The difference between a lynching and a trial is that in a trial, one is supposed to be presumed innocent until proven guilty.
In today’s society, people are much too quick to jump the gun and they don’t want justice…they just want revenge.
While verdicts do sometimes hold political ramifications, no one doubts the vital importance of maintaining an impartial and dispassionate venue for these proceedings.
Consequently, the public should find a recent discussion on CNN’s Cuomo Prime Time rather disturbing. On Monday night, Van Jones asserted an acquittal of Derek Chauvin would place the United States in a “dangerous position” as a nation. He asserted “the system” actually stood on trial in Minneapolis. His comments expressed deep sentiments of racial division within the USA.
Jones said, “Everybody I’m talking to are frustrated, re-triggered, re-traumatized. Seeing that video, seeing the complete contempt for life. You have a generation of African-Americans and their allies — I’m talking this entire young generation—that is watching this to see if America — listen, the system is on trial here. The system is on trial. and I can’t tell you, people have tried to push away from this, move on from this. Today brought it all back home for tens of millions of people. And if this is considered legal conduct from a police officer, if you can do this in broad daylight and not go to jail, it will be perceived as open season, telling police officers from coast to coast you can literally get away with murder in broad daylight.
He continued, “This is the system on trial for a generation. And, you know, listen, you can ask any of the people who have been marching out here in the middle of a pandemic, this is going to be there will be half a billion people watching when the verdict comes out.”
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I’m going to tell you right now, these bills that are being passed to chop us off at the voting block and juries coming out saying it’s okay to kill us are putting us in a dangerous position as a country and as America.”
The judge conducting ex-police officer Derek Chauvin’s trial in Minnesota hopefully sequestered the jury. No one should want those jurors to hear about the interview between the CNN host and his guest until they have reported an impartial verdict. The defendant deserves a fair trial.