The trial of Derek Chauvin began this week.  It’s mostly televised, I guess, so those of us who’ve only witnessed courtroom dramatizations on Law and Order will get to see how this bizarre ritual actually unfolds.  I say, bizarre, because from the opening remarks, even one’s least cynical tendencies would have trouble accepting the procedure to be a search for truth, or justice, or fairness.  A trial, or any legal dispute for that matter, is barely about any of that.  It’s about which attorney, or gaggle of attorneys, is able to dance around the arcane rules of engagement to win the day in the eyes of a judge or jury.  There is nothing Solomonic about it.  It’s why time after time after time, bad guys walk.  Here’s the thing about this time, (I know, that sounds very Presidential).  The crimes for which Derek Chauvin is on trial, (even the process by which he was charged), are irrelevant with regard to their disposition.  The entire encounter of George Floyd’s detainment, manhandling and murder were videoed by police body cams and multiple bystanders.  Anyone who did not look away in horror has seen, in heartbreaking detail, how it played out.  Derek Chauvin, and complicitly, his three fellow officers, unquestionably used their positions of authority, to commit a heinous crime, in plain sight.  At no time during the incident did any of them show the slightest regard for George Floyd’s rights or humanity, and Chauvin, nonchalantly and unemotionally choked the life out of George despite agonizing pleas by the victim and the aghast witnesses.  He even had to be coaxed off of George when paramedics arrived to remove the unresponsive body. There was neither protecting nor serving by any guideline, procedural standard or use of common sense.  Derek Chauvin’s actions were depraved, immoral and most assuredly racist.  He had, at least, 8 minutes and 46 seconds to do the right thing.  Instead, he chose, consciously, forcefully and with clear-minded intent, to murder a helpless, black man under his knee.  I rest my case.