Kim Potter Verdict: Justice is About Accountability Not Punishment
Protesters march through downtown Minneapolis as the first day of the Kim Potter manslaughter trial ends. Potter is on trial for the April 11, 2021 shooting death of 20-year old Daunte Wright in Brooklyn Center, Minn.
There is an episode of the Simpsons where Lisa and a group of Springfield’s geniuses are tasked with leading the town. They offered innovative ideas like getting rid of the green light at intersections and which saved time but left the traveler wondering where they were going in such a hurry. The one that I really like is how they try to “sex up” jury duty. Bar owner Moe gets a letter asking him to serve on a jury and it goes like this: “You have been chosen to join the Justice Squadron, 8 am Monday, at the Municipal Fortress of Vengeance.” Moe, thinking he has joined some kind of the equivalent of the Justice League is excited to volunteer.
I thought this in relation to today’s sentencing hearing of Kim Potter. Potter was a police officer with the Brooklyn Center police department until last spring when she shot and killed Duante Wright, an African American motorist. Potter supposedly meant to taser Wright, but mistakenly reached for her gun instead and unintentionally shot Wright. Potter was convicted of manslaughter in December and today, she was sentenced to two years in prison.
When I saw the two years sentence, I winced a little. Should it have been more? Yes. But I also can understand why the sentence turned out that way. Unlike other police shootings, it appears that this was more about incompetence than it was about fear or disregard for a life ala Derek Chauvin. She was a 26 year veteran that served with distinction. Unfortunately having see a number of police events with African Americans, this felt different than the others. That meant there should be different sentence.
But most of my friends weren’t thinking this way. In many people’s eyes, Kim Potter was yet another white police officer getting away with murder.
Except she didn’t. Kim Potter was convicted in December. She wasn’t let off the hook. She was judge by the state and was found guilty of manslaughter.
Moe is excited that he is going down to the Municipal Fortress of Vengeance. He wants to dole out punishments. The writers of the Simpsons were on to something. We might talk about justice until the cows come home, but what we really want is vengeance. Not an Ignio Montoya You-killed-my father-Prepare-to-die kind of vengeance, but one where the other person suffers. We want them live a life of hell on earth.
What happened in that Minneapolis courtroom yesterday wasn’t vengeance, but it was justice. Kim Potter was held accountable. That’s more than some other cops who killed black men only to receive a slap on the wrist. I still can remember the frustration people felt in the aftermath of the Philando Castille trial. Police officer Jeronimo Yanez was not guilty of the crime and during an interview he seemed to be saying the faint smell of marijuana was enough to justify the shooting Philando Castille. There was no justice in the Castile case, but there was in today’s case.
But here’s the thing: many times, justice doesn’t feel like justice. Vengeance makes us feel good or at least feel satisfied in a way that justice can’t. In religious language, justice sets the world to rights, but even if it does that, one can feel the result is incomplete. Wright’s mother, Katie, expressed disgust with Potter at the sentencing hearing telling Potter that she would “never be able to forgive you for what you’ve stolen from us.” After the sentencing, she discounted Potter’s tears when she spoke to the family. “This is the problem with our justice system today. White women’s tears trumps, trumps justice.”
You can’t fault Ms. Wright for her anger. She has lost her son in one of the most unimaginable ways. Even though things are far, far better than it used to be, racism is still a problem. That said, was there no justice? I don’t think so. We might not agree with the sentencing, but in this case, Potter was convicted. The state determined that even if it is was unintentional, even if she only faces 2 years in prison, she was guilty of taking a man’s life. After years of seeing police getting away with literal murder, we are seeing officers being held to account. In my view, that’s what matters. It’s not the sentencing doesn’t matter, but it didn’t matter as much as holding the police to account.
The Twin Cities has had far too many instances of police killings of late. From Philando Castile to Amir Locke, we have made ourselves the epicenter of police misconduct. I’d like some other metro area to take over from Minneapolis-St. Paul. But I hope judgements like Derek Chauvin and Kim Potter will make police misconduct happen less.
