1/ I am open to persuasion, but I think the charge against Chauvin is right. (Not saying the failure to charge the others yet is right.)

The MN government website with its statutes is down. So I looked at definitions on several lawyers' sites.

2/ Maybe all those lawyers are in cahoots to mislead people about the wording of the murder statutes, but here's what they say (see image.)

https://aaronhall.com/criminal/3rd-degree-murder/

3/ The officer probably didn't actually set out to kill George Floyd. He just acted in a way that he should have known would put his life at risk, without seeing to be concerned about that fact, even when Floyd told him he couldn't breathe.

That's a depraved heart, imho.

4/ Here, also according to several lawyer's website, is the definition of second-degree murder.

https://statelaws.findlaw.com/minnesota-law/minnesota-second-degree-murder.html

5/ The first of the four options is the relevant one. It requires that the killing be intentional. I have seen people asking: but didn't Chauvin INTENTIONALLY put his knee on Floyd's neck, etc.? I assume he did (i.e., that his knee didn't end up there by accident), but ...

6/ ... that's not the same as intentionally killing someone. Intentionally killing someone means: you set out to KILL that person, not just: you intentionally did something, and someone died as a result.

7/ Take a different example: you and I get into a bar fight. I hit you, and you fall down, hitting your head against the sharp corner of a table as you fall. You die as a result.

I intentionally HIT YOU, and I intended to HURT you, but I did not intend to KILL you.

8/ In this case, since I did not intentionally kill you, it's not second-degree murder. Note, though: it's also not THIRD-degree murder either. Absent special circumstances, which I am dispensing with because it's my example and I can do that ...

9/ ... in the fight case, there's no reason to think that if I hit you, you might DIE. In hitting you, I am certainly not being *friendly*, but I am not showing a disregard for human life, or doing something "that inevitably endangers human life, as every sane man must know."

9/ That is: my fight case does not show "a depraved heart."

Kneeling on someone's neck for I forget however many minutes, on the other hand, is absolutely something that puts someone else's life at risk. Choosing to ignore this fact is not something that a decent person can do.

10/ Specifically, it's not something that someone who is concerned with human life can do.

And that's what seems so awful about this, to a lot of the people I've read and talked to: Chauvin just didn't seem to care at all, not in the sense of not *feeling* something, but ...

11/ in the sense of not feeling compelled to take the most basic steps to make sure that someone didn't die.

As though I decided to play "let's drive blindfolded" on a busy city street: I might not have SET OUT to kill anyone, but I am not taking the basic precautions needed.

12/ I am not doing *anything* to prevent other people from dying as a result of what I do, and what I do obviously puts their lives at risk.

That's a depraved heart, and that's what's central to the charge.

13/ They might also have chosen to charge third-degree murder because intent, which is central to second-degree murder, is harder to prove.

/Fin.

14/ Oops, not fin: in one of the tweets in this thread, I used the example of hitting someone in a fight and inadvertently killing them.

This is a good example of intentionally doing something that turns out to kill someone without intending to kill. https://twitter.com/hilzoy/status/1266445617800392712

15/ But on further reflection, it's probably a bad example of something that isn't second-degree murder. ONE kind of 2DM, in MN, is killing with intent but without premeditation. But ANOTHER kind is killing while committing a felony. And my hitting you might well be a felony.

16/ My bad. I will stop trying to pretend to be a lawyer now.