America on trial in police murder case

Will it be a turning point for America? The trial of Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd has prompted discussion about whether the US can start to heal its racial divisions. The cameras were not allowed to film the witness. Darnella Frazier was under 18, so her face could not be shown, but the young woman’s voice was heard around the world. “I heard George Floyd saying I can’t breathe, please get off of me. I can’t breathe. He cried for his mom. He was in pain. It seemed like he knew it was over for him. He was terrified. He was suffering.” Darnella’s testimony was among the most powerful so far in the trial of former police officer Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd, now entering its fourth day at Hennepin County courthouse in Minneapolis, USA. Floyd died after being restrained by Chauvin, who kept his knee on Floyd’s neck for more than eight minutes. The video of Floyd pinned and gasping for air set off a wave of global protests, galvanising support for the Black Lives Matter movement. Some believe that if Chauvin is convicted, it will mark a turning point for racial justice in the US. For centuries, trials have been one of history’s weathervanes, showing which direction society is heading. Prosecutions of political radicals in England helped stoke its civil war in the 1640s, while the Stalinist show trials in 1936 marked another nail in the coffin of the Russian revolutionary dream. The first-ever trial was a fictional one. In the ancient Greek play, Eumenides, the goddess Athena summons a 12-person jury to try a prince in an act said to have established the legal system. The course of Greek justice, however, did not always run smooth. One famous bump came when the Athenian philosopher Socrates was found guilty of corrupting the youth and ordered to commit suicide. For his disciple, Plato, Socrates was punished for speaking the truth. This was the position 16th-Century astronomer Galileo Galilei found himself in when he was tried by the Inquisition. His crime? Claiming that the earth revolved around the sun. In other cases, trials – such as those endured by the French Jewish soldier Richard Dreyfus, who was falsely accused of treason in 1894 – have captured the public imagination by providing a lightning rod for public prejudices such as antisemitism. In the US, the history of racism – and the struggle against it – has been punctuated by many important trials, from that of John Brown, to Ossian Sweet, to Afeni Shakur. One of the most tragic of these trials followed the 1955 murder of Emmett Till, a Black teenager. His White killers were found not guilty despite overwhelming evidence. Outrage about the verdict helped spur the Civil Rights Movement, which secured greater legal equality for Black Americans. Floyd’s death is seen by some as a sign of how far America still has to go to reach real equality. Speaking as the trial began, veteran civil rights campaigner Al Sharpton told the press: “Chauvin is in the courtroom, but America is on trial.” Will the George Floyd trial be a turning point for America? Rough justice Yes, say some. The trial will show Americans that no one is above the law – not even the police. Regardless of the verdict, the death of George Floyd has changed the way many people see policing in the US. The attorney general of Minnesota is personally prosecuting the case, showing that American politicians believe they cannot allow the status quo to continue. No, say others. People believed the US would change after the death of Trayvon Martin in 2013, and again after a police officer killed Michael Brown in 2014. The same argument was made after the murder of Laquan Macdonald when the officer involved was convicted. Americans remain starkly divided on how police should behave, and those divisions will prevent necessary reforms. Convicting Chauvin will not stop history repeating itself. KeywordsBlack Lives Matter - A political movement which aims to challenge police brutality and racism towards black people all across the world, usually using protests and other means of activism.