Jackpine Savage wrote:
If there was ever a trial that should have had a change of venue this was it. The Judge and Jury could see the mob every day. They knew that Minneapolis would burn again if Chauvin was found not guilty. The jury had to be concerned about their personal safety especially after the news guy was arrested trying to follow their bus. The appeals process is a strange thing that I don't understand, what can and can't be appealed.
I have yet to watch the video, and
I don’t claim to have viewed every bit of the incident, but I do believe Chauvin’s behavior is to be questioned. It intrigues me that these two - Floyd and Chauvin had some sort of history.
As to the judicial process, it was so painfully obvious, for the reasons you state: the failure to change venues, and deliberately allowing the intimidation of the jury, which, twice a day, had to run a gauntlet, not unlike strike breakers at a union factory, that there was an agenda for a conviction, regardless of the improper/ excessive charging.
I have asked myself, and will ask others:
‘What would have been your behavior, as a juror in this trial?
Their identities would ultimately have been determined, and had there been an acquittal, they would be putting themselves, as well as their families in physical danger from a riotous mob that authorities showed no interest in controlling.
I have been called to jury duty only once in my life. It was an eye opening experience. Given the inability of those potential jurors surrounding me to follow, and retain simple housekeeping instruction, and information (If it was asked once during my 4 day stint, it was asked 10 times by the assemblage as to where the bathrooms were…)
My greatest takeaway from jury duty was that I never, ever, want to be judged by those ‘peers’.
It doesn’t take much thought to predict how those who surrounded me would behave if/ when confronted with the spectacle that was Chauvin’s trial.
