Analysis | ‘White women tears’: Kim Potter’s sentencing for murder of Daunte Wright raises questions about white privilege

Former Minneapolis police officer Kim Potter is looking at a two-year sentence for the murder of 20-year-old Daunte Wright. Wiki Commons

Former Minneapolis police officer Kim Potter received a two-year sentence for the shooting death of Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old Black man, during a traffic stop in April 2021.

While Potter claimed she mistook her gun for a taser, Katie Wright — mother of Daunte Wright — gave a statement after the Feb 19.  hearing saying she believes Potter’s sentence was not long enough. Wright also said she believes Judge Regina Chu, who presided over the case, was swayed to give Potter a lighter sentence after the defamed officer cried during her pre-sentencing statement.

“Yes, we got a conviction, and we thank everybody for that; but again, this isn’t OK,” Katie Wright said in her statement. “This is the problem with our justice system today: white women tears trump justice.”

The concern over “white women tears” echoes the 2019 case of Amber Guyger, a police officer who was given a 10-year sentence after shooting and killing her unarmed neighbor, Botham Jean, in his apartment. At the time, Lee Merrit — Jean’s mother — expressed her feelings on Twitter.

“Of course (the sentencing) is inadequate,” Merritt wrote. “The entire justice system is inadequate, and the work must continue.”

Many have compared how both officers, who are white and female, were given significantly lighter sentences than the 12 years that Minneapolis police officer Mohammad Noor received for fatally shooting Justine Damond in 2017. Noor was responding to a 911 call from Damond reporting a sexual assault in her home. 

Noor claimed the shooting was an accident and was successfully appealed and given a lighter sentence of 57 months. Activists have pointed out that this new sentence is still much longer than Potter’s 24 months. 

“So, murdering a Black person gets you less time in jail than accidentally voting?!? Got it,” activist Danielle Moodie wrote on Twitter. 

Moodie was referencing cases like Crystal Mason’s, a Texas woman who was sentenced to five years in prison for voter fraud, though Mason claims she was under the impression that she was eligible to vote at the time. Mason has been granted an appeal in the case. 

But some legal experts — like Dr. Ziv Cohen, a clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College, and Ayesha Bell Hardaway, an associate professor of law at Case Western Reserve University — speculate Potter’s tearful testimony may have actually been what led to her conviction. 

Chapman University law professor Lawrence Rosenthal spoke to The Panther about his perspective on the case. He believes the strategy of  having the defendant take the stand was intended to dissuade juror suspicions.

“Many jurors wonder why an innocent defendant would not testify, despite the instruction to the jury that it should not consider a defendant's failure to testify,” Rosenthal said. 

However, Rosenthal pointed out that there are risks to a defendant taking the stand. 

“(The jury) is likely to focus not on whether the defendant has been proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, but on whether they found the defendant to be credible,” Rosenthal said. “Jurors who believe that the defendant has lied to them are overwhelmingly likely to convict, whatever the gaps in the prosecution's evidence.”