Welcome to our coverage of the Kim Potter manslaughter trial over the April 11, 2021, shooting death of Duante Wright in a suburb of Minneapolis, when then-police officer Potter unintentionally used her Glock 17 pistol in place of her intended Taser.
The case has been with the jury since 12:45 p.m. Central time on December 20, 2021. The jury is sequestered. The jury will resume deliberations at 9 a.m. Central today. We will monitor developments and will update if there are jury questions or other courtroom action. When a verdict is imminent, we will update the headline, and will also reach out on social media. And when the verdict is announced, we will be live.
For coverage of closings, including videos of closing arguments, see Daunte Wright Shooting Trial LIVE – Closing Arguments Over, Jury Gets The Case (updated)
Reminder – there are two Counts:
COUNT I – Charge: First-Degree Manslaughter Predicated on Reckless Use/Handling of a FirearmCOUNT II – Charge: Second-Degree Manslaughter
December 21
7:10 p.m. Eastern – local media reporting the jury is done for the day. No verdict yet. Resume deliberations Wednesday. We will be LIVE again.
5:30 p..m. Eastern – Jury questions (submitted 4 p.m. Central) read in court:
First Question — “If the jury cannot reach consensus, what is the guidance around how long and what steps should be taken?” Answer: Judge re-reads a prior instruction: You should discuss the case and deliberate towards reaching a verdict without compromising oath.https://twitter.com/cathyrusson/status/1473422507386363904Second Question — “Can the zip ties be removed fromExhibit 199 Potter’s gun so it can be held out of the evidence box?” Answer – Yes, hand deputy the gun in the box, the deputy will then remove the zip ties and give gun to you. After you are done with it, hand it back to the deputy.Defense objected to judge rereading the single instruction, also objected to removing gun from the case for safety purposes. Prosecution says appopriate to give that instruction, it’s standard in lieu of the old “Allen” instruction.
5:20 p.m. Eastern – Jury has a question
December 20
Yesterday, the only courtroom action after deliberations started was a jury question:
4:20 p.m Eastern, 12/20/21 – Jury Question: What was the date of the Potter interview with Dr. Miller (question dated 2:58 p.m. CT). Judge says all the evidence is in, “you should rely on your collective memory as to what the evidence is.”
Here’s a courtroom video feed, there will not be any courtroom activity unless the jury has more questions, otherwise communicates with the court, or reaches a verdict.
Needless to say, the best we can do is speculate what is going on with the jury behind closed doors. The Question the jury asked yesterday goes to the testimony of Dr. Laurence Miller, the psychological expert who testified about how the brain works, and how an officer by habit could unkowingly pull a gun rather than a taser because pulling the gun was practiced far more.
He testified as to his interview with Potter, and she also was questioned about what she told him about whether she saw the gun in her hand. That was a big point in the prosecution closing (at 6:10 of video below) because is she saw the gun and was aware she was holding it, perhaps that memory function doesn’t apply.
So the jury seems focused on that testimony, though which part of the testimony we don’t know, which would indicate in coming to a determination on recklessness or culpable negligence, they are considering whether she acted, in a sense, with the free will (“conscious” in the jury instruction) or fell victim to a psychological process. This would make sense for the jury to focus on this, because the facts of the case are not really in dispute or complicated. The prosecution does not claim that Potter deliberately pulled the gun. What is in dispute is whether the action of mistake and not recognizing the mistake before shooting rises to the level of recklessness or culpable negligence. On that the jury instructions do not give the jury much guidance.
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