Video transcript

NBC news starts now right now at a.m awaiting a verdict good morning to you once again I’m NBC ‘s Lucy Bustamante the jury and the derrick Chauvin case is deliberating as we speak and just yesterday they got two very starkly different messages from the defense and the prosecution so what could be going on in the jury room right now NBC ‘s Miguel Martinez valle you actually spoke with the legal expert Miguel about the issues that the jury is considering right now there are three counts they’re looking at yeah that’s right Lucy and we know that the jury has been sequestered since yesterday so they’re going to stay behind closed doors until they reach a verdict and right now they’re going back and forth between two main arguments the defense saying Chauvin acted as any reasonable officer would and the prosecution saying Chauvin’s actions went against his training and caused George Floyd’s death so former officer Derek Chauvin he does face three main charges as you said second-degree murder prosecutors there have to prove his actions were a substantial factor in Floyd’s death third degree murder jurors have to believe Chauvin acted recklessly without regard for human life and finally second degree manslaughter the charge with the lowest burden of proof jurors have to decide if Chauvin’s negligence created unreasonable risk well attorney Enrique L1 Latoison told me today this morning that the jury could potentially come to a consensus on just one or two of those charges those charges would then come forward either guilty or not guilty and then the prosecution would have to decide whether they would want to try the charge the jury is hung on in a different trial Latoison tells me that the greatest challenge for the defense has been to prove Chauvin acted like any other officer would especially since so many of his fellow officers testified against him i don’t think that you’ve seen such a consensus of police officers all joining together to say that this was wrong and this is not what’s taught and this is out of bounds you noticed the defense was not able to get any actual police officers that are actually police officers right now to testify for uh officer shelby believe me if they could have they would have and we’ve already heard talks about appeals with the defense citing congresswoman maxine walters words over the weekend asking for a guilty verdict as grounds for that appeal but while the judge said her comments could be used to appeal he also said he believes the jurors are following orders and not watching the news so our attorney doesn’t think an appeal would happen i’m in the newsroom miguel martinez valle nbc news interesting take there thank you so much miguel well the troops they are ready in the streets of minneapolis as you can see here the city and much of america are very worried about what would happen when the verdict is announced protesters are calling for social justice and look at this hundreds of high school students briefly walked out of class this was yesterday in minnesota in a show of support well no one knows when the verdict will come but businesses in philly are boarding up and they want to be prepared for any looting that similar to what we saw last summer take a look right now people are scared a big filly with a heart in it right there you see spray painted this is at the attic all right now to the other big story we’re following this morning the derek chovin guilty verdict and the reaction to it jimmy fallon put out a message just before the tonight show started last night let’s take a listen the courts did their job and justice was served and while this is a step in the right direction there’s still a lot of work to be done too often justice isn’t served and the need for police reform remains we all must continue to call out injustice until things change for the better the sixers put out a statement too saying in part while the outcome of the trial may deliver a sense of relief it will not bring back the life that was tragically taken we know that full justice will only be achieved with systemic change and the murder trial of derek chovin lasted four weeks the jury deliberations though lasted only what hours or so before he was found guilty on all the charges yeah we want to bring in our legal expert Enrique L1 latoison um right now Enrique thanks for being here the jury deliberated again about hours here’s the thing they asked no questions right is that normal i was very surprised in a case like this that they didn’t have any questions um these were very complex charges here you had a unintentional murder which was the second degree murder which was the intentional act of the aggravated assault but the actual led to an unintentional killing and then you had the third degree murder which was like a reckless killing but you know you’re you had a heart of malice or depraved heart and then of course you had the manslaughter second degree which also was like a reckless negligence behavior and i do believe in the closings that the prosecutor and the defense actually put up a lot of slides and they kind of showed what the elements of these crimes were but you know they deliberated about four hours the first today and about five or six hours the next day was very quick as far as i’m concerned without any kind of questions which kind of means that it was a big consensus here on exactly how they felt and they came back all three charges not guilty i mean guilty guilty excuse me yeah yeah Enrique the prosecutors they called dozens of witnesses the defense only had a handful of witnesses take the stand the jury didn’t hear from chauvin himself do you think that affected the outcome well you know the prosecution went through many different witnesses i like to call it three phases they had your witnesses that were there at the scene and then they moved towards the officers the use of force the training and then they ended the third phase with the experts that talked about how George Floyd died from the lack of oxygen now the defense they