He's Only a Jail Bird in a Guilted Cage

When it was announced that the jury would be coming back with a verdict after less than a day in deliberations, it was borderline-impossible not to assume that there would be a guilty verdict in there.  The only question was how many.  After all, since they had reached a decision, that meant it was either every juror agreeing to convict or every juror agreeing to acquit.  A hung jury was not possible, since there was a decision.

So, those two were the only two options yesterday.  But if everyone had voted to acquit, that would mean after less than one day deliberating not a single juror stood up and shouted, "Hold on, wait a minute!!  We just repeatedly saw the defendant on video with his knee on the neck of the dead man for eight minutes and 46 seconds.  And his own police chief said it wasn't justified.  And the officer who trained him said it wasn't justified.  And we watched that video over and over and over.  And you people are telling me that in less than a day you are all -- all of you -- are almost immediately saying, 'Nope, not guilty'???!!'  Seriously?!!  No, sir, not today.  We are going to keep talking to figure this out."  That's close to impossible for me to imagine.  Not that a jury couldn't possible acquit -- it didn't seems likely, but certainly within the realm of possibility -- but that they would do so after less than a day.

So, that left "guilty" as the only other verdict.  Could I see one juror standing and saying, "Hold on, wait a minute!! We can't find him guilty that fast.  No, sir, not today.  We are going to keep talking to figure this out."  Except that that would mean there was no decision yet, and there was a decision.  And so, it had to be guilty.  In fact, I wouldn't have been shocked if the jury sat down to take an initial "sense of the room" vote as soon as they began deliberation and they had at least one guilty verdict within three minutes.  In fact, I was would be less surprised that they had all three guilty verdicts in the first five minutes and said, "Well, we can't announce it this fast, let's just talk for a while and tell each other about ourselves," than I would  think they had an acquittal in less than a day.

The odd thing is that when the jury came back into court and the verdict was read, it seemed like the only person who was stunned by it was the defendant.  Derek Chauvin seemed to have an expression on his face that was along the lines of, "Wait, what did they say?  I didn't seem to hear that right.  What?  Hunh?"  While I'm sure it's an out of body experience, and any ethereal reaction is understandable.  Especially when you're someone who has the cruel arrogance to put your knee on the neck of a man for eight minutes and 46 seconds, as he's crying out that he can't breath, and everyone around you is shouting to stop, and you keep doing it until he's dead, you probably are a person who not only doesn't think you did anything wrong, but may never think you ever do anything wrong.  So, a "Wait, what did they say? Hunh?" reaction might be understand for a person like that.  Still, I would think your attorneys would prepare you.  "Derek, this probably isn't good news.  LIke, really bad news."  But then, to a Derek Chauvin, defense attorneys might always be considered idiots who spend their scummy lives trying to get criminals off.  So, what do they know?

Well, one thing they know is that they don't always get the people they're defending off.

​Especially when there's an eight minute and 46 second video of the criminal committing the murder.