Who is Brandon Mitchell? Chauvin trial juror says no pressure for guilty verdict: ‘Watching Floyd die hardest’
On April 20, a 12-member jury found former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin guilty of George Floyd's murder and convicted him on all three counts. A harrowing experience for those inside the courtroom was showing up every day to "watch a Black man die," one of the jurors, Brandon Mitchell, who was formerly known as Juror 52, opened up out about his experience in the courtroom during this very publicized trial.
Mitchell, a 31-year-old Black man, is actually the first juror to speak publicly about the trial. While the court has not released the names of the jurors to the public, it is allowing them to speak publicly about the matter. During his Wednesday's appearance on 'CBS This Morning', Mitchell spoke about the trial, the deliberation, the perspectives of other jurors and most importantly, the guilty verdict.
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Speaking to 'CBS This Morning' on April 28, about whether the jurors felt pressure to reach a guilty verdict for Chauvin, Mitchell said, "Not at all. I don't think any of us felt 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."
Last week on April 20, the jury found Chauvin guilty of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter in Floyd's killing outside a Cup Foods store in May 2020. It might have looked like a straightforward simple case since there was plenty of video footage of Chauvin, who is White, pinning 46-year-old Floyd, a Black man, to the ground with his knee for over nine minutes.
Who is Brandon Mitchell?
A 31-year-old Black man, Brandon Mitchell was formerly known only as Juror 52. He told the court during jury selection last month that he works in banking and enjoys his job because he has one-on-one contact with customers and helps them set and meet financial goals. Reports also say that he coaches youth sports, which he said often involves mediating disputes with parents about playtime.
In his juror questionnaire, he said that he wanted to be picked for the jury because "from all the protests ... this is the most historic case of my lifetime and I’d like to be a part of it." Despite voicing his opinions loud and clear in the questionnaire, in court he said that he was fully capable of assessing the trial impartially.
He wrote in the questionnaire that he did not think Chauvin "set out to murder anyone." However, he wrote, "Why didn’t the other officers stop Chauvin? ... I don’t know if he was doing something wrong or not. But somebody did die."
Chauvin faces 12 and a half years, or 150 months, in prison under sentencing guidelines for a first-time offender. At the same time, Chauvin may face longer than that sentence as the prosecution argues that there are aggravating factors requiring a longer prison term.
Refusing to offer an opinion on an appropriate sentence for Chauvin, Mitchell said, "I think we came with the right verdict, and I'll let the judge do what he does."
During his chat on the CBS show, Mitchell also discussed how the testimony of the prosecution's expert pulmonologist Dr Martin Tobin was "the biggest, most influential witness of everybody." "I just thought he broke it down in a manner that was easy for all the jurors to understand, and I didn't think there was any way for the defense to come back after that," Mitchell told CBS. "It was done at that point almost."
On the other hand, there was also the testimony of Donald Williams, a mixed martial arts fighter who is seen on videos yelling at Chauvin, that "set the tone" for the trial.
The trial was emotionally difficult for the jury, Mitchell told CBS. He said there were days when he didn’t know how he was "gonna make it in." "Every day we had to come in and watch a Black man die," Mitchell told CBS. "As a human, it’s natural to feel some kind of way as you’re watching somebody in agony."
Describing the verdict, Mitchell said: "I think everybody was at peace with it. Everybody was on the same page, for sure. No question."
You can watch the exchange in its entirety below: