Break the Wheel

April 15, 2023
A revealing behind-the-scenes look at the legal proceedings surrounding the murder of George Floyd. In a lucidly written narrative that deftly handles a variety of legal tangles, Ellison, Minnesota's attorney general, observes that, though he was deeply troubled by Floyd's murder and its place in a "wheel of policing" of deeply embedded racism, he was obligated by his oath of office to be evenhanded and fair--and more, "to be perceived that way." In a season of unalloyed injustice, a swirl of police killings of other young Black men, this was easier said than done. The Minnesota AG's office assumed ownership of the case from the start, unusually, with some legal experts assuming that the officer charged in the killing, Derek Chauvin, could not receive a fair trial in the city. Instead, Ellison and his team, sometimes against and sometimes with the cooperation of the defense, selected "the single most diverse jury I had ever impaneled"--no easy matter in itself. The argument Ellison and his team mounted was not simply that Chauvin had gone murderously rogue as his fellow officers stood by (and refused to allow a passing paramedic to examine Floyd), but that Chauvin and company knew they were violating procedure. On that note--and of systematic application in examining police brutality elsewhere--Ellison writes, "Something buried inside the culture of the MPD determined the behavior Chauvin displayed and the other three mirrored, regardless of training, policy, or strategy." That culture, he suggests, requires thoroughgoing reform that may not be politically popular; the test for him came soon after the trial. "Can a prosecutor charge, prosecute, and convict an officer and survive reelection?" Ellison asks meaningfully. "The voters said yes. But so much more needs to be done." A vital contribution not just to the literature of the Floyd trial, but to that of police reform generally.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

May 15, 2023
In May 2020, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison watched in horror the agonizing death of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis Police Department. Ellison's despair correlated with his familiarity with a troubling pattern of police violence in Minneapolis, particularly in the precinct where Floyd's murder took place. As the shocking death was played over and over on social media and TV news, public outrage grew into protests. Ellison was called upon to prosecute the four police officers who restrained Floyd and offered him no aid in his distress, a case Ellison knew must be handled with the utmost care; an acquittal could have had dire consequences for many. Break the Wheel offers a panoramic view of the George Floyd case from Ellison's intimate and expert perspective. He relates the facts of the case and trial in riveting detail. This is an engrossing portrayal about the search for justice in a system that often favors the word and actions of the police, and suggests how we can move forward.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

June 12, 2023
Minnesota attorney general Ellison debuts with a detailed insider’s account of the 2021 trial of Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis police officer convicted of murdering George Floyd, whose death in 2020 ignited protests around the nation and invigorated the Black Lives Matter movement. Ellison begins by offering a litany of earlier cases in which prosecutors failed to convict defendant police officers for murder. He presents reasons why such convictions are so difficult, among them jury bias in favor of police, judicial rulings that benefit the defense, and prosecutors’ tendency to dismiss charges. Recounting his role as lead prosecutor in the Chauvin case, Ellison describes how these and other obstacles factored into the trial. “No aspect of the Floyd case more out of the ordinary than the governor’s decision to appoint the attorney general for the prosecution,” writes Ellison, claiming that this was essential for overcoming the “embedded conflict of interest” present when local prosecutors bring a case against local law enforcement. He also highlights the critical role of the judge in the Chauvin trial, who took extra measures to weed out biased jury members and clamp down on prejudicial comments from counsel. Grounding his argument in hard-won experience, Ellison presents a lucid and comprehensive template for the prosecution of police officers accused of violent crimes. Readers will come away feeling cautiously optimistic.