Lori Falce: Trial and verdict not same as justice
Apr. 23—For me, every issue I write about is a crime scene. Every argument is the give and take of prosecution and defense. After 30 years of murders, sexual assaults, theft and fraud, the way I process information is a lot like a courtroom.
A crime reporter frames the mechanics of what is happening in the jury box and the witness stand and the reams of court documents. We spotlight the truth as we mine the case for the stories buried in it like rich minerals.
And so I have followed the death of George Floyd and the trial of Derek Chauvin in that vein.
No death is ever as simple as one cause and one effect. There is always a complicated formula that adds up to the end result. It is not the flip of a switch. It is a Rube Goldberg-esque contraption that requires everything to happen in just the right order and just the right timing.
While the kaleidoscope of camera angles that showed the final minutes of Floyd's life ticking down on that Minneapolis street corner, they only caught the end of his life and the beginning of the end of the life Chauvin had known to that point.
The trial tried to show the rest. It showed the stories behind the story captured on cellphones and security cameras.
It showed the pain of a 17-year-old girl whose viral video made her a witness to a slow and public death forever. It showed the anguished guilt of the store clerk who will blame himself forever for doing his job and reporting Floyd's counterfeit bill. It showed the brother who loved Floyd and feels his loss every day.
It showed the police who testified against Chauvin, holding him to account for not following their own rules. It showed the experts, like the former cop turned law professor who specializes in assessing the risks officers must take, the threats they can perceive and the force they may wield.
Years parsing the arguments of this district attorney and that public defender have made me appreciate the perspectives of both sides, something that helps as I now write opinion, carving a path that allows for truth to come from left or right. It is seldom that I have watched a trial and not found points of truth from both camps.
In 2013, a clerk at Rockview state prison was raped and strangled by an inmate. Her eyes were cherry red with broken blood vessels for weeks afterward — a glaringly visible sign of the savagery of the attack. As I sat through Omar Best's trial, I was treated to a defense that blamed everyone but the perpetrator. It didn't work. His life sentence was upheld again in 2019. He is now serving it in Camp Hill.
I had the same feeling watching Chauvin's defense that I had with Best's. It seemed disjointed — an attempt to cast a wide tent of other possibilities for how Floyd died without the factual posts to prop it up. It sounded more like a political argument on television, full of what-ifs and could-have-beens that don't work in court. The jury came to the same conclusion.
But like every trial that tried to find fault for someone's pain or loss, ultimately Chauvin's conviction will be a hollow victory.
A trial tries to accomplish the impossible. The goal is justice, an attempt to set right what was wrong. That cannot happen for a death. No matter what a jury decides or the sentence a judge passes, the life taken is a loss that can't be reclaimed.
At the end of every traumatic trial, when someone has lost a child or a spouse or a parent, I watch the initial joy that justice has been done. But it doesn't take long for the family to realize the emptiness is still there. I have seen the same look on a defendant's face, found not guilty of a friend's death in a DUI crash.
Criminal trials are important. Chauvin's conviction sets a precedent. But justice won't be found in a guilty verdict. It will be found in making changes that keep pointless deaths from happening.
Lori Falce is a Tribune-Review community engagement editor. You can contact Lori at lfalce@triblive.com.
