Kim Potter Sentencing

[retiredguy123]

The sentencing hearing is being conducted live on the Headline News channel now. Very interesting.

[Bjeanj]

She’s been sentenced to two years; just read that. It appeared she felt so terrible about her mistake. I read another officer there took her gun after the incident for fear she would use it on herself.

Quite frankly, I personally think she feels like she needs to be punished. A horrible mistake that should not have happened by a trained officer.

[Number 10 GI]

She’s been sentenced to two years; just read that. It appeared she felt so terrible about her mistake. I read another officer there took her gun after the incident for fear she would use it on herself.

Quite frankly, I personally think she feels like she needs to be punished. A horrible mistake that should not have happened by a trained officer.

The key word is "trained". Too many police departments are strapped for cash and usually training is cut back so those funds can be diverted to other areas.

[BillY41]

You can have the best training and still make a tragic mistake in a combat situation.

[retiredguy123]

This case bothers me. If I were the prosecutor, she would not have been charged. If I were a juror, she would not have been convicted. If I were the judge, she would have received no punishment. She made an unfortunate mistake that anyone could have made in a split second. She had no intention to do anything other than to perform her job. She was a good police officer and training had nothing to do with it. I didn't see any evidence to justify sending her to prison. My opinion.

[Taltarzac725]

Legal experts question fairness of 2-year sentence for ex-cop who killed Daunte Wright (https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/legal-experts-question-fairness-2-year-sentence-ex-cop-killed-daunte-w-rcna16876)

This is a very hard case to make generalizations about.

[MDLNB]

FIred, yes. Imprisoned, NO. Unless I have it wrong, she had no malice toward the person that was fighting to get away. A person that was breaking the law and had an outstanding warrant, was shot by accident.

[PugMom]

She’s been sentenced to two years; just read that. It appeared she felt so terrible about her mistake. I read another officer there took her gun after the incident for fear she would use it on herself.

Quite frankly, I personally think she feels like she needs to be punished. A horrible mistake that should not have happened by a trained officer.

you are SO on the money with that statement. it's not too often you see a veteran cop cry the way she did after the fatal shot was fired. i'm sure to come under fire for that honest statement, lol

[PugMom]

FIred, yes. Imprisoned, NO. Unless I have it wrong, she had no malice toward the person that was fighting to get away. A person that was breaking the law and had an outstanding warrant, was shot by accident.

not only those crimes, but a lot more when you start to dig deeper into his record. a terrible shame all around for everyone

[Get real]

How many left-turn accidents kill motorcyclists? Many, but the car drivers aren't charged with manslaughter. The death is resolved in civil court. There's also pilot error, military blunders, medical malpractice, manufacture negligence, judicial misconduct, and other titles for screw-ups. This officer was handling a violent criminal and accidently grabbed the wrong weapon. It's a tragic accident which doesn't belong in criminal court.

[Get real]

You need two elements for a criminal offense; the "evil act" (actus reus) and the "evil thought" (mens rea). I stayed at a Holiday Inn the other night, so I know about this stuff.

The evil act without conscious intent on the part of the acting party is, except for some negligence cases (driving drunk for example) is not criminal. Not being an attorney I don't understand why this unfortunate situation wasn't resolved civilly.

Serious addition; when I was a mere child I taught this stuff in the NYPD and later when chief of police in lectures on the use of deadly physical force.


The new social agenda (the law be damned for some) in this country disgusts me.

[manaboutown]

It saddens me that her life has been ruined for making a mistake in the heat of attempting to arrest a violent felon resisting arrest. Being a LEO these days is a dangerous and thankless job. I keep hearing about how police are being shot by violent thugs. War on cops: 24-hour-period sees 13 police officers wounded by gunfire | Fox News (https://www.foxnews.com/us/war-on-cops-24-hour-period-sees-13-police-officers-wounded-by-gunfire)

[RedChariot]

This case bothers me. If I were the prosecutor, she would not have been charged. If I were a juror, she would not have been convicted. If I were the judge, she would have received no punishment. She made an unfortunate mistake that anyone could have made in a split second. She had no intention to do anything other than to perform her job. She was a good police officer and training had nothing to do with it. I didn't see any evidence to justify sending her to prison. My opinion.

She was a good police officer for 26 years and never fired her gun. She should not have been charged. It was an accident. I hope she survives prison. Those thugs will find a way to get to her. Unfairly, she has been striped of her pension. So she pays for this accident for the rest of her life.

[MDLNB]

Hate to say it, BUT unless there is way more to this than we are seeing, it appears that the charges and penalty were racially based(pressured) and would likely have had a totally different outcome two or three years ago. I know there will be flack for saying this but I bet the same thought has occurred to others that have been following this incident. How many really believe that if she was black or he was white that this would have still gone to criminal court with charges? Its very unfortunate this seems to be the trend today. Motivation and intent that is not there, but based on some implied bias. Just my opinion. But, I was not there and I was not an observer of the trial, so there may be more to it that totally nullifies my opinion.