just basically went right to their experts they really didn’t have anything building up their case there i believe that you know they have that many witnesses they probably were not able to really find people to testify with the theory that they had you know in the end it was overwhelming amount of evidence with all those police officers testifying against chauvin and it worked and it worked just the way the prosecution wanted and they ended up exactly where they wanted to be was it a split verdict or was it a hung jury it was all guilty all charges nbc legal analysts enrique l lon van toysen waking up early with us this morning Enrique always good seeing you appreciate that thanks for taking the time man thank you all right pedaling down the street one second and handcuffs the next this video of a teenage bicyc bicyclist being arrested in new jersey is causing quite the stir this morning nobody heard you get off the bike dude wait wait let me search up wait wait get off just take their bike the video apparently shows perth amboy officers confiscating bikes from a group of teens and arresting one of them but this part of the edited video shows what police say they were reacting to teens behaving badly on bikes all while riding right past police cars headed in the opposite direction police did give the bikes back told the teens to have fun the right way all right turning to the weather now degrees so i think it’s the right call because he um he said on his he sat on that man neck for a little too long being the officer like they say he posed uh protect and serve the community and he and he heard it i am very very happy he got convicted for killing that me why because george floyd didn’t deserve to be pinned down like that for that long it’s it’s the way i see it we all bleed red everybody’s equal there’s that’s nonsense i am a peaceful person and i want peace for our country and for all humanity and this has been really a difficult year and i just hate santa so divided this way so i’m hoping that this helps us we need to heal we need to hear we’re going to hurt each other horribly as a country now coming up at and through the night we’re going to have much more reaction to this verdict but for many we spoke with today a clear sense of relief in the newsroom danny freeman nbc news all right danny thank you and we know this was a long trial nearly three weeks but a relatively swift verdict again Chauvin found guilty on all three charges for perspective on how the jury may have come to this conclusion and what happens next attorney Enrique L1 latoison joining us now Enrique prosecutors have the highest burden to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt we’ve spoken to you numerous times over the last year about this with the case presented from both sides did you anticipate this would be the outcome each hour that they went on and deliberated a lot of people were becoming uncertain well it’s very hard to predict juries and if you start doing that you’re going to disappoint yourself so in this case there were three charges you had one that was the lowest charge which is the manslaughter you have the second degree uh the third degree murder and you had the second degree murder so i believe that the evidence was really strong in this case the prosecution had that video that video was the strongest piece of evidence as they said in their closing a nine-year-old who was sitting there watching it called the police you know when they’re watching what took place at that time so i thought going into it that you know it definitely was going to be manslaughter and it definitely was going to be a third degree i was wondering what was going to happen with the second degree now you got to remember this jury can take notes unlike in pennsylvania they can take notes so they took notes throughout this entire trial and they went back they asked no questions i was surprised they didn’t ask any questions they didn’t have any clarification questions they took to hours and they came back guilty of all charges so as far as what comes next we know sentencing is set for eight weeks from now but there are certain procedural events that have to happen first walk us through what happens next so in minnesota what they do is they have a blakely motion which is the prosecution and the defense will submit a memo within the next couple weeks the prosecution will be asking for aggravating circumstances and the defense will be going against that his guidelines are and a half years for a person who’s never been convicted of a crime before which is officer Chauvin and who’s facing these charges and a half years the prosecution is putting together a motion the blakely motion they will have that argument in front of the judge to decide whether or not aggravated circumstances do apply in this case which could push the sentencing up to years for the most severe charge and we didn’t see much reaction from Derek Chauvin although much of his face was covered with the mask people always looking so closely to see what that initial reaction will be well i believe he was prepared for this verdict i mean i’m sure his counsel had him ready for the worst case scenario and being ready for his bail to be revoked what took place in his case and he was taken right into custody i’m pretty sure he was prepared for the worst case scenario all right Enrique latoison and L1 Latoison and thank you so much for your perspective throughout this trial we really appreciate it see you soon and our coverage of the guilty verdict in the George Floyd case and Derek Chauvin trial continues at seven o’clock coming up next nbc nightly news with lester holt with full coverage from minneapolis the outcome of this case tonight guilty on all three counts jacqueline and i will see you back here at the top of the hour have a good evening breaking news tonight Derek Chauvin the former minneapolis police officer found guilty

Transferring ownership of your property? Stop by one of our offices today where we can help you get started on your deed!