Juror number 52 in the trial against former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin in the death of George Floyd, told CNN that he’s still haunted by images from the trial and every day in the courtroom felt like a “funeral.”
“It was just dark. It felt like every day was a funeral and watching someone die every day,” Brandon Mitchell said. “It was tense every day. I wasn’t nervous, but it was stressful. It was a lot of pressure.”
He said that much of the more than 10 hours the jury spent in deliberation were used to convince one member of the jury raising doubts as to Chauvin’s guilt.
In the end, Chauvin was found guilty on all three counts: second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.
“I felt like it should have been 20 minutes,” Mitchell said of the deliberations.
Chauvin appeared very confident in the early days of trial, according to Mitchell, but that changed as testimony came out.
Mitchell added that the testimony of Dr. Martin Tobin, a pulmonary expert and witness called by the prosecution to testify in the case was the most convincing part of the trial.
“Once Dr. Tobin was finished with his testimony, I felt like the trial was done. He spoke everything in laymen’s terms, and it made sense,” he said.
Mitchell, a 31-year-old basketball coach at North Community High School in Minneapolis, is the first juror to speak out after the trial ended. He said he knew the decision the jurors made would become part of history.
“We haven’t seen an outcome like this on a case. I really think this is a start and I think it’s a good start,” he said. “And then, all the attention that it is still getting. Just keeping that magnifying glass there has to spark some kind of change.”
