TAMPA, Fla. — For many legal experts, news of Tuesday's guilty verdict in a Minnesota court does not come as a surprise. 


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“If I was the prosecutor in this case, my closing would have been exactly 9 minutes and 29 seconds long, said Joe Bodiford, a criminal defense attorney and adjunct professor at Stetson University College of Law. "I would have played the video and I would have sat down."

Spectrum Bay News 9 asked Bodiford to weigh in on the result of former police officer Derek Chauvin's conviction in the murder of George Floyd.

“Well, I wasn’t surprised," he said. "Anyone who has seen the video wasn’t surprised.

"I think what the jury did in this situation, they drew a line. They drew a very distinct line between policing and criminality."

Bodiford strongly believes the video of Chauvin putting his knee on Floyd's neck for more than nine minutes was the key piece for the jury.

“It eliminated the, ‘They said we said — civilians said this, law enforcement said that.' All that was taken away,” he said.

Over recent years, technology in general has changed outcomes in the courtroom and has given a look into the legal system.

“That’s why body cameras are becoming so important in, not just these types of cases when there’s an allegation against an officer, but on drug searches, on witness interviews, the technology has really made it clear,” Bodiford said.

In this case, along with justice being served, Bodiford also believes the verdict is a win for good policing.

“They sent a message to this country that there is a very bright line good policing, trained policing, legal policing, and murder,” he said.