Honestly, I thought the defense played right into the prosecution's hands at the closing. The things they were telling the jury to ask themselves were, uh, kind of not in the favor of the defendant. Was he authorized to exhibit that force? Well, no, according to the state and the city police...
dunno. i'd imagine people are more likely to reach a verdict of not guilty quickly since you are freeing someone instead of putting them away, but i don't know the stats.
I think the conventional wisdom is that the jury looking at it over and over from every angle means they are looking for something beyond reasonable doubt. I.e., they are working against a starting place of doubt. If you aren't working from a place of extinguishing reasonable doubt, it goes quickly. I have no idea of the stats either, though.
Hard for me to see 3rd degree murder here. Honestly surprised they didn't drop it. I think he should be convicted of the manslaughter charge but won't be surprised to see a guilty verdict for 2nd degree murder.
If you take all the politics out of it, DC is clearly guilty of 2nd degree at least... what I don’t like is the process being hijacked by the “give us what we want or we’re gonna riot” crowd.
I'm laughing at the entire bolded part, but I do wonder why you included the "at least." Do you think they should have charged him with something more than the 3 charges they're looking at?
No. DC didn’t go in looking to kill GF, but it’s clearly 2nd degree. Clearly. You don’t kneel on somebody’s neck for 9 plus minutes and then say “dang, how the heck did THAT happen??!?”...
