Discover and read the best of Twitter Threads about #DerekChauvinSentencing
Most recents (4)
My #DerekChauvinSentencing remarks for news shows on Friday have earned me condemnation in some circles and support in others. Ibram X. Kendi (author of How To Be An Antiracist) and I, for instance, took opposite positions when commenting on Chauvin’s sentence for @CBSNLive.
Kendi’s position—shared by most everyone—was that Chauvin should get maximum punishment. His rationale: if Chauvin were Black, he’d get severe punishment (as I show in N*gga Theory, courts do mete out more draconian sentences to Blacks), so punish him with that level of severity.
For too many, racial equality means treating White wrongdoers with the same draconian severity we already apply to similarly situated Black ones. For them, equality in punitiveness is an equality worth striving for. I demur, for down that road racial injustice lies.
Derek Chauvin, convicted murderer formerly with the @MinneapolisPD, was sentenced to 22.5 years in prison for killing #GeorgeFloyd.
This is now the longest sentence ever given to a former cop for a killing committed in the line of duty.
unicornriot.ninja/2021/ex-cop-de…
This is now the longest sentence ever given to a former cop for a killing committed in the line of duty.
unicornriot.ninja/2021/ex-cop-de…
After being sentenced, #DerekChauvin was sent straight to prison with 199 days credit for time he’s already served in jail.
Judge Cahill said the 270 month sentence he handed Chauvin is based on his "abuse in a position of authority & the "cruelty" he showed to #GeorgeFloyd.
Judge Cahill said the 270 month sentence he handed Chauvin is based on his "abuse in a position of authority & the "cruelty" he showed to #GeorgeFloyd.
Chauvin was found guilty of unintentional second-degree murder, third degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter in one of the most historic murder trials of the century that concluded on April 20, 2021.
See our full coverage of the #DerekChauvinTrial: unicornriot.ninja/derek-chauvin-…
See our full coverage of the #DerekChauvinTrial: unicornriot.ninja/derek-chauvin-…
NOW: #DerekChauvin sentencing begins with victim impact statements, starting with #GeorgeFloyd's 7 yr old daughter (via video). 
Brandon Williams, George Floyd's nephew, reads a victim impact statement in court.
Video:
I’m taking a very unpopular position on #DerekChauvinSentencing, the same position I take on the appropriate punishment for violent wrongdoers and “moral monsters” in N*gga Theory—namely, we must resist seeking to gratify our retributive urge to maximize their punishment.
“I would hope that Judge Cahill sentences Chauvin to the maximum amount of time in prison,” a civil rights lawyer & activist said recently in a public forum held by the Legal Rights Center, a nonprofit group that provides indigent defense and advocates criminal justice reform.
Even activists who generally oppose mass incarceration too often revert to punitive and carceral attitudes when a violent crime has been committed against a member of a marginalized group, especially if the offender, like Chauvin, belongs to a socially dominant one.
