George Floyd

bear66 said:
Legality is immaterial! Having been mauled by a QC as an expert witness in a civil suit, the defence will have a field day, but hopefully the jury see through it. There were three high court judges in the case I was testifying in, and they saw through QC jiggery-pokery.
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Let's hope so. The US legal system rules on cross and direct are different to ours though in as much as how leading you can be on cross, for example,

To your example, it may have seemed like you were being mauled, but what the QC is actually doing is asking on cross, questions that are pertinent to his or her case. If you weren't asked, either directly or on cross, in closing the QC cannot then use that in their argument.

For example, if you were asked on cross "Bear are you lying?" then irrspective of your answer the QC can, during closing, say "Bear was clearly lying during his testimony". If you are never directly asked that question, it cannot be raised in closing arguments.

I have said a couple of times on this thread that the british legal system is very much about finding the truth, the american system is more combative and has a percieved winner and looser (among the lawyers, not the defendant). In the US it is common to brag about conviction rates, or that you got someone off. In the UK that doesn't happen. You have two barristers arguing a case so the jury have a clear idea of what happened and can make an informed decision about the evidence.

I believe that it is one of the reasons we use barristers for jury trials and the solicitors do all the leg work, It stops the barrister becoming involved with the defendant. They are there solely to advocate either for the crown or the defendant.
 
Laughing said:
Let's hope so. The US legal system rules on cross and direct are different to ours though in as much as how leading you can be on cross, for example,

To your example, it may have seemed like you were being mauled, but what the QC is actually doing is asking on cross, questions that are pertinent to his or her case. If you weren't asked, either directly or on cross, in closing the QC cannot then use that in their argument.

For example, if you were asked on cross "Bear are you lying?" then irrspective of your answer the QC can, during closing, say "Bear was clearly lying during his testimony". If you are never directly asked that question, it cannot be raised in closing arguments.

I have said a couple of times on this thread that the british legal system is very much about finding the truth, the american system is more combative and has a percieved winner and looser (among the lawyers, not the defendant). In the US it is common to brag about conviction rates, or that you got someone off. In the UK that doesn't happen. You have two barristers arguing a case so the jury have a clear idea of what happened and can make an informed decision about the evidence.

I believe that it is one of the reasons we use barristers for jury trials and the solicitors do all the leg work, It stops the barrister becoming involved with the defendant. They are there solely to advocate either for the crown or the defendant.
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Interesting perspective.

One thing I struggled with was being cut off half sentence when the answer wasn't what was expected. You have to fight to regain your position as the judges gave no help at all.
 
bear66 said:
Interesting perspective.

One thing I struggled with was being cut off half sentence when the answer wasn't what was expected. You have to fight to regain your position as the judges gave no help at all.
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Thats called being unresponsive Bear. On cross leading quations can be asked, they can't on direct, and they are the only questions that should be asked on cross. Questions like "So mr bear when you testified that laughing is a top poster, you were lying weren't you?" IS a leading question, it suggest the answer to you, that you were lying, which of course you were. If you're answer is "No I wasn't lying you can ask anybody" the last part of the answer, on objection, is removed from the record, it's a yes or no question.

That was exactly what the lady firefighter that was on scene was told off for, after the objection she repeated her answer then argued with the judge about whether she could finish her answer.

The reasoning behind that escapes me, in terms of a search for the truth. Ask any parent when they are trying to find out who broke the window and you sit your 2 kids down for a grilling. You know in a couple of minutes who broke the window.

The other thing thats common for barristers or lawyers to do is to object when there are no grounds. It does what you said, breaks your flow of thought.

It's all a semantic game to one extent or another. We are much better in the UK than the US, but any normal person would question some of the rules in a courtroom.
 
What I find odd about this case is they either side don’t really spell out the points they are making. It’s not really simplistic stuff. A person of average intelligence on the jury may find some of this hard to follow or is it just me. For example after yesterday’s questioning should the prosecution not have explicitly said - given such low levels of drugs in his system they did not contribute to his death. I appreciate they have laid out all the dots but I just think they are not joining them. Or will they do this in their summing up?
 
FatCat said:
What I find odd about this case is they either side don’t really spell out the points they are making. It’s not really simplistic stuff. A person of average intelligence on the jury may find some of this hard to follow or is it just me. For example after yesterday’s questioning should the prosecution not have explicitly said - given such low levels of drugs in his system they did not contribute to his death. I appreciate they have laid out all the dots but I just think they are not joining them. Or will they do this in their summing up?
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Thats a very good point FatCat and, whilst I don't know the reasoning I think I see why that question wasn't asked in direct examination. If it's asked it allows, on cross a question like, "Do you recall Mr Xyz, whom you did an autopsy on?" There would be an objection for relevance and it would be overruled. The answer would be "Yes" for arguments sake. The next question would be "And what was the level of illegal drugs in his system?" After the answer the defence would then ask "And is that more or less than was in George Floyd's system?" If the answe is less (And I am sure the defence could find a case where someone had died with less drugs in their system), the defence have just blown that witness out of the water.

