin juror LIED about protest: Cop’s hope of appeal boosted after picture emerges of juror at BLM rally wearing ‘Get Your Knee Off Our Necks’ T-shirt despite telling court he’d never been on a march.”
I have to say I assume that many jurors either either lied outright or simply were unaware of their preconceived notions or the strength of them and how that would affect their ability to be fair in Chauvin’s trial. This is always a hazard in a high-profile emotionally- and politically-laden case such as Chauvin’s. It’s one of the reasons the judge should have bent over backwards to do everything he could to minimize the risk, such as changing the venue or at the very least allowing more challenges for cause when jurors seemed to have biases.
However, even with the case of this man – Brandon Mitchell – whose photo has emerged contradicting his sworn testimony, I doubt the revelation will spark a successful appeal. Many of the same forces that worked against Chauvin’s getting a fair trial in the first place, including fear of riots, will work in any appeal because judges are hardly immune to such fears as well as politics.
From the Daily Mail article:
Questions have been raised about the impartiality of one of the 12 jurors who convicted Derek Chauvin of murder after it was revealed he attended a rally last summer where George Floyd’s relatives addressed the crowd.
A photo, posted on social media, shows Brandon Mitchell attending an August 28 event in Washington, DC, to commemorate Martin Luther King Jr’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech during the 1963 March on Washington.
It shows Mitchell, a high school basketball coach, standing with two other men and wearing a T-shirt with a picture of King and the words, ‘GET YOUR KNEE OFF OUR NECKS’ and ‘BLM’. He is also wearing a baseball cap printed with Black Lives Matter.
Mitchell has admitted the photo is of him from that date, but defended attending the rally, claiming it was not explicitly a protest against police or a commemoration for George Floyd.
That is despite the fact that Floyd’s brother and sister, Philonise and Bridgett Floyd, and relatives of other African Americans who have been shot by police addressed the crowd that day.
Mitchell said he answered ‘no’ to two questions about demonstrations on the questionnaire sent out before jury selection.
The two questions were specifically about attending demonstrations to protest police brutality, however. So technically speaking, although this was part of the DC rally that Mitchell attended, it’s not clear that it was explicitly advertised that way. Nor does it matter, because once Mitchell had attended, he would have known or should have known because of the speakers that a prominent part of the proceedings was to protest supposed police brutality against black people. To me, the thing that implicates Mitchell the most as being biased is the “Get your knee off our necks” T-shirt. That is a specific reference to the Chauvin case, and he wore it to the rally. It is an explicit protest against the actions of police in the case and elsewhere.
The rest of the Daily Mail article is actually a quite comprehensive look at many of the sources of bias in the trial, including statements by Maxine Waters and Joe Biden.
Mitchell also had more to say:
“I mean it’s important if we wanna see some change, we wanna see some things going different, we gotta get out there, get out into these avenues, get into these rooms to try to spark some change,” [Mitchell] said. “Jury duty is one of those things. Jury duty. Voting. All of those things we gotta do.”
Now that’s obviously problematic because you’re not supposed to be sitting on a jury to “spark some change.” You’re only supposed to be deciding guilty or not guilty based solely on the facts and evidence presented in the case, nothing else.
That certainly seems like a political motive to me.
[NOTE: Another take away from Mitchell’s interview is that Dr. Tobin’s testimony – you know, the doctor who said (among other bizarre things) that he knew from watching the video the exact moment Floyd died – was highly influential as far as the jurors were concerned. I touched on some issues with Tobin’s testimony here. The jury seems to have ignored the exculpatory evidence and seized on testimony like Tobin’s to justify their pre-existing belief in Chauvin’s guilt, as well as seemingly ignoring the important issue of intent for the murder charges. Mitchell said that he thought the jury should only have taken about 20 minutes to reach a verdict. In a case as complex and as fraught with conflicting expert testimony as this one, such a contention is preposterous.]
I’m going to wager that he’s only marginally worse than the other jurors. Judge Cahill presided over a process which got you a committee of maroons.
What this means is that the clerks employed by Minnesota’s appellate judges will have to work a little harder to come up with the excuses for refusing to provide a remedy for this travesty.
