News Roundup

Published for NC Criminal Law on April 16, 2021.

A 26-year veteran of the Brooklyn Center Police Department in Minnesota, Kim Potter, was charged this week with second-degree manslaughter for killing 20-year-old Daunte Wright during a traffic stop where Potter possibly confused her pistol for her taser.  The incident, which involved a white officer and a Black victim and occurred in relatively close proximity to the location where Derek Chauvin’s trial is being held, sparked several nights of protests.  Following a traffic stop for an expired registration, Potter was attempting to take Wright into custody on an outstanding arrest warrant for failure to appear when Wright attempted to get back into his car and flee the stop.  Body camera footage appears to show Potter yelling “Taser” before firing a single fatal shot with her Glock service pistol.  Keep reading for more news. Defense News.  There are two items of interest from the SOG’s Public Defense Education Group this week.  First, Ian Mance has written a new white paper on COVID-19 and the management of juries during trial and deliberations. Among other things, the paper considers the potential impact of juror concerns about COVID-19 on their deliberations and of a juror or key participant testing positive for COVID-19 after the jury has been seated.  This paper is the third in a series related to COVID-19 and jury trials; the first two, along with a variety of other resources focused on defense practice during the pandemic, can be found in Public Defense Education Group’s COVID-19 Tool Kit. In other Public Defense Education [...]