The Verdict? You Can't Argue With Video

 Many years ago I sat on a jury in a trial. Actually, I've sat on more than one jury through the years before I learned to not be dressed in business attire for a trial if you do not want to chosen. I used to joke that the voter pool for our county must be tiny if we both kept popping up on jury pools.

The reason I've been thinking about this particular trial is for what it has in common with the just rested Chauvin trial. The alleged crime right on video.

In this one the defendant, a lady with troll doll uncombed hair and a somewhat less than court ready appearance that Chauvin, was said to have shown up at the local Safeway, picked up some expensive steaks and a pile of two liter sodas before beating down the manager who confronted her right in the parking lot. She told a convoluted tale of having gotten confused, thought her cousin paid for her steaks, gotten her period and I don't know what. None of which lined up with what we witnessed on the store security cameras.

Once we'd heard all the witnesses we the jury had shuffled into the jury room. The jury foreman looked around the room and said, "Is there any doubt she's guilty after seeing the video evidence?? Good, let's all sit in here and enjoy a nice snack, a soda and a cookie before we tell the judge our verdict." Yes, that's how quickly we came to decide this lady was guilty of assault, battery and shop lifting.

What your eyes can see is so powerful. I have to think that this jury in the Chauvin case is going to come to the same conclusion we did in the Safeway shoplifting incident.  Those videos of Chauvin kneeling on Floyd's neck as he begged for his life are going to be very hard to deny.

With our case the very sticky wicket came with the punishment phase of the trial. We could not agree on punishment at all. We sent requests to the judge to know exactly how long we're have to sentence her for her to be eligible for therapy, treatment and job training. We just couldn't give her no time because this was maybe a sixth or seventh offense through the years and she would get some repeat offender status for her crimes. 

We had one young man that was determined she do no time. The cops and prosecutor had asked for two and a half to three years. The law said it was possible to give her a maximum of ten years. Everyone on the jury save the one young man wanted her to do three to four years, being that happened to be the minimum in our state where you would be eligible for the things she so desperately needed. Her life story read like a bad Lifetime movie of dysfunction and lack of any education. 

It turned into a vicious fight, a verbal fight, between jurors, with us against this lone guy. We argued the punishment for 7 hours before finally brokering a deal with our lone holdout and sentenced her to 18 months in prison, a mere pittance and too short to take part in any rehabilitation programs. He wore us down. It was that, or a jury hung over sentencing.

While I think that the video is going to convict Chauvin of what he did, I don't know that this won't turn into a long jury fight over the murder versus manslaughter charges. If the jury has to chose punishments it could go even longer. 12 different people with 12 very different ideas of what justice looks like. 

I just hope there's not violence whatever verdict they come to. I cannot imagine them not convicting him of murder after seeing the video. Those other cops, standing around watching, are just as guilty for not trying to stop it. Not a man tried CPR, yet I know they're all CPR certified. So many bad decisions colliding in the most tragic ways.

The defense counsel was almost criminally inept. He should be able to get a retrial over the glaring mistakes and lack of decent counsel.