Disagree with the narrative at your peril.
Disagree with the narrative at your peril.
There's nothing civil about this war.
Not a surprise from anti-cop Attorney General Frosh.
https://www.foxnews.com/us/derek-cha...trial-verdicts
"Juror Brandon Mitchell, 31, who is Black, could be seen in the photo wearing the T-shirt emblazoned with a picture of Martin Luther King Jr. and the phrases 'Get your knee off our neck' and 'BLM.' He is also wearing a 'Black Lives Matter' hat in the photo.
During the jury selection process, each prospective juror is required to answer a questionnaire that includes questions about participation in demonstrations and protests.
'Did you, or someone close to you, participate in any of the demonstrations or marches against police brutality that took place in Minneapolis after George Floyd's death?' one question read, according to the newspaper.
The other 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?'
Mitchell told the Tribune that he replied 'no' to both questions."
Last edited by Sero Sed Serio; 05-04-2021 at 10:22 AM. Reason: pic added
It will be interesting to see where this goes. Please note, I watched none of the trial, nor any pre pretrial hearings, have not seen the interview, not have I read the transcript of the Jury Voir Dire (jury selection process) or any of the pleadings filed by any party
If the question was:
Q1. Did you, or someone close to you, participate in any of the demonstrations or marches against police brutality that took place in Minneapolis after George Floyd's death?
A1 No as the t-shirt/hat was allegedly worn at a rally in DC marking the anniversary of the MLK speech.
Q2. 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?
A2. Same answer
I would argue those answers are truthful to the very precise question asked.
Natural follow ups would be, presuming this was allowed by the court as how much latitude given to the parties in Voir Dire varies widely from case to case, judge to judge and jurisdiction to jurisdiction.
Did you, or someone close to you, participate in any of demonstrations or marches at all in the last 12/24/36 months
Did you ever participate in any demonstration or march as an adult?
Those questions would presumably have revealed the attendance at the DC March re MLK
Again, I do not know to the extent the parties wanted to make these types of inquiries and how much they were allowed to do so by the court.
Generally speaking, it is very difficult to undue a jury verdict based on allegations of jury misconduct, particularly based on how a juror may or may not have understood the breadth of a particular question as opposed to something more objective like doing legal research, going to the crime scene, speaking with reporters or the parties about the case during the case etc.
I am not your attorney. I am not giving legal advice. Any and all opinions expressed are personal and my own and are not those of any employer-past, present or future.
Wow. Wearing a BLM shirt with a slogan on it which seems to reference the specific case he was a juror on seems pretty strongly indicative of bias. I suppose it's pretty much impossible to determine whether the outcome of the trial would have been any different with a different person in his place on the jury, but it sure isn't a good look.
It is very hard to undo a jury verdict and in this case it will be harder. For many, they simply won't care whether Chauvin got a fair trial.
As to this specific juror issue, one of the questions was very badly worded. " Did you, or someone close to you, participate in any of the demonstrations or marches against police brutality that took place in Minneapolis after George Floyd's death?"
Does it ask about demonstrations or marches that occurred in Minneapolis, or demonstrations occurring anywhere where the marches were "against police brutality that occurred in Minneapolis?"
And of course, the juror already has said this was an MLK march, not a George Floyd march. What judge wants to make a ruling on that distinction?
Proving a "lie" by the prospective juror will be very difficult. Pretty clearly he is not / was not "impartial" as required by his oath as a juror, and in a different case in a different time, that might matter more, but I am not sure anyone who could do anything about it will care. Perhaps this, along with venue and sequestration issues and the settlement publicity and the Brooklyn center issues will add up to enough, but I doubt any judge or panel is going to want to grant him a new trial. If I recall right, some other juror has already said the entire panel was fearful of what would happen if they did not convict on all counts and would not even tell each other their full names due to fear of retribution. To me, that is more telling and concerning.
Chauvin will be sentenced to prison for a long time. It may be a state prison, it may be a federal prison, and maybe it will be after another trial or two, but there is no other outcome possible in this case and there never has been.
He was denied a fair trial. That should matter in this country, regardless of his race or occupation or the allegations. But I am not sure it does matter anymore. I find it very disturbing to feel that way.
You're not the only one, pal.Originally Posted by jd950
In pretty much every voir dire I've done, I've had to make a choice either between a bad juror and a worse juror, or a bad juror and a complete unknown. Complete unknowns scare me, because if you make it through an entire voir dire process without responding to a single question, you either live on a deserted desert island or you're not participating in the process in good faith, and I suspect you have an agenda that you're concealing. I wonder if this juror was less than forthcoming in his opinions, or if the jury pool was literally so bad that the defense had to use its strikes elsewhere.
Whether or not it changes anything (and I agree that it's unlikely to make a difference on appeal), I think it's telling about overall fairness of this trial.
Even in other cases, judges are concerned about the "chilling effect" that taking legal action against a juror might have against future prospective jurors, and usually let everything but the most egregious shenanigans go as a result.
I doubt anything will happen here, but wonder what an alternate universe would look like where an acquittal was followed by pictures of a juror with a thin blue line t-shirt...
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