A week on the edge

The Chauvin trial should end this week, and we're bracing for the worst.

Closing arguments in the Derek Chauvin trial are scheduled for today, and then deliberations by the jury will begin. A verdict in that divisive, heavily publicized case is expected later this week.

I hate to make predictions about this kind of thing, for fear of jinxing the outcome, but I feel a lot like I did during the lead-up to the 2020 election and then the first few days afterward, when the votes were being counted. I think my preferred outcome will happen, but the consequences of events going the other way are potentially devastating.

From what I’ve seen, I think it is more likely that not that Chauvin will be convicted, at least of manslaughter and possibly third-degree murder. (Second-degree murder, for which specific intent to kill must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, strikes me as a bit of a stretch.) Even Andrew “for the last time, I wasn’t in Less Than Zero” McCarthy, the pro-Trump, tough-on-crime former prosecutor who covers legal issues for National Review, think…