Lawyer Alan Dershowitz said Derek Chauvin’s guilty verdict in the death of George Floyd “should be reversed on appeal” because of “threats” from outside influences, such as Rep. Maxine Waters.
“Well, first, what was done to George Floyd by officer Chauvin was inexcusable, morally, but the verdict is very questionable because of the outside influences of people like Al Sharpton and people like Maxine Waters,” he told Newsmax in an interview on Tuesday.
“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 and 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,” he said.
“So the judge himself said this case may be reversed on appeal. And I think it might be reversed on appeal. I think it should be reversed on appeal,” he continued. “I think the American Civil Liberties Union, which would be all over this case if it weren’t a racially charged case, all Americans who care about due process and liberty should be concerned that the jury verdict may have been influenced by, if not the thumb, maybe even the elbow of the outside pressures, the fears, the threats.”
Dershowitz said earlier this week in a separate Newsmax interview that Waters should be “ashamed of herself” for what he described as using Ku Klux Klan tactics to intimidate the jury.
ALAN DERSHOWITZ SAYS MAXINE WATERS USED KKK ‘PLAYBOOK’ TO INTIMIDATE JURY IN CHAUVIN TRIAL
“The irony of what congresswoman Waters did. She borrowed the playbook of the Ku Klux Klan from the 1920s and 1930s. They would stand outside of courtrooms, and they would threaten violence,” Dershowitz said.
Waters visited Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, last week and told protesters of Chauvin’s trial that “we’re looking for a guilty verdict.”
“I am very hopeful,” the California Democrat added. “I hope that we are going to get a verdict that will say, ‘Guilty, guilty, guilty.’”
“And if we don’t, we cannot go away,” she added. “We’ve got to get more confrontational.”
Chauvin was found guilty on charges of second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter on Tuesday.
Dershowitz added in his interview that the jury was aware of Waters’s comments and used them when reaching a decision in the case.
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“Every juror in that room knew about these threats. And when they sit and deliberate, they have to be saying to themselves, consciously or unconsciously, if I would render a verdict other than a murder verdict, what the consequences will be for me, my family, my friends, my business,” he concluded. “That should never, ever be allowed to seep into a jury room. So I have no real confidence that this verdict, which may be correct in some ways, but I have no confidence that this verdict was produced by due process and the rule of law rather than the influence of the crowd.”
