Yeah, I am aware there are some people on the internet using the procedural criticisms as cover to basically say “I don’t think he’s guilty”. But that’s not me and not most people I know.
But that’s what I get for wandering into law areas and playing pretend law student 
.
FYI I wouldn’t even want to pretend to be a lawyer. But a student… Ok lol.
I’m not sure that’s inconsistent at all with most of the comments here. The prosecution did indeed present a compelling case. But that doesn’t address the procedural problems that most here have been discussing, that is, the failure of the judge to move the trial or sequester the jury, and Chauvin’s counsel’s remarkably poor performance. And now we have a new issue, that is, potentially misleading information from a juror. None of these issues goes to how well the prosecution did its job, or whether Chauvin is guilty or not.
All of that said, from the information I’ve seen, it is extremely unlikely that the juror will be found to have provided misleading information. His answers to Chauvin’s counsel’s questions appear to have been accurate. Again, the problem here is Chauvin’s counsel. It looks like he got accurate responses to his questions; he just didn’t ask the right questions.
You have the right to a fair trial, not an error free trial.
“Judge Cahill asked Juror #52, whether he heard anything about the #GeorgeFloyd civil case,” Blume reported at the time. “He says, no. He explained hearing some basic info about trial dates, etc from the news in recent months, but nothing that would keep him from serving as impartial juror. #ChauvinTrial.” That was an out and out lie.
How so? That’s not a rhetorical question. I’m curious what evidence has come to light that you think would show that this is a lie.
Yes, but part of the “fair” part is an impartial jury according to the 6th amendment.
IMO, I don’t think the state can guarantee that this jury was impartial (given falsehoods stated by juror #52).
The state determined that attendance of police protests would be cause to think that the juror could not be impartial (would disqualify the juror).
Are you sure the state determined protest attendance meant unacceptable bias, and did he attend a protest?
I don’t know either answer, but I’m not gonna take a random internet strangers word for it haha.
It was disqualifying to one’s jury eligibility. I am not sure if they specifically said it would cause the juror to be “impartial”. I think that is the obvious implication though.
This is where the rub is IMO. He attended a MLK rally or march (what I have seen being stated). I believe the question in court was something along the lines of “have you attended a police protest”. Now could this rally or march be considered a protest (many of these are). Many many people there including juror #52 was wearing clothing pertaining to the crime in question.
You shouldn’t. Most of my ideas on trials don’t end up matching what happens.
Just my opinions and discussion. FWIW, I think the likely sentence he gets on the three original crimes is probably going to be fitting. I am just discussing due process.
Do you think everyone who bought Bucs fan apparel over the last year is a biased fan of tampa? Or do you think a large amount hopped on the bandwagon and wanted something to wear to the superbowl party, but can’t name a player not named Tom or Gronk?
A portion of them prefer the Bucs over many other teams. Some hopped on the SB winner bandwagon. If we were to take the whole group who bought Bucs gear last year, and select one at random, would you be confident to say that the selected person wasn’t biased towards Bucs? How about if we took a group of people who didn’t buy any Bucs gear last year, and picked one at random. Would you be more confident that you would get a non Bucs biased person in the first or second group?
That is why they have these type of questions. Because in general one who bought a Bucs jersey has a higher probability of being biased towards the Bucs. People who wear “get off my neck” Tee shirts, or attend black rights rallies have a higher probability of being biased against police.
We are mandated an impartial jury. Can the state say that happened here?
A black person is more likely to be biased against chauvin. Should we have excluded all black folks from the jury b/c they have a higher probability of being biased? No. In the real world, there will never be a flawlessly unbiased jury, ever. So, we try to ensure they will be impartial. Do you think you would have been an impartial juror? I do. But I could also dog up dirt on you to paint you as hopelessly biased.
That juror was determined to be impartial by the court after significant questioning. The defense agreed to this juror (right?). A unanimous verdict was reached and chauvin is now guilty, no longer assumed innocent.
IMO, it should be on the defense to now prove beyond a reasonable doubt that juror was biased. No idea what the standard is for winning such an appeal.
Yeah, I think this is the key issue. Here’s an analysis in Minneapolis’ main paper, the Star Tribune. It looks like the key problem is that he answered “no” when asked “Other than what you have already described above, have you, or anyone close to you, participated in protests about police use of force or police brutality?” The march that the juror participated in did address police brutality.
The question isn’t whether this evidence shows that the juror wasn’t impartial; it’s that it shows (at most) that he made a false statement during voir dire that may have made it more difficult to discern a lack of partiality. That said, it is a bit of a thin reed. I can understand why this juror answered the way he did; the main point of the march he attended wasn’t police excess force, so he probably didn’t think about it that way.
If I were the defense I sure would have wanted to. It is illegal to purposefully do that. There is tons of evidence of lawyers removing black jurors only because of color. Like it would be impossible statistically that they didn’t try to do it based on the results.
I would have tried my hardest during selection to get my ass kicked off of that jury. I don’t want anything to do it (other than BS on the internet). If I was selected, I would do my best though.
After being deceived by the juror.
The government (the 6th amendment) is the one who mandates a impartial jury, because of that, the burden of proof is on the state (the prosecution).
Isn’t the purpose of the appeal to assert that their was something wrong with the trial, and it should no longer be valid? If that is correct, then all the defense has to do is state their objections to the trial (making their appeal case), and the prosecution then has the burden to refute their assertion. If the prosecution can’t do that, then a mistrial should be declared.
Agreed on lying my way off that jury haha. No fucking way.
I disagree that the juror intentionally mislead. It’s very likely he attended the MLK rally to support equal civil rights. Just like the blm movement means many things to many people, something as big as an MLK day rally means many things to many people.
I can attend an earth day rally, but not be protesting japanese whaling with a subset of that rally for example.
Maybe it is on the prosecution to confirm the juror was not misleading? Seems to me it should be more difficult to overturn a conviction, so the burden should be on the convicted. But IDK.
The more I read, the more the juror seems suspect. He claims to not remember wearing or owning the shirt in the picture. Like really? This wasn’t that long ago, and you don’t have any memory of clothing you wore.
His reason for being there and wearing a BLM branded shirt was because he had never been to DC before, and wanted to be around a lot of black people all at once. Shit just doesn’t add up (at least for me).
If you hire an attorney does that only count for 1 trial? Or is the whole appeals process and possible 2nd trial included? What about the possible federal prosecution?
If you’re Chauvin, and you’ve just seen your lawyer get crushed, do you ty to get a new lawyer now?
This varies and is up to the particular lawyer and client and what sort of agreement they work out, but usually in criminal cases, a lawyer will agree to be engaged only through trial.
I would certainly think so. It should be apparent to everyone by now that Chauvin’s lawyer was way, way out of his depth in this case.