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Judge Gavel

Biden Administration Watching Derek Chauvin Trial Closely As Verdict Is Reached 

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The Biden administration is keeping a close eye on the closing arguments and deliberations that occur in the Minneapolis trial of Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd. The President himself voiced his concerns over potential fallout from the trial during a private meeting with the Congressional Black Caucus. Vice President Kamala Harris has also been greatly discussing preparation tactics with certain aides. 

The US is currently dealing with a major wave of mass shootings as well as the country begins to reopen with the rollout of multiple Covid-19 vaccines. Additionally, the killing of 20-year-old Duante Wright and 13-year-old Adam Toledo at the hands of the police also have racial tensions at an all time high, as both incidents occurred within two weeks of each other. 

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According to CNN, “the whipsaw of events, along with near-daily episodes of major shootings across the country, have only heightened pressure on both the President and Congress to hold police accountable for misconduct, a challenge now playing out against the backdrop of new calls for gun legislation.”

“The bully pulpit is more than just a bully pulpit. I think the President can help set a tone in the country, there is no question in my mind,” said Representative James Clyburn, a South Carolina Democrat who is the highest-ranking African American member of Congress.

In terms of the Chauvin trial, representative Karen Bass of California expressed how she’s “very worried” for the potential unrest the nation will endure within the next week.  “I don’t think anyone in Minneapolis, frankly, anyone in the United States or over a good part of the world would understand any other verdict other than guilty.”

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Harris recently spoke in an interview as well on the trial: “Certainly, we want to make sure that the American people call for justice — we all want to know that those calls are met. And we need to all be aware that when those calls for justice are not met, people rightly express their First Amendment right to speak out, to assemble and to express their concern, their pain, their disappointment — as long as it’s peaceful protests.”

According to advisers, “Biden wants neither to replicate the heavily militarized response to protests under former President Donald Trump nor to appear absent in the face of violence or unrest directed at law enforcement, one official said. He also believes he must directly acknowledge the systemic racism that pervades criminal justice in America.”

Biden has put his support behind the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which is a bill that would establish a national registry of all police misconduct, ban racial/religious profiling by law enforcement, and overhaul the system that grants police officers qualified immunity from certain crimes. 

America is patiently awaiting the results of the Derek Chauvin trial in what’s being viewed as one of the biggest trials in history when it comes to racial inequality in this country.

Congress Questions Tech CEOs Over Role In Capitol Riot

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Sundar Pichai of Google, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, and Jack Dorsey of Twitter all testified before two committees of the House of Representatives on “social media’s role in promoting extremism and the rampant spreading of misinformation” regarding the pandemic, Covid-19 vaccine, and election process.

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Derek Chauvin Set To Go On Trial For The Murder Of George Floyd This Week 

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The murder trial of Derek Chauvin will begin this week in Minneapolis. Chauvin is charged with the second-and-third-degree murder of George Floyd as well as manslaughter after he detained Floyd over suspicion of passing a $20 counterfeit bill last May. 

In a viral 9-minute video of the interaction between Chauvin and Floyd, the former officer can be seen kneeling on Floyd’s neck while he was already handcuffed and two other officers kept him on the ground. Floyd can be heard multiple times saying that he couldn’t breath and felt like he was about to die. The video then led to some of the biggest protests against racial injustice and police brutality since the 1960s.

In Minneapolis especially, the Black Lives Matter movement began with hundreds of peaceful protests which eventually were turned violent, many times due to police interference. The authorities claim to be planning on increasing the amount of police and national guard presence on the streets ahead of the trial this week. 

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Areva Martin is the Civil rights attorney and commentator who is working with Floyd’s family. Martin recently spoke to the press ahead of the trial this week to discuss how “the family is seeking justice, the public is seeking accountability.”

“The world is waiting to see if the US will be courageous enough to stand up to a system that has a history of violating the rights of African Americans and, rather than protecting those lives, has actually destroyed them.”

The prosecution and defence are mainly concerned with the cause of Floyd’s death and Chauvin’s reasoning for why he felt he had to lean into Floyd’s neck for such an extended period time when he was already detained. 

In an autopsy performed by the Hennepin county medical examiner office, it was determined that Floyd’s death was a homicide due to the fact that he suffered from heart failure brought on by “law enforcement subdual, restraint, and neck compression.” 

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It’s expected that Chauvin’s defence team will focus on the findings that Floyd had heart disease as well, and there was evidence of “fentanyl intoxication and recent methamphetamine use,” in his system. Floyd’s team, on the other hand, is expected to focus on the fact that Chauvin had a long history of using excessive force in the past, including multiple incidents of kneeling on people throughout his career. 

After Floyd’s death, Chauvin was fired and arrested, and this marks the beginning of what is likely to be one of the most closely watched court cases in modern history. 

