One of the jurors who voted to convict Derek Chauvin of murder last week emerged from the shadows of anonymity Wednesday to make the rounds on morning talk shows.


What You Need To Know

  • Brandon Mitchell, one of the jurors who voted to convict Derek Chauvin of murder last wee, made the rounds on morning talk shows Wednesday

  • Mitchell said the only hang-up came in deliberations came when one juror "was being delicate with the process" and was "hung up on a few words within the instructions" when discussing the manslaughter charge

  • The 31-year-old Mitchell said he didn’t believe the jurors, with the eyes of the nation on them, felt any pressure to deliver a guilty verdict

  • He said he was especially moved by the testimonies of prosecution witnesses Dr. Martin Tobin and Donald Williams but that video was “probably the most important piece of evidence"

Brandon Mitchell, aka “Juror 52,” told ABC’s “Good Morning America” the deliberations were “straightforward” and that the only hang-up came when jurors took a preliminary vote on the manslaughter charge and all but one voted guilty.

Mitchell explained the lone holdout was being careful with the process. 

“I think the one juror that was kind of, I wouldn't say slowing us down but was being delicate with the process more so was just kind of hung up on a few words within the instructions and just wanted to make sure that they got it right.”

In an interview on “CBS This Morning,” Mitchell said the jury was in agreement by the time a second vote was taken about 40 minutes later.

Chauvin, a former Minneapolis police officer, was found guilty on all three charges he faced — second-degree murder, third-degree murder and manslaughter — for kneeling on the neck of George Floyd for more than nine minutes during an arrest last May.

The 31-year-old Mitchell said he didn’t believe the jurors, with the eyes of the nation on them, felt any pressure to deliver a guilty verdict. 

“I don't think any of us felt like that,” he said. “I, for sure, did not feel like that. The pressure more so came from just being in the room and being under stress. But it wasn't pressure to come to a guilty verdict.”

Mitchell explained the stress he felt was because “everyday we had to come in and watch a Black man die.”

“There was a few days where I was like, ‘I don't know how I'm going to make it in this next day,’” Mitchell told CBS, adding the testimony impacted him in a personal way because, like Floyd, he is a large, Black man. 

Mitchell said he was especially moved by the testimonies of prosecution witnesses Dr. Martin Tobin and Donald Williams. 

Tobin, a pulmonologist, spoke “so scientifically” and “broke it down in a manner that was easy for all the jurors to understand,” Mitchell said. The juror told ABC that Tobin, in his eyes, “solidified” the prosecution’s case.

Williams, the mixed martial arts fighter who witnessed Floyd’s death, “set the tone for the rest of the trial,” Mitchell said.

But video of Chauvin with his knee pressed into Floyd’s neck was “probably the most important piece of evidence,” the juror told “Good Morning America.”

“The video is a historic video, unfortunately, seeing the multiple angles of it from the body cams, from the other cellphones,” he said. 

When asked if he thought testimony from Chauvin, who invoked the Fifth Amendment, could have made a difference, Mitchell said, “I can't say it would’ve changed the outcome, but it's a possibility, for sure.

“Somebody had brought it up, like they would have liked to have heard from him,” he said. “But it wasn’t a part of the case. It just is what it is.”

Chauvin is set to be sentenced June 25. He will be sentenced only on the most serious of the charges — second-degree murder — which carries up to 40 years in prison, The Associated Press reported.

Mitchell said he doesn’t have an opinion on how long he thinks Chauvin should spend behind bars.

“I think we came to the right verdict — guilty on all charges,” he told CBS. “And I’ll let the judge do what he does.”

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