The Left loves show trials. The further left one goes, the more the can’t get enough of ‘em!
Anyone else want futures in “FREE CHAUVIN” T-shirts?
I’m not sure this will make any difference AT ALL.
If the outcome is “right”, then jurors are permitted to lie.
Besides, I’m sure—aren’t you—that this fellow meant well….
Although Dershowitz might be naïve in predicting an overturn somewhere up the appeal chain, it would be premature to begin consuming stashed provisions – especially the popcorn.
Like ANY appellate court’s going to touch this.
And the Supremes? Pull my other leg.
Chauvin’s fortunate to still be drawing breath, and anything that even looks like a reversal or dismissal…he’ll have “hanged himself” or been found stabbed in his cell.
Unless…unless…there’s a reason for the left to unleash the hounds of race war.
THEN he’s a free man & the cities burn.
Before his unfortunate demise as the result of a fentanyl overdose, feel-good guy George Floyd would have made an excellent replacement host on Jeopardy.
Free Derek Chauvin.
This juror’s account confirms what I thought, that the jury gave little to no consideration to the legal definitions of the 3rd and 2nd degree murder charges. It still seems to me that the prosecution did not prove those charges.
Given the current climate and culture it’s unlikely to matter. There will be no mistrial. We’re far beyond any semblance of law and order with sensible juries coming to calm and measured decisions based on careful evaluation of the presented evidence, presidence, and empirical thinking. It’s all about emotion, revenge, and rage. The mob rules… for now at least.
I’m uncertain how long this state of affairs will persist though. My guess is at some point there will be a significant series of horrible events directly related to a derth of policing. People first need to feel some pain in order for change to occur.
A criminal fleeing, a drug overdose, a Covid-19 case, a medical event that preceded the constraint. No forensic evidence to support an anthropogenic forcing. That said, I concur with the consensus. He is guilt until proven innocent beyond a reasonable doubt. Abort him, cannibalize his profitable parts, sequester his carbon pollutants. A load of diversity, rabid, even. Social justice. Social progress. One step forward, two steps backward.
“A photo, posted on social media, shows Brandon Mitchell attending an August 28 event in Washington, DC”
So … he’s invested in the cause to the extent of traveling across the country to participate in a demonstration?
Kind of says it all right there.
Police these days have to be careful not to accidentally do their jobs (out of habit and reflex).
A country of 330 million, so probably some kind of criminal injustice happens every day, but this was the worst high-profile miscarriage of justice I’ve ever seen.
Now that it’s become a lucrative, successful strategy, what can be done to stop this grotesque corruption of the legal system?
Many blacks, perhaps most, are carving a niche out for themselves, which in the old days would be called segregation.
Their culture, their values, their mindset, these deserve separation from Western civilization. You’d never guess from the news, sports, and TV commercials that blacks are only 13% of American citizenry.
Nothing inherently good really ever came out of Africa via blacks except okra! See the black NBA, which has BLM painted on its courts and has a new, separate anthem to replace the Star-Spangled Banner for multimillionaires who dribble, run, jump and shoot, and that is all they do.
Like Muslims dealing with non-Muslims, Mitchell is OK with lying in court as long as it serves the warped black sense of justice. As are many of his ilk. I’m not talking about the Thomas Sowells here, mind you.
Unintended consequences, huh, LBJ?
It seems you can take blacks out of Africa, but cannot take Africa out of blacks.
Show me a decently run African country today excluding Botswana! South Africa recently amended its constitution to allow expropriation of farmland owned by whites with zero compensation. A grand, multi-resource country that is doing its best to become another Malawi.
Cicero:
Human beings came out of Africa, for one thing.
I happen to like African art and music. And there are plenty of immigrants in this country from Africa who are smart, hardworking, moral, and productive. In fact, Nigerians are one of the most successful or perhaps even the most successful immigrant group in this country.
You might want to reread this post of mine about Africa.
The thing is, Cicero, that black immigrants to the US from Africa don’t share the BLM hatred of the country. They know what Africa is like today and are happy to be here.
@Cicero:
When your head is nailed to the Rostra, Shaqeesha is going to stab your righteous tongue with the stem of a broken crack pipe and twerk her booty during a break in the looting.