“George Floyd wasn’t the first person to be killed by police on this block, but [in the past] media wasn’t the way that it is and a lot of it got swept under the rug … How do we prevent this from happening? That could be my son. I have two sons,” said Mileesha Smith, a Minneapolis community member who was present at a vigil held this weekend ahead of the trial. 

If Chauvin is charged to the fullest extent, he could face a maximum sentence of 40 years in prison.

Social Media Apps on iPhone

CEO’s Of Google, Facebook, And Twitter To Testify In Front Of Congress On Misinformation

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This marks the first time the chief executives of Facebook, Google, and Twitter will be appearing before lawmakers since the Capitol riots and Covid-19 vaccine distributions.

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Vaccine Development

Johnson & Johnson Pause Covid-19 Vaccine Trial Due To Unexplained Illness Appearing 

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Johnson & Johnson have become the latest to put their Covid-19 vaccine trial on pause due to an unexplained illness appearing in one of the participants. AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford also made headlines recently when they had to pause their trial for the same reason. The AstraZeneca trial, however, has resumed in Canada and Europe, just not the US. 

For Johnson & Johnson, however, a document was recently sent out to outside researchers who were running the clinical trial – which involved 60,000 patients – that claimed a “pausing rule” had been met and the trial was to stop immediately until a proper investigation into the sick individual has been performed. 

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The online system that’s been used to enroll patients in the study has been officially closed and all data that’s already been collected from various committees would be collected and analyzed together. Johnson & Johnson recently spoke with the media about putting their trial on pause but provided little information based on the fact that they themselves are still working on the investigation. 

“We must respect this participant’s privacy. We’re also learning more about this participant’s illness, and it’s important to have all the facts before we share additional information.”

Johnson & Johnson did emphasize in their statement that adverse events like this happening during a clinical study for a vaccine made for a virus the world knows so little about, is normal. In fact, the AstraZeneca trial has had to pause a few times now due to unexplained illnesses appearing in certain participants. These issues that cause the trials to come to a halt are typically isolated incidents and have to do with the individuals personal health over anything else. 

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They also emphasized the difference between a “study pause” and a “clinical hold” when it comes to vaccine trials. A clinical hold is a formal regulatory action that can cause a vaccine trial to stop for a long-time. This incident, however, falls more under the study pause category, as the company is projecting to restart the trial this week. 

Late Monday evening the data and safety monitoring board, or DSMB, for the Johnson & Johnson trial met to review the case involving this sick participant. When it comes to these illnesses it’s not always immediately clear what the cause is, but the first thing the first thing the DSMB needs to determine is if the patient received a version of the vaccine, or a placebo. 

The fact that this trial is one of the biggest in the world also means that these pauses are likely to occur more than once. Again, AstraZeneca has had to take multiple pauses and their trial involves about half the participants as Johnson & Johnson. A source recently spoke with the media about how common these pauses are.

“If we do a study of 60,000 people, that is a small village. In a small village there are a lot of medical events that happen.” 

Johnson & Johnson initially began enrolling volunteers for Phase 3 of their clinical trial for a Covid-19 vaccine on September 23rd. Researchers initially planned on enrolling 60,000 participants from all over the world and are planning to still hit that number as well.

Netflix on TV Screen

Texas Grand Jury Indicts Netflix For Controversial ‘Cuties’ Film 

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A grand jury located in Tyler County, Texas has indicted Netflix on criminal charges that allege the streaming service is promoting “lewd visual material of a child” within their new film “Cuties.” The French film originally premiered at Sundance film festival earlier this year and was meant to be a commentary on the over-sexualization of children in the media and online with influencer culture, however, to a majority of viewers it felt as though the film is more so contributing to that problem, rather than speaking out against it. 

The director of the film, Maïmouna Doucoure, has defended the film multiple times, despite the multiple petitions and calls for Netflix to remove the film from the platforms. According to IMDB, “Cuties” follows an 11-year-old girl named Amy who joins a new group of dancers called the cuties. Amy eventually “grows aware of her burgeoning femininity – upsetting her mother and her values in the process.” 

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“I decided to make this film and sound an alarm and say we need to protect our children. It’s bold, it’s feminist, but it’s so important and necessary to create debate and try to find solutions, for me as an artist, for politicians and parents. It’s a real issue.”

Many individuals didn’t feel the same way as Doucoure, and viewed the film to be a hypersexualization of the young girls that are meant to be seen as empowered. In the official complaint filed, the grand jury claims Netflix knowingly promoted inappropriate visual material which  “depicts the lewd exhibition of the genitals or pubic area of a clothed or partially clothed child who was younger than 18 years of age at the time the visual material was created, which appeals to the prurient interest in sex, and has no serious, literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.”

