Alan Dershowitz, the well-known defense attorney and Harvard Law School professor emeritus, is predicting that the guilty verdict in the Derek Chauvin case will be reversed on appeal, Breitbart reports.
Dershowitz’s comments came on Tuesday during an interview with Newsmax.
On that same day, Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer who knelt on George Floyd during the process of arresting him was found guilty of second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter.
Many on the left are celebrating the decision, calling it justice. Dershowitz, however, who is also a liberal, is less sure about the outcome of the trial.
“Outside influence”
Those who have followed the Chauvin case recently will know that members of the political left, including Democrats in Congress, have been threatening dire consequences if Chauvin was not found guilty.
According to Dershowitz, this is the exact sort of behavior that could lead to the guilty verdict being overturned.
“What was done to George Floyd by Officer Chauvin was inexcusable, morally,” Dershowitz said. “But the verdict is very questionable, because of the outside influences of people like Al Sharpton, and people like [Rep.] Maxine Waters [D-CA].”
Dershowitz continued: “Their threats and intimidation, and hanging the sword of Damocles over the jury, and basically saying if you don’t convict on the murder charge, on all the charges, the cities will burn, the country will be destroyed, seeped into the jury room because the judge made a terrible mistake by not sequestering the jury. ”
“It should be reversed”
Dershowitz noted during his interview with Newsmax that the judge in the Chauvin case opined that the case might be reversed on appeal as a result of this outside influence.
Dershowitz said that he agreed, but went a step further. Dershowitz said that he thinks the case “should be reversed on appeal.”
“Every juror in that room knew about those threats,” Dershowitz said. “And when they sit and deliberate, they have to be saying to themselves, consciously or unconsciously, if I were to render a verdict other than a murder verdict, what the consequences will be, for me, and my family, my friends, my business. That should never, ever, bellowed to seep into a jury room.”
Dershowitz concluded by saying that he has “no real confidence that this verdict was produced by due process and the rule of law, rather than the influence of the crowd.” And, he predicted that the case would end up at the U.S. Supreme Court, which is where he said there is the “best possibility” that it will be overturned.
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