But well said, Sir!
As for the Juror… one day he may have cause to regret, too.
@Kate:
Especially those Somalis. More please!
If they’re so appreciative of Western Civ (in its very late in the day effed up state of decline) they ought to stay right where they were born and work day and night to drag their fellow countrymen kicking, screaming, and ululating toward the light.
Or is America a Proposition Nation built upon the proposition that anyone who wants to get rich should get his dusky ass in the door by hook or by crook and get busy grifting? Perhaps if they were handed tricorn hats upon arrival all would be OK.
Well, no, Zaphod, not the Somalis. But I have met Nigerians and Ethiopians who are happy to be here and love America. Trump voters.
When do we start shooting ? My restraint is running low. My eyes get worse every year. Oh well , I have shotguns.
Just kidding, government goons monitoring my comments, I’m just a silly old man. Really, no kidding, I’m being serious now, I drink too much, don’t believe anything I post.
@Kate:
That’s great. I’m sure they’re good people. But they need to go back whence they came and be good people there.
Or, I suppose I should say, at least Trump supporters, since I don’t know if they’re citizens. I also know America-loving Kenyans. All of these are Christian. And, although he’s not black, I know a Muslim Egyptian living in East Carolina who tells us that he’s been amazed at how kind and friendly Americans have been to him.
And when that Muslim Egyptian’s son grows a bit older and gets rejected by his first love and decides to take out the local mall… what then?
Everybody was friendly to Hassan al Banna. He was merely disgusted.
Beware of selection and confirmation biases. The unfriendly, ungrateful immigrants — you’re not going to encounter them and have heartwarming experiences with them.
In a perfect world, we might trust you to interview every prospective immigrant; your heart is in the right place. But this is a very imperfect world and we are dealing with mass movements of alien peoples which *inevitably* result in genocidal rage and action and therefore there is no place for kindness or sentimentality if it gets in the way of harm reduction. Heartlessness is necessary to avoid far more terrible things happening. I’m sorry.
Oh, I’m not unaware at all of the risks we’re taking with bringing in Muslims, and in general I agree with you about that risk, Zaphod. What’s insane is the idea that we can’t criticize Islam and can’t proselytize Muslims. That is, literally, insane.
Won’t hold my breathe for this; but, I do think this juror did break the law and should be held accountable for perjury.
“…Hassan al Banna…”
OK, but I believe you’re referring to Sayyid (Sa’id/Syed) Qutb…(another of those “happy…band of brothers…”)?
^^ Oops… I do believe you’re right! Thanks for the correction.
Hard to imagine anyone harboring a grudge for Greeley CO, but there you go.
I do think this juror did break the law and should be held accountable for perjury.
Ha ha ha. Laws are for little people, not the Regime or its clients.
Scott Johnson continues his spineless defense of the Chauvin verdict.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2021/05/chauvin-trial-footnotes-3.php
Scott Johnson continues his spineless defense of the Chauvin verdict.
He’s not being spineless, he’s being perverse. First Mirengoff and now Johnson are working assiduously to injure their reputation among their readers.
Kate:
Missionary efforts to convert Muslims have over the years yielded nothing. Apostasy, leaving the “faith” of Islam, is punishable by death says Mohamed, peace be upon him. The Christian holdouts in the Holy Land are very oppressed by their Islamic neighbors. Islam converts by force; convert, or die. If you live, you will pay a special tax, jizya, for being an unbeliever whose life is tolerated. I send them money every year.
Neo: being a human being is hardly a strong qualification for entering America. One should bring more than that. My father did.
As to African art and music, I disagree with your affection for these forms as having major aesthetic or musical value. With you stuck on pop (which regrettably today includes rap and hip-hop, both black-driven) and its simple musical forms, I regrettably ignore your posts on pop. Does not mean I don’t like Petula, but pop is not a high point in Western music, and in fact has in some ways led us to the bottom. it is not Irving Berlin anymore!
I at least have spent some time in Africa.
We have more Nigerians in Houston than possibly in any Nigerian city save Lagos, due to the oil-field linkage. Yes, they work; computer fraud is one of their big endeavors.
