The judge in the Derek Chauvin trial condemned “abhorrent” Representative Maxine Waters after the Democrat called for riots should the disgraced cop walk free.
As Judge Peter Cahill said, he wishes for elected officials to stop talking about the case and show some respect for the co-equal branch of government. He also blasted Rep. Waters’ failure to respect the justice system as “abhorrent” before dismissing her words by saying her opinion doesn’t mean much.
On Saturday, the California congresswoman joined Minneapolis protesters and encouraged violence by saying they should continue rioting in case of no conviction.
“I hope we get a verdict that says guilty, guilty, guilty. And if we don’t, we cannot go away. We’ve got to stay on the street. We get more active, we’ve got to get more confrontational. We’ve got to make sure that they know that we mean business,” Waters told the protesters.
Following her controversial request, Derek Chauvin’s defense was quick to take Waters’ incitement of violence as an opportunity to get the case against their client thrown out based on grounds that the congresswoman’s words could influence the jury.
“Now that we have US representatives threatening acts of violence in relation to this trial it’s frankly mind-blowing,” Eric Nelson, Chauvin’s attorney, said.
Responding to the lawyer, Judge Cahill admitted Waters may have handed the defense team the grounds to call for the trial to be thrown out.
“I grant you Congresswoman Waters may have handed you grounds for appeal and the turning over of this trial,” he said before calling Waters’ failure to respect the justice system abhorrent.
“I wish elected officials would stop talking about this case. They should respect a co-equal branch of government.”
Nevertheless, the judge went on to deny the attorney’s call for a mistrial saying: “I don’t think it’s given additional material with which to prejudice the jury. A congresswoman’s opinion really doesn’t mean much.”
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