Netflix has already defended the decision to keep the project on the platform, claiming that the film is a “powerful story about the pressure young girls face on social media and from society more generally growing up.” To which the public responded, can’t we have that discussion without further contributing to the problem by advertising a movie about 11-year-olds doing inappropriate dance moves. 

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It’s a major point of contention that has opened a much larger conversation regarding the sexualization of young people in TV and film. This past Tuesday, Netflix released another statement defending the film, stating that it’s a social commentary and they “stand by the film.”

Initially the movie sparked a backlash movement on Twitter with the hashtag #CancelNetflix, and for Tyler County District Attorney Lucas Babin, he knew right away that there was “probable cause to believe it [the movie] was criminal.” 

“The legislators of this state believe promoting certain lewd material of children has destructive consequences. A grand jury found probable cause for this felony, and my job is to uphold the laws of this State and see that justice is done.”

The Parents Television Council also recently called upon president Trump and the Department of Justice to interrogate Netflix about “Cuties” and the alleged “pattern of behavior” the platform has been exuding.

Vaccine in Doctors Hands

Possible Covid-19 Vaccine From Oxford Will Be Presented To Regulators This Year

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The Oxford Vaccine Group has been tirelessly working on various drug treatment/vaccine options for the Covid-19 virus since the pandemic first emerged in early 2020.

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Judge Gavel

Judge Denies Roman Polanski’s Bid To Rejoin The Academy

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Roman Polanski’s bid to get back into the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was denied this Tuesday after a Los Angeles judge upheld his initial expulsion from the organization in 2018. 

Polanski sued the Academy in 2019 after his expulsion, seeking reinstatement on the grounds that his expulsion was “improper and invalid.” His lawsuit also claimed that he wasn’t notified ahead of time of the move to expel; which the judge didn’t think was fully necessary given the circumstances. 

Judge Mary Strobel also stated that the Academy board already corrected the failing of notifying Polanski of his expulsion by giving him a fair hearing before the decision was fully finalized. In her final ruling she said the board had plenty of cause to expel Polanski. 

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“While the Board could have found the circumstances surrounding Petitioner’s continued fugitive status, the Board’s decision is supported by the evidence, was not arbitrary or capricious, and was not an abuse of discretion.”

The Academy spoke with the media recently about this decision, asserting that they were “pleased the court confirmed the Academy’s procedures were fair and reasonable.” Polanski’s attorney, Harland Braun, said that they wouldn’t be pursuing an appeal, as it would be a waste of time and money.

Braun claims that all the judges in Los Angeles stick together and “cover each other’s misconduct,” and “The Academy membership is actually worthless,” despite his clients valiant efforts to reclaim that position.  

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Polanski was kicked out of the Academy back in 2018 alongside comedian Bill Cosby. At the time, Cosby had just been convicted and imprisoned on charges of sexual assault. Polanski was on the board for over fifty years before his expulsion; despite a majority of that time being spent as a well-known fugitive from California justice. 

In 1978, Polanski fled the country after pleading guilty to the rape of a 13-year-old girl. Apparently at the time, Polanski learned that the judge in his case had planned to sentence him to a long prison sentence instead of abiding by a negotiated plea bargain, prompting him to flee. After that he lived in France, Switzerland, or Poland, successfully avoiding California authorities attempts to extradite him. 

He’s been unable to return to the United States, despite winning an Oscar for best director in 2003 for “The Pianist,” and being nominated for the same category in 1981 for “Tess”. 

Braun has represented Polanski throughout the past 42 years through all of the legal issues. The pair are still attempting to get the Los Angeles District Attorney to drop its case and extradite Polanski from serving the remaining few months on his sentence in the US, as well as paying a large fee for fleeing in the first place; so far they’ve been unsuccessful.

Corona Vaccine

University Of Maryland Joins In Most Advanced Covid-19 Vaccine Trial In America

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The University Of Maryland’s School of Medicine is joining 30 other US centers that have begun recruiting thousands of citizens currently living in Covid-19 hot spots throughout the country. The goal is to get as many volunteers as possible to participate in what’s being called the most advanced trial for a vaccine against Covid-19. 

The vaccine was developed by Moderna, a Massachusetts biotech company who has been working with the National Institutes of Health on a vaccine since the beginning of this pandemic; it’s among several other vaccines throughout the world that are entering into Phase 3 of development. This specific trial in the US will be the first one to run under ‘Operation Warp Speed,’ a federal program that will hopefully be able to quickly identify, make, and distribute over 300 million doses of a coronavirus vaccine whenever one does get approved. 

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The trial will use around 30,000 volunteers after initial tests showed that the vaccine is safe and effective when administered among smaller groups. Dr. Matthew Laurens is one of the lead investigators at the University of Maryland, who claims that the biggest goal is finding a cure, but initial plans are to at least slow the rapid spreading in the US. 