The question to be asked of you is whether any immigrant contributes
more than merely being a human. Do you favor the open Southern border, which lets humans in as being merely migrant humans?
This jury could have showed up with each one of them wearing a bright yellow T-shirt saying “GUILTY” across the front in big letters, and the trial would have continued after the judge made the jury take them off for the sake of appearances.
Nothing will disturb the verdict. The fix is in. The amount of effort that was expended outside of the courtroom to ensure this, tells us that deviation from the course is not possible.
No mistrial will be granted. No appeal will be successful.
Cicero:
You write,”Neo, being a human being is hardly a strong qualification for entering America.”
I have never written a word that indicates I think it would be.
I mentioned that humans came out of Africa because you said nothing good ever came out of Africa. I was speaking of the realm of physical anthropology, aeons ago. There is something called the “Out of Africa” hypothesis, and I was assuming you were aware of the reference.
I have also answered your criticism about my not dealing with classical music by giving you links to the many many posts I’ve written about classical music. You have never responded to a single one. Do you even read my responses?
In addition, I linked to an article about Nigerian immigrants. Did you read that? I have little doubt some Nigerian immigrants are shady. The vast majority are actually superior to most immigrants – highly educated, highly accomplished. On average, they are really incredibly successful at bona fide business and other professions. If you wanted to be critical, you might say – and I think it would be correct – that it is the elite of Nigeria who are coming here, for the most part.
You write, ” With you stuck on pop (which regrettably today includes rap and hip-hop, both black-driven)…”. What an absurd criticism of me. I have written posts about particular artists in pop music and in the 17 years I’ve been blogging I’ve only written a few posts that even mentioned rap or hip-hop, both very negative towards those forms of music.
I don’t mind being criticized. But I do mind being criticized for things I’ve never said. That seems to be an increasing habit of yours.
I’ve had two different girlfriends do Peace Corps tours in Rwanda and Western Tanzania. Both shared toe curling stories of social backwardness and the abuse of humanity to make anyone else ashamed to be among the human race.
Perhaps bottom scraping national IQs has something to do with it?
https://brainstats.com/average-iq-in-rwanda.html
As for South Africa? Love and loathing and fleeing seems to be the common white folks denominator. For four decades.
Any African bright spots? I’ll take the Ghanan over the Nigerian. I credit Christianity with important developmental and colonialism for salutary institutional effects most places where it’s endured — their absence might account for a significant portion of the differences of both (save parts of SA and Zimbabwe — where the Left shoulders greatest Blame — and the Congo, where a certain 19thC European Monarchy did the same, only more genocidally).
But back to the depressing past of Africa, it took a black preacher in the US to point out that for 2,000 years, black Africans have not founded a lasting new city anywhere on their native continent.
And while the world’s second largest island is only 200 miles off the African East Coast — Madagascar — the African did not settle there first. Instead, Malay people’s sailed 5,000 miles West across the Indian Ocean and did so.
I have three US black historian friends, one among my very oldest and best. But whenever people claim black superiority in almost any sense, I’m silently laughing inside, against the idea. Regrettably.
Neo: you started this off by writing, “Human beings came out of Africa, for one thing.”
Yeah, out of the Rift Valley. Tens of thousands of years ago. Can’t give Africa any credit for that. We live in the here and now! I am speaking of the present or-near-present Africa.
Africans who arrive here do not care for our home-grown blacks. But, like the Somalis, that may last only their generation.
Bottom line is I have been a medical missionary in Africa. And doubt you have set foot on the continent. It is a human wasteland for the most part, tribe v. tribe and no true understanding of the great Western values.
TJ:
thanks for your affirmation.
@Cicero:
You speak the truth.
“I have given my life to try to alleviate the sufferings of Africa. There is something that all white men who have lived here like I must learn and know: that these individuals are a sub-race. They have neither the intellectual, mental, or emotional abilities to equate or to share equally with white men in any function of our civilization. I have given my life to try to bring them the advantages which our civilization must offer, but I have become well aware that we must retain this status: the superior and they the inferior. For whenever a white man seeks to live among them as their equals they will either destroy him or devour him. And they will destroy all of his work. Let white men from anywhere in the world, who would come to Africa, remember that you must continually retain this status; you the master and they the inferior like children that you would help or teach. Never fraternize with them as equals. Never accept them as your social equals or they will devour you. They will destroy you.”
