The Atlantic
The Chauvin Trial’s Jury Wasn’t Like Other Juries
Its guilty verdict resulted not just from the strength of the evidence, but from a jury-selection process that departed from American norms.
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The jury convicted the former Minnesota police officer Derek Chauvin on the weight of the evidence before it: video footage, expert testimony, and eyewitness accounts.
But even with all that evidence, convictions don’t happen on their own. Twelve people, selected by lot from the public, must come to a unanimous decision. That jury—who it comprised, how those people saw the world—was of enormous consequence. This wasn’t just any jury, and the difference that made should invite a major reckoning with how juries—the deciding bodies of the country’s judicial system—are selected in America.