“We hope it stops 100% of transmissions, but if it decreases the severity of the disease, that’s important for public health. At the end of the day, if it saves lives, that’s what’s most important.”

Five of the 27 active human trials throughout the world are in phase 3 of testing. Others are closely behind in terms of development, and many other treatments and therapies that can be used to slow the spread of the virus are also undergoing human trials. Again, the biggest goal is to save lives at any means possible. 

If the Moderna vaccine shows that it can successfully prevent an individual from being infected with Covid-19, officials believe it could be approved federally for mass distribution by mid-2021. The Moderna vaccine’s main claim is that by using messenger-RNA, their vaccine will be able to give our bodies immune system a “set of instructions” on how to create antibodies to fight the coronavirus, so that if the individual is infected, their body is already equipped to fight it off. 

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Pfizer Incorporated is a German biotech company that is also about to begin human trials on a messenger RNA vaccine; like in the US this trial is set to have up to 30,000 participants to ensure accuracy. Dr. Anthony Fauci recently spoke with the media about the incessant need for a vaccine, especially in America where so many individuals and businesses are actively ignoring health and safety procedures. 

“Although face coverings, physical distancing and proper isolation and quarantine of infected individuals and contacts can help us mitigate [coronavirus] spread, we urgently need a safe and effective preventive vaccine to ultimately control this pandemic.”

Moderna claims that if they’re successful with their vaccine it will cost around $32 – $37 per dose. The trial itself will consist of researchers drawing blood from volunteers and then administering two separate doses of the Covid-19 vaccine four weeks apart. Half will receive the actual vaccine while the other half will receive a placebo. All participants are encouraged to continue to stay home, wear masks, and maintain social distancing when in public spaces. 

Participants will also have to keep a daily journal of any symptoms or side effects they may be experiencing from the vaccine. The researchers will be doing weekly check-ins with everyone, but anyone who’s showing signs of Covid-19 will be immediately tested and given proper treatment if necessary. Researchers plan to follow this group for the next two years to see how long their immunity actually lasts, so for now, like always, it’s more of a waiting game. 

Impeachment

Lawyer Reviews Democrats’ Arguments in Impeachment Trial

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Devin J. Stone is a practicing lawyer whose YouTube channel looks at various elements in popular culture from the perspective of the law. In his latest video, he examined the arguments that have been presented in the trial so far, which includes those expressed by impeachment managers from the House of Representatives, led by Intelligence Committee Adam Schiff, that the president abused his office by soliciting campaign interference from Ukraine and obstructed Congress by trying to cover up their investigation into his alleged wrongdoing. In the video, Stone accuses the Republicans of arguing contradictory points; that it’s simultaneously too late and too early to call witnesses in the trial, and also that the Democrats should wait for the courts to decide whether White House officials are allowed to ignore congressional subpoenas and that the courts have no right to decide this type of question.

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Republicans voted along strict party lines to block 11 amendments proposed by Minority Leader Chuck Schumer that would have ensured witnesses be called during the trial and additional subpoenas issued, but also complained that Democrats presented nothing new at the trial, as if they weren’t directly responsible for that being the case. Stone also commented on the marathon nature of the proceedings, as arguments were heard for hours on end and went long into the night, which is likely to fatigue both the senators trying the case and the American people, likely an intentional move on the Republicans’ part, as they were the party who set the rules for the impeachment trial and also the party most interested in preventing the facts about the case from becoming known among the general public.

Stone also observed the various ways the impeachment of Trump differs from the impeachments of past presidents, most notably how the investigation of Trump was by necessity conducted by Democrats instead of by an independent counsel, and that the investigation was not exhaustively concluded before the articles of impeachment were sent to the Senate. As Attorney General William Barr was unwilling to appoint an independent counsel to investigate Trump, Democrats had to do it themselves, raising separation-of-powers questions and potentially causing legal problems for the Democrats later on.

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Additionally, Stone also discussed the theory floating around the Internet that Chief Justice John Roberts can intervene more heavily in the trial, forcing witnesses to be called and documents to be produced. As expected, however, Roberts intervened very little in the trial, with his only extemporaneous comment being an admonishment of the hostile tone of both the prosecution and the defense during the first day of the trial. Stone said that he expected Roberts to do more of the same, fading into the background as arguments were heard, as presiding justices in past impeachment trials have taken a similarly passive role and “both sides-ing” the issues.

Finally, Stone pointed out the ridiculousness of the fact that Trump, in Davos, commenting about how the fact that the administration withheld evidence from the trial gives him an advantage in the trial, seemingly bragging about his obstruction of congress, one of the offenses he was impeached for. Truly, we live in interesting times.