I meant to write this yesterday but you know how lazy I am. The reason I wanted to do it yesterday was because Monday night Sean Hannity and Greg Jarrett were incredibly ignorant in their evaluation of day one of the trial. I expect that from Hannity but not Jarrett. They both basically said a trial was not necessary because the video was all you needed to see that Chauvin murdered Floyd. They made no mention of the video of what happened before the video they think is definitive or the M.E. autopsy in which he found that Floyd did not die from asphyxiation but from heart failure.

They seem to think that they can tell from the video what happened but they can’t. As the defense put out in their opening statement, there was no bruising or trauma externally or internally on Floyd’s neck. So all the pontificating about how excessive Chauvin’s actions were are not borne out by the evidence. Now don’t misunderstand, I am not a Chauvin fan. I think he should have stopped sooner but that doesn’t mean he murdered him.

Now I’m also sick of hearing Hannity always talking about his brown belt in MMA and how that makes him an expert on what happened. No it doesn’t! He has exactly zero knowledge of what actually happened. He can’t tell with any degree of certainty exactly how much pressure was asserted or on what exact part of the neck it was on. As I said whatever it was was insufficient to cause bruising or trauma externally or internally to Floyd’s neck. And to put this in my perspective, as a couple of you know I have a brown belt in karate and turned down the black belt which was going to be awarded because it was expected that anyone who got the black belt would open a dojo and I was just starting out my law career and didn’t have the time so I respectfully declined. (As an aside because you would never know it now, if you remember the movie Billy Jack, Tom Laughlin, my favorite scene takes place in the little park in the middle of the town where the bad guy shows up with a bunch of thugs to take Billy Jack down and Billy says you see this foot? Well I’m going to hit you on this side of your face and there’s nothing you can do to stop me and then he does it. 40+ years ago I could do that. Now I couldn’t kick myself in my ass.)

Now I’m really disappointed with Jarrett because he is a lawyer and should know better than to jump to conclusions based on emotions, which he basically said he was doing. The video is very gut wrenching and emotional but that doesn’t prove anything. It elicits a visceral response.

Now I also want to say that the judge is biased. He turned down a motion for a change of venue and denied pretrial motions to exclude prejudicial and irrelevant testimony. All we’ve heard other than the video over the first few days is repetitive testimony from bystanders about what they felt watching it go down. What they thought or felt is totally irrelevant. And it’s highly prejudicial because it has no real purpose other than to inflame the jury.

The last thing I want to discuss is something I learned yesterday and that is that the prosecution is going to be calling several ‘experts’ to contradict the M.E.’s conclusions. And don’t be surprised if at some point someone claims he’s a racist. My problem is that I don’t understand how a prosecutor can shop for some hired gun to come out with the answer he wants. The County M.E. Is just that and the question one has to ask is that if the prosecutor undermines him here doesn’t that open up motions and appeals for everyone else who was convicted on the testimony of that M.E.?