The verdict of a '13th juror' on the Potter trial

In the always troubled world of crime and cops and courts, amid the bitter ideological conflicts that rage there, 2021 has been a year like no other, in the Twin Cities and across the country.

And it appears the year's drama may end this week with both a bang and a whimper — in the conclusion of the manslaughter trial for former Brooklyn Center police officer Kimberly Potter.

I've been following the proceedings closely, hoping to offer a 13th-juror-style reflection on what I saw, as I did last spring in the trial of former Minneapolis officer Derek Chauvin.

Our democratic civilization can't long endure without integrity within, and respect for, the institutions and processes that uphold the rule of law. Public scrutiny can contribute to both.

It's notable that Chauvin's prosecution reached a new stage of finality this month with his guilty plea to federal civil rights charges in the May 2020 killing of George Floyd. The most important practical meaning of the plea may be that Chauvin's appeal of his state court murder convictions now no longer poses any real uncertainty about his serving decades in prison. (The trial of Chauvin's fellow officers, however, looms in the new year.)

Between the Chauvin trial and the Potter trial, meanwhile, came a stormy local election wholly dominated by a proposal to revolutionize policing in Minneapolis and accompanied by a historic wave of violence and brazen crime innovations — carjacking, flash mob shoplifting — washing across urban and suburban landscapes. By year's end, from San Francisco to New York and points in between, there was more talk of "refunding" than of "defunding" the police.

It is difficult in this charged atmosphere to view the Potter case solely in terms of its own facts. But that is what is deserved by both Potter — a 26-year veteran patrol officer — and Daunte Wright — the 20-year-old she shot and killed April 11 of this year when he tried to flee arrest on a gross misdemeanor warrant.

In some respects the eight days of trial testimony added little information about these heartbreaking events beyond what anyone knew who had seen the painful body-camera footage that went public in their immediate aftermath.

When a younger officer Potter was training that day tried to handcuff Wright, the suspect pulled away and struggled back into the drivers' seat of his car. In a swirling melee that followed, Potter came to her fellow officer's aid, pulled her service weapon, warned that she was about to fire a "Taser! Taser! Taser!" and then pulled the trigger on her pistol instead, immediately crying, "Oh shit! I shot him!"

A great deal of testimony and video was put into evidence by both sides that confirmed what neither team of lawyers really disputed — that Potter had intended to use her disabling Taser weapon and instead confused it with her gun.

Potter committed a "blunder of epic proportions," said prosecutor Erin Eldridge during her closing argument, "a colossal screw-up." She added that "No one is saying [Potter] intended to kill ... ."

"A mistake is not a crime," thundered defense attorney Earl Gray in his summation.

Eldridge had reminded the jury, however, that Judge Regina Chu's instructions make it clear that under Minnesota's law of manslaughter, a mistake indeed can be a crime if it is caused by "recklessness" or "culpable negligence" that disregards known risks.

Deciding just when an error is so fueled by irresponsibility as to become criminal would be difficult enough. But if I actually were a juror in this case, I would go into deliberations frustrated with both teams of lawyers for failing to choose a clear argument and stick with it.

For its part, the defense got distracted by a line of argument introduced by several police witnesses, to the effect that Potter would even have been justified in deliberately using deadly force against Wright, given the dangers of the situation. But of course, we were reminded again and again, she didn't intend that, she made a mistake.

Meanwhile, Potter's own anguish — on the witness stand and on the video taken the day of the shooting — were conclusive evidence that she did not then and does not now think that killing Daunte Wright was justified.

The prosecution, meanwhile, was at pains to remind the jury that the state need not prove Potter intended to kill anyone. Yet they had little to offer to show a conscious lackadaisical approach to her work, or deliberate carelessness. A lack of diligence about daily testing of the electrical charge of her Taser didn't go far for me.

In my mind the prosecutors themselves blundered by emphasizing as interminably as they did the extensive, annual training Potter, like all cops, received on weapons, and specifically on the dangers of "weapons confusion" — a hazard that is "well known" in the police "industry," as Eldridge declared in closing.

The prosecution's point was that with all that training, Potter should have been able to avoid such an error. But I couldn't help thinking there was another potential conclusion to draw. Apparently, the "industry" recognizes weapons confusion as an easy sort of mistake to make. Why else would they train on it and warn against it so relentlessly, even among veteran officers?

I find myself comparing Potter's actions with those of two other local cops prominently convicted of crimes in line-of-duty killings.

Minneapolis officer Mohamed Noor was convicted after his 2017 panicked shooting in a shadowy alley of Justine Damond, the woman who had called the police for assistance. And Chauvin, of course, was found guilty after kneeling on George Floyd's neck for more than nine minutes.

Noor's deed was a catastrophic, split-second reaction — but a wholly deliberate use of deadly force. Chauvin's harsh restraint of Floyd grew deadly and inexcusable with the excruciating passage of time during which he could have relented.

Potter's actions were different from both. Surely there is no proof "beyond reasonable doubt" that she deliberately used deadly force against Daunte Wright. And the time she had to reconsider what she was doing and change course was closer to nine seconds than nine minutes.

Were I a juror in this case I would head into deliberations prepared to resist a guilty verdict on the most severe charge — first-degree manslaughter, with its requirement of conscious recklessness in handling a firearm. I would be skeptical, but ready to hear fellow jurors' thoughts, on the lesser, second-degree charge. I don't yet see conclusive evidence of a knowing disregard of unreasonable risk, but perhaps others would have seen what I missed.

What's more important than my ramblings is this: The tragedies of one life lost, another blighted, cannot be reversed. But whatever the actual jury decides, its verdict can be and should be respected by the community. This was a fair, vigorously contested trial.