[RPDaly]

The family of the deceased was totally disgusting in their statements after the sentence. He was no choir boy.

[manaboutown]

The family of the deceased was totally disgusting in their statements after the sentence. He was no choir boy.

Daunte Wright carjacked man weeks before he was killed: lawsuit (https://nypost.com/2021/06/09/daunte-wright-carjacked-man-weeks-before-he-was-killed-lawsuit/)

Daunte Wright had warrant for arrest and faced attempted aggravated robbery charges say court papers | Daily Mail Online (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9467375/Daunte-Wright-warrant-arrest-attempted-aggravated-robbery-charges.html)

Kim Potter trial: Daunte Wright robbery victim recounts '''evil''' deed in exclusive first interview | Fox News (https://www.foxnews.com/us/kim-potter-trial-daunte-wright-robbery-victim-interview)

I am on board with Alan Dershowitz.

"The jury’s conviction of Minnesota police officer Kim Potter for the death of Daunte Wright, coupled with the judge’s denial of bail pending her appeal, is a double injustice with dangerous implications for policing in America.

Officer Potter, a decorated policewoman with more than two decades of service, simply did not commit a crime. The prosecution conceded that she did not intend to shoot Wright and that she made a mistake by pulling out and firing a gun instead of a Taser.

Under American law, honest mistakes are not crimes — even if they result in tragic deaths. For example, an elderly driver accidentally putting a foot on the gas instead of the brake and killing a child is not necessarily a crime. It becomes a crime only if the action was reckless, involving a conscious decision to engage in conduct which the defendant knows poses a high risk of serious injury or death.

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In this case, there was no evidence that Potter consciously made the decision to deploy and fire a gun as distinguished from a Taser. Nor was there sufficient evidence to demonstrate that Potter’s conscious decision to stun Wright was criminal. Wright had an outstanding warrant for an armed crime, and his conscious decision to resist arrest and get back in his car constituted a direct threat to the life of Potter’s fellow officer and others. She was right to stun him, but she made a mistake by firing the wrong weapon.

Even worse than the jury’s verdict was the judge’s decision to deny Potter bail pending appeal. There is a substantial likelihood that Potter’s conviction will be reversed by an appellate court. Potter is not a flight risk nor a danger to the community. The judge’s decision to throw her into prison seems lawless and calculated to appease the public lust for holding police accountable, even in cases where the fact and the law do not justify imprisonment.

The conviction and imprisonment of Officer Potter represents a dangerous trend in American law. Prior to the racial “reckoning” that followed the unjustified killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin in May 2020, a once-respected officer like Potter would never have been charged with criminal conduct for her tragic mistake. But the public demanded that she be charged. Indeed, some called for her to be accused of murder.

Elected prosecutors — and we are the only country in the world that elects prosecutors — often are more interested in pleasing the voters than in doing justice. This certainly seems to be the case here.

Every American, regardless of race or political persuasion, should be concerned when a decent police officer is indecently charged and convicted for making the kind of honest mistake that any person could make when confronted with the pressures of a life-or-death immediate decision. Police officers will be disincentivized by this decision to take actions which may be necessary to protect innocent life.

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Only rarely do police officers actually fire their guns or their Tasers, but sometimes such action is necessary. When action is taken under circumstances such as those faced by Officer Potter, occasional honest mistakes are inevitable — and such mistakes could go both ways. What if Potter had failed to stop Wright and he had gotten back behind the driver’s wheel and killed another officer as well as several pedestrians? That, too, would have been an honest mistake.

Criminal law is supposed to apply to bad people consciously making bad decisions, that they know or should know are in violation of the law. It should not apply to good police officers who make honest decisions that turn out to be wrong.

Potter should appeal her conviction and denial of bail. Not only should police organizations file briefs in her support, so should civil liberties groups like the American Civil Liberties Union, which should be concerned about the misapplication of the criminal law to satisfy voters."

The dangerous trend behind Officer Kim Potter's conviction | TheHill (https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/587236-the-dangerous-trend-behind-officer-kim-potters-conviction)

[Love2Swim]

The family of the deceased was totally disgusting in their statements after the sentence. He was no choir boy.

Whether or not he was a choir boy has nothing to do with anything. Totally irrelevant.

[manaboutown]

Whether or not he was a choir boy has nothing to do with anything. Totally irrelevant.

To the contrary it is quite relevant. Officer Potter was dealing with a known violent thug having outstanding arrest warrants. She was not dealing with a choir boy. The thug was resisting arrest. Frankly, although she did not intend to shoot and kill him she did his future victims as well as society a great service.

[jimbomaybe]

Whether or not he was a choir boy has nothing to do with anything. Totally irrelevant.

You are absolutely correct, criminals have and will obviously have more and more dramatic interactions with law enforcement, so it is inevitable that the criminal will be that much more likely to end up suffering from mistakes on the part of LEOs, much discussion on the need for "training" is the sort of thing that has a much greater resonance with people with less experience with adrenalin moments. If this person had spent more time incarcerated for his criminal actions perhaps things would not have escalated to that point