Chauvin jury not as bad for defense as might have been expected

Seventh Juror seated on day five

In many respects, #44 seemed well suited as juror, from a thought-process perspective.

She acknowledged the importance of knowing both sides to any dispute, gathering additional information when available, and recognized that it was normal for people to have different views of the same matter.

She also acknowledged that she had to arrive at a verdict based on the evidence shown in court, and not what she might have learned elsewhere. Remarkably, she several times referenced her belief that the media was biased generally.

Prospective juror #44 also acknowledged that while what she saw of the video of Floyd’s death created a negative impression for her of Chauvin, she was aware that she doesn’t know the laws and procedures for police detaining a suspect.

She noted also that Floyd dying was surely not the intended endpoint for police procedures, and also expressed the belief that none of the officers involved in this event went into it planning that Floyd would die. She also noted that the police in her community contribute to her safety, and appeared to have no negative perceptions of the police generally.

She also seemed to have a genuinely open mind on the question of whether Chauvin and the other officers involved in Floyd’s arrest were acting with malice. Indeed, she presumed that they were not acting with malice.

She also indicated that she would have a generally lower opinion of a person if she learned they used illegal drugs, mostly because doing so was a poor life decision.

These notes are taken from the Legal Insurrection website writer who is covering the trial. It would seem like this is pretty good juror for the defense, but the problem is that the prosecution is actually down to four preemptory strikes left. 

They are likely more concerned for the type of jurors that they did use their strike against, including a former military person who make note that people who are not trained in the tactics used in law enforcement or military might not understand the context of what a police officer is doing. In this case, this is a juror who would probably be likely to acquit Chauvin if it simply turned out he was following procedure. While this is probably not a bad thing, it is a problem for the prosecution if they feel that proving Chauvin went outside of police protocol might be difficult. At this point there is only minor quibbling over small details of what Chauvin did from a protocol standpoint. He pretty much followed procedure to within 95% of absolute. 

Overall, with the exception of one juror (who seems a little too eager to be on the jury) the six other jurors seem fairly impartial in their answers to the questions. Of course, anything can happen once the trial take place and some of these jurists might not be what they make themselves out to be.