Yeah, no jury walking into this case can possibly be impartial if the video evidence was deemed inadmissible (for whatever reason). No one is THAT impartial. Only robots can be. Or foreigners who have never heard of this case.
I would like to think I could still be an impartial juror and only consider what’s presented in front of me in any case. I don’t think that’s really THAT hard to do. Maybe I’m overestimating myself.
I would be the last thing standing between completely ruining someone’s life or not, and this is one of the most critical and fundamental pieces of our justice system. It means a lot to me that we have the system that we do.
Side note, judges are supposed to be impartial, too. That’s why I can’t stand that we have “conservative” and “liberal” justices on the Supreme Court. I absolutely hate that. The judiciary was never intended to be politicized.
My thoughts going in based solely on the video is that there was no way he was going to be found innocent. He could have been found guilty of less than 2nd degree murder, but an innocent verdict wasn’t happening.
That’s the thing though. Even judges can be partial, after years of judicial training and knowingly trained to be impartial, and likely having superior logic compared to the plebs.
How can they expect a random juror to be impartial, let alone 12 of them?
i’m not entirely sure what “impartial” means in this case when he was guilty guilty guilty.
I think I could have been close to impartial though as a juror. As a regular citizen, I watched all the coverage on my tv and heard Rachel and the gang opine on it. As a juror I wouldn’t have done that. Although, my ADD in paying attention to a trial might have made me a bad juror.
If you’re impartial, you can judge only based on the evidences presented in court.
Given the case, it’s unlikely you haven’t watched the video already. If for some reason, the video was deemed inadmissible in court, are you able to erase it from your mind and potentially consider Chauvin innocent?
If not, then you’re not impartial.
IMO, these two statements are a direct contradiction of each other.
Like I said earlier, my grandfather was on a murder jury once. He knew the defendant more likely than not killed the person. But he didn’t think the prosecution presented a good enough case, and the jury agreed to acquit. You go off of what’s presented at the trial, and determine if there is guilt beyond reasonable doubt.
I dunno. You might also just be less politically minded?
I haven’t followed this closely, but it sounded cut and dry. Guy murdered on live tv with people shouting “hey don’t murder that guy.”
But… take the Kavanaugh hearings… People were/are incredibly split on party lines.
A little back to the OP… a friend of mine who is NOT a lawyer, but you’d think he might as well be one with how well he knows law, thinks there is no chance this case wins anything on an appeal.
I think the more interesting case will be that of the three other cops. We were all pretty sure Chauvin would get convicted. The others, though? Without me having cases presented to me and having all the relevant information, just from what I know, I’d bet on hung juries if someone gave me a prop bet.
I mean, now they literally go through every jury candidate’s social media and post history to select the jurors.
I think the juror selection process will be near impossible in the future. There’s no way you can find an impartial juror with a clean record.
Does anyone know if in Minnesota the defense can request a bench trial? Not that I think it’s likely, just curious if they can do that.
ETA: IANAL, but my understanding is that judges frequently deny those requests when asked, anyways.
i added that 2nd sentence in an edit, upon reflection. i thought guilty guilty guilty for sure after seeing the news coverage of the trial. i wouldn’t have seen that if i was a juror and instead would have focused on the actual trial.
huh? why not?
because you’re not supposed to watch the news while the trial is going on.
There was around a years worth of stuff you would have seen before becoming a juror though.
i didn’t pay enough attention to have a biased view any more than anyone else in america at that point though.
everyone on the jury had some familiarity with this case before becoming a juror. you would have to leave america to find someone who doesn’t.
The “founding fathers” politicized the Supreme Court from the very beginning.
I don’t understand why state that the Supreme Court has ever been outside of politics.
You can choose a Bench Trial
Chauvin selected Bench Sentencing over Jury Sentencing.
probably what they should’ve done.
with the advancement of social media and internet, it’s impossible to find impartial jurors for something like this