A woman who was selected as an alternate juror in the trial of Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis officer convicted in the death of George Floyd, admitted that public pressure in the case made her unsure whether she even wanted to be on the jury, stating, “I did not want to go through rioting and destruction again and I was concerned about people coming to my house if they were not happy with the verdict.”
Lisa Christensen told Lou Raguse of KARE 11 that her heart “broke a little” when the judge informed her she would only be an alternate juror, saying, “Number 96, you’re an alternate.”
Raguse asked, “Did you want to be a juror?” Christensen responded, “ I had mixed feelings. There was a question on the questionnaire about it and I put I did not know. The reason, at that time, was I did not know what the outcome was going to be, so I felt like either way you are going to disappoint one group or the other. I did not want to go through rioting and destruction again and I was concerned about people coming to my house if they were not happy with the verdict.”
Christensen also stated, “I would have voted guilty. … I feel like Chauvin is responsible for Mr. Floyd’s death.” She said that prosecution witness Dr. Martin Tobin “broke it down to where we could understand it. He had us demonstrate. We were all in the jury touching our necks and we could feel what he was trying to make us feel.”