There may yet be vengeance. Where will Ms. Potter serve her sentence? She was convicted of a violent crime, which usually means general population in at least a medium-security facility. Convicted LE officers are frequently at physical risk in that setting. Administrative segregation — ie, solitary confinement — is often the only option for keeping them safe.Report
I would guess that this risk is substantially mitigated by the fact that she’s going to a women’s prison.Report
I think the judge should have gone with what the prosecutor recommended (I believe 7 years). Any other citizen would’ve gotten worse for negligently killing someone.Report
Or at least split the difference (5 years?).
And yeah, she’ll probably have to be segregated from gen pop.Report
In terms of the years I don’t think there’s any right number. It’s more the leniency for no apparent reason other than being an officer. If anything I think the standards should be higher but I’d settle for the same as anyone else.Report
Hell, at this point I would settle for accidental shooting like the resulting in permanent loss of badge and probation. Anything that says this person is no longer entrusted with public safety. But right now the only way to do that is a felony conviction, so…Report
I don’t know.
She’s an outlier in a lot of ways. Wright’s criminal activity in creating the risk of the situation. How much warning she had that something was wrong. The level of conscious bad judgement. Even the level of remorse and the odds of repeat behavior.
If we use Philando Castile as a comparison it should showcase just how far we’ve come.Report
Your point about Philando Castile is a fair one. Though I would also point out that from a statistical perspective all police shootings are outliers.
I generally don’t believe in using the CJ system to make an example of any one person. However I do think many of the issues around LEOs would improve with just the understanding that they are still subject to the same rules as anyone else.
My priors on the larger subject of criminal justice reform involve a major rethink of sentencing. I don’t know how MN works but my suspicion is even with a 5 or 7 year sentence a person like Potter would be paroled as soon as eligible in large part due to the factors you note.Report
RE: Castile
I meant in terms of evaluation of fault in comparison to Kim.
1) Castile did nothing (and certainly nothing illegal) to create the situation. It was all on the cop.
2) Cop that shot Castile had a long time to realize he was being stupid and needlessly escalating the situation. There’s a breathtaking amount of poor judgement and fantastical thinking there.
We’re deep into “his guy shouldn’t be a cop” territory which means he really should know that before this point.
A brief review of headlines has a civilian convicted of negligent homicide because he had an epilithic fit while behind the wheel of a car. It’s his fault because he knows he’s not supposed to be running that risk, he can’t handle the situation.
That describes Castile’s shooter but as far as I can tell it doesn’t describe Kim.Report
I certainly see the Castile situation as much worse, in terms of culpability.
Doesn’t mean she’s off the hook. Any firearm instructor will tell you that you personally own every round you fire.Report
Thus the guilty verdict. No gun for her, no badge, some time.
However imho it’s reasonable that she get a lighter than typical punishment for this simply because her culpability is much lower than is typical.
Both sides admitted, in court, that it was weapon confusion and that she was justified to taser Wright.
Normally when we convict someone of this, it’s because they’re playing stupid games or running stupid risks. In this case that description describes Wright, not Potter.Report
Nationwide, about 15% of people incarcerated for negligent manslaughter get out in under a year (see the 2018 Time Served in State Prisons report). Time served is typically a bit over half the sentence, so I’d guess that roughly the same 15% are sentenced to two years or less.
Negligent manslaughter covers a pretty wide range of behaviors, some much worse than others. As I argued at length in the thread from when the verdict came out, I think it’s highly debatable whether this actually meets the bar for negligent manslaughter, because a muscle memory error is not negligence. Agree or disagree, I don’t think anyone can argue with a straight face that this is as bad as more typical negligent manslaughter cases, so a fifteenth percentile sentence doesn’t strike me as unreasonably light.
Facts of the case aside, she’s a woman, and women tend to get lighter sentences, all else being equal.Report
I kinda doubt that’s the number for similar facts, particularly with a firearm.
And look, I get it, no need to rehash the last thread. You don’t see a problem here. Let ol’ officer Potter go back to walking around with her service weapon and hope next time she can tell her right from her left.Report
To those who say that 16 months of prison is too lenient, it was revealed during sentencing that Potter is not in the general prison population at the Shakopee Women’s prison, she is in isolation and will stay in isolation all 16 months. The sentencing guidelines for first degree manslaughter were set by the legislation under consideration of general prison conditions, not the conditions Potter is currently experiencing. The United Nations Human Rights commission has concluded that prolonged isolation is torture. If punishment is meant to hurt then which is worse, 7 years in the general prison setting or 16 months of torture?Report