Dr Albert Schweitzer, Nobel Peace Prize Winner 1951 (“African Notebook” 1939)
Cicero:
You know zero about what I know about Africa or how I know it. Nor does your having spent time there mean that your opinion is correct.
Nor, by the way, am I defending Africa. It’s a terrible terrible mess, as I wrote about in that post I linked and suggested you read. I notice you haven’t referred to it; have you read it?
In that other remark about humans and Africa I was merely saying that some good things have come out of Africa – such as, for example, the human species, if one believes that particular anthropological hypothesis. I wasn’t saying it happened recently.
One thing I believe has happened to Africa is that the intellectual elite has left in great numbers. Although I understand why they would do it, that makes the situation worse in Africa. And the strongman leaders tend to take advantage of that situation.
Here’s a fairly short essay on Africa by Thomas Sowell. I suggest you read that, too.
Hello. Getting back to the subject of the post for a moment, as fascinating as rumination on the fate of Africa may be, I think that the concept of a juror using his position as a juror for essentially activist purposes follows along fairly directly from the concept to which I alluded a couple of weeks ago, that in today’s America, legislation really comes in considerable measure from the courts. I suppose that a juror wanting to be an activist from the jury box or whatever it’s called is a tacit acknowledgement of this reality, in spite of the fact that it does yet more damage to our system of government.
Zaphod:
Schweitzer wrote that in 1939. He was born in 1975 in Alsace when it was part of Germany. Later it became French. That’s where he spent his formative years. I have a feeling the atmosphere there was part of his later attitudes about race. He was an excellent musician and became a friend of Wagner and a Wagner enthusiast (perhaps that had an influence, too?) as well as a big admirer of Bach.
When Schweitzer was about 37 he went to Gabon in Africa as a medical missionary. He was there for 5 years and then back in France, suffering from bad health. He returned to Gabon 6 years later, stayed about three years, returned to France, and then there was some back and forth in that fashion for the rest of his life.
By the way, that Wiki entry for Schweitzer is full of fascinating information. I hadn’t known about the depth of his music career and writings, for example. Here’s more about his stays in Africa and the hospital he founded:
Schweitzer also believed that white people had exploited Africans horribly and his mission there was in part a recompense for the guilt. He had a paternalistic attitude from the start, although later he ended up saying, “The time for speaking of older and younger brothers has passed.”
Schweitzer is, to my mind, a very interesting and very complex figure who was also a man of his time and place and whose attitudes were very much shaped by that time and place. His time and place was 19th-20th Century Germany and then France. The part of Africa he knew was one piece of Gabon. I don’t see his opinions as relevant to much of anything except that.
I find what Thomas Sowell has written a great deal more relevant.
Zaphod:
Actually, that Schweitzer quote of yours is bogus.
I made the error of assuming you had researched it properly before you put it out there. But it’s not something Schweitzer ever wrote or said. Yes, he was somewhat paternalistic. But that’s a fake quote:
@Neo:
My bad. Saw it the other day and thought it looked good. I stand corrected.
Zaphod – measure twice, cut once.
And never post anything without looking it up first, if you are debating with our esteemed hostess.
I’ve had to revise many comments after fact-checking my memory or sources.
(Not that I’ve looked up the details every time, but enough to make me wary.)
Confirmation bias writ large for the maroon, too “good” to check. Sad.
That’s the problem — the hidden problem — with making the “Argument from Authority.” The quoted authority may well be misquoted or…. as in this case of Schweitzer …. “deliberately misquoted.” More to the case, something made up out of whole cloth. Not a new mode of operation but it always behooves one… if possible… to get to the original source. Sometimes it is tough. Wiki, for instance, provides the full “Misattributed” quote but the link for the source of their posting goes 404 on the Schweitzer site — probably because the link goes to a previous version of the site and it is no longer at that position. Hence you might want to look at the original work from which it is quoted and dig that up online. Usually, but not always, the book can be found if you dig past the first two scrolls of Google. Sometimes not… or “not yet.”