More generally on direct examination you can only asks questions like "What did you do next?" The question as you phrased it is a leading question and would be objected to by the defence and probably sustained. That said the prosecution would have rephrased the question and still got it on the record. So the question might be rephrased as "What would be the typical medical outcome of someone with that level of drugs in their system?" Again with that rephrasing it gives the defence on cross a huge amount of latitude in their questioning.

It's never seemed very fair to me, but it stops the prosecution asking the same question over and over to the bystanders. "Do you think the defendent killed George Floyd?". After 14 people have all answered Yes, the defendant is done.
 
Laughing said:
Thats a very good point FatCat and, whilst I don't know the reasoning I think I see why that question wasn't asked in direct examination. If it's asked it allows, on cross a question like, "Do you recall Mr Xyz, whom you did an autopsy on?" There would be an objection for relevance and it would be overruled. The answer would be "Yes" for arguments sake. The next question would be "And what was the level of illegal drugs in his system?" After the answer the defence would then ask "And is that more or less than was in George Floyd's system?" If the answe is less (And I am sure the defence could find a case where someone had died with less drugs in their system), the defence have just blown that witness out of the water.

More generally on direct examination you can only asks questions like "What did you do next?" The question as you phrased it is a leading question and would be objected to by the defence and probably sustained. That said the prosecution would have rephrased the question and still got it on the record. So the question might be rephrased as "What would be the typical medical outcome of someone with that level of drugs in their system?" Again with that rephrasing it gives the defence on cross a huge amount of latitude in their questioning.

It's never seemed very fair to me, but it stops the prosecution asking the same question over and over to the bystanders. "Do you think the defendent killed George Floyd?". After 14 people have all answered Yes, the defendant is done.
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Thanks. I’m not that up to date this week hopefully I can catch up over the weekend.what are we - about half way through?
 
we are exactly half way through this evening FC. I stopped posting my thoughts as they were triggering lots of questions and I started to feel like everyone thought I was rooting for Chauvin, which I certainly am not. Trying to give a balanced view was causing me some grief. Probably not intentional, granted.
 
Laughing said:
we are exactly half way through this evening FC. I stopped posting my thoughts as they were triggering lots of questions and I started to feel like everyone thought I was rooting for Chauvin, which I certainly am not. Trying to give a balanced view was causing me some grief. Probably not intentional, granted.
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Not saying you should reconsider but I found your comments interesting and insightful so thanks for what you did post.
 
Millbrook said:
Not saying you should reconsider but I found your comments interesting and insightful so thanks for what you did post.
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I didn’t take it that way at all Laughing I was quite impressed by your knowledge and I just took it that you were sharing your knowledge. Thinking Chauvin will likely get off is different to wanting him to get off.

keep posting for me I enjoyed your analysis and insights.
 
bear66 said:
Never understood the 5th. "I plead the 5th as otherwise I'd be incriminating myself" "So you're guilty then?".
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Unfortunately the jury will be informed that they must not read anything into a defendant not testifying.

To be fair to the legal system its for a very good reason. A police chief stood in front of a lecture hall full of first year law students and demonstrated why a. You should never speak to the police without an attorney and b. Why you should never take the stand in your own defence. He essentially got enough evidence on questioning to charge half the students with a 30 year old murder.
 
bear66 said:
Never understood the 5th. "I plead the 5th as otherwise I'd be incriminating myself" "So you're guilty then?".
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Not really - it could be he and his defense team think things are going well so there's no point him risking things by going on the stand and giving the prosecution a free shot at him. Taking the fifth doesn't automatically mean guilt.
 
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Having watched the trial throught I can't see anything other than guilty of, at least 3rd degree manslaughter. The prosecution only really screwed up once, maybe twice. Their only really big mistake was ignoring the carbon monoxide evidence that stopped them using Tobin as they would have wanted in rebuttal. Their other mistake was, and this is only opinion, they used too many witnesssess to give much the same evidence. The video footage was shown so many times that the jury would get desensitized to it. I would have played the video less often and in closing shown the last 15 seconds of George Floyds life for the jury to take into deliberations.

Hopefully justice will be done.
 
zorro_mfc said:
From cbs coverage

View attachment 17209
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So they have taken 3rd degree manslaughter out of the charges zoro, that's interesting. It was in the original charges. Those sentencing guidelines are the average for a first offence so may end up serving more, hopefully. I think the prosecution wanted to add aggravation to the sentence to increase the jail sentence.
 
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