For instance, about three minutes scrolling into Google I came across this copy at the Archive. You can free rent it by the hour and read the entire text — it’s short.
https://archive.org/details/frommyafricannot0000schw/page/12/mode/2up
Then again the problem with any discussion of “Africa” as a topic usually falters immediately on the fact that “Africa” is not a country but a continent.
Imagine the current political and cultural set up of the Giza plain or the deserts of the Sahara. Imagine on the same “continent” the political and cultural setup in Capetown or Rhodesia. Quite different.
Then there are the Somali pirates and then….. you get the picture.
If you want to make generalizations about Africa you need to be very specific. Old tribes don’t really recognize new borders.
But if you want to see the quote researched discussed and done to death you might want to look at Dr. Albert Schweitzer, hero or zero? – Straight Dope Message Board
http://www.trueworldpolitics.com/articles/racism/images/dicussion-of-albert-schweitzer-quote-authenticity.pdf
One thing I believe has happened to Africa is that the intellectual elite has left in great numbers. Although I understand why they would do it, that makes the situation worse in Africa. And the strongman leaders tend to take advantage of that situation.
As we speak, about 1/3 of the governments in tropical and southern Africa are led by quondam men-in-uniform. Most were partisans, some professional military, one the chief of police. For the most part, African heads of government are drawn from the business and professional stratum in those countries, with some bias toward those who were in the employ of international agencies.
And when you say it’s a ‘mess’, compared to when? The continent has always been impoverished and it’s never been particularly well-ordered politically.
1. Nowadays, however, the areas which suffer the most (the Congo, the Central African Republic, Southern Sudan, Somalia, and the Borno province of Nigeria) are notable for a dearth of government, not for abattoir regimes like that of Idi Amin or Francisco Macias. Political pluralism is the order of the day all over Africa and the heads of government are more akin to machine bosses than to madcap tyrants.
2. There have been two fairly generalized accomplishments in Africa over the last 60 years. One is that the majority of the population over 15 has achieved basic literacy. There’s still a great deal of illiteracy, but it now encompasses 40% of the adult population, not 95%.
3. Life expectancy at birth is much improved. About 60 years now on average.
4. Over 60 years, there’s been a great deal of intramural violence, but very little inter-state war.
The downside is that improvement in real incomes has been quite slow over 60 years and non-existent in about a dozen countries. There’s also considerable urban disorder there which there was not previously (because hardly anyone lived in cities).
Art Deco:
The strongman remark was a general one and in particular referencing what has happened in Africa since independence from colonialism. It was not specifically meant to refer just to the present moment in time. In my comments here, I linked to two articles that explain my position about Africa in general. I suggest you read them if you want to quickly know what I think. One is by Thomas Sowell, and the other is this previous post of mine.
Sowell is presenting a thesis for why technological and social development have been so lagging in Africa. It’s more authoritative than Richard Lynn’s because Sowell is schooled in economic history.
I think I’d take exception to your article inasmuch as what I see isn’t a centralized state giving economies bad direction as an erratic haphazard state which is ineffective at those tasks which provide an agreeable matrix for commerce and industry to develop while contriving injurious harassment. Not too up to date, but it was a common feature of political economy life in Africa 40-years ago to have overvalued currencies and state monopsonies in particular cash crops that acted to injure the peasantry and promote rural outmigration. Also, tax collection methods have been of necessity primitive.
“Whatever damage European colonialism did to Africa during its relatively brief reign, that was probably less than the damage done later by well-meaning Western would-be saviors of Africa. Africans do not need to be treated as mascots but as people whose own efforts, skills and initiatives need to be freed from the tyranny of their leaders and the paternalism of Western busybodies.” – Sowell, from Neo’s link.
Change a few nouns and this applies to most of the inner-city African-American community.
As some of the black people who are making waves on the Webz have said: “Please stop helping us.”
Very prophetic, sir. And two years before the Trumpocalypse!
https://www.thenewneo.com/2014/09/22/africa-cry-the-beloved-continent/#comment-829756