AUSTIN, Texas — One of the 12 jurors in the mistrial of Austin police officer Christopher Taylor took the KVUE Defenders inside the divided deliberations.
On Nov. 15, that jury deadlocked 8-4 over whether Officer Taylor committed murder when he shot and killed Michael Ramos in April of 2020 in a case that instantly sparked community backlash and fueled often social justice protests.
KVUE reached out to all of the jurors we could find contact information for, and only one agreed to a conversation with us.
During the trial, courthouse security took extra steps to protect them, shuttling them to and from the courthouse from a secret location. And during the trial, the judge also admonished a man for possibly trying to influence them.
Given the nature of the case, the juror did asked to remain anonymous, and she would not confirm if she was among the four voting guilty or eight voting not guilty.
What were your general impressions of the evidence that was presented and of the case itself?
There was quite a bit of evidence, and there are things that you got to see from all different viewpoints because there were seven body cams, you know, seven or six or so of dash cams to go through. You have a couple of bystanders. You just had so much views of the situation that was going on that you see, you start seeing that, OK, that's what really happened. But a way in this view, something else happened that you didn't see before.
There were days where I kind of feel like in my head I'm like, ‘Oh, today was a good day for the prosecution,’ or, ‘Today was a good day for the defense,’ just based on different things that I saw in court. But every day was kind of changing up until that end. It's just the layers of the situation. In the beginning, we were six not guilty, two unsure and four guilty. Eventually of that change, the two unsure, two the not guilty, but the four still are, you know, they still stayed at guilty. It was actually very respectful. There wasn't any fighting. We were sure get into some heated discussions, but it was not in a bad way.
So the four who said guilty and were steadfast, what was their belief? Can you represent what they were saying?
Yes, it was based on the number of shots they could see. They could justify the first shot. But they think such situational awareness should have allowed them him to take one shot, see that he was at that point going to the right, and not take the second shot, which ultimately killed him. And so it was the second and third shot was just too much for them.
Those who were in the not guilty camp. Can you just sort of represent their beliefs?
It goes on his perceptions, Taylor's perception. It's a reasonable thought that he was going to go after them. But it just, it all happens in two seconds and you don't have time to think that much into it.
Over the weekend, as you all were deliberating, an Austin police officer, Officer Jorge Pastore was killed in the line of duty, and a second officer was shot and wounded. A question a lot of people have asked is whether or not that situation came into the jury room and possibly influenced the jury in any sort of way.
It did not. I mentioned it in the room, and that comment that, well, you know, what happened this past weekend. And there were some people who were like, yeah, I do. You know, they recognized that. And then motions said, no, we were told to stay away from the news. And I obeyed the judge's order. And so that is where the conversation ended from there, and it did not get into our conversation.
What is your opinion about whether or not a jury will ever be able to come up with a unanimous verdict in this case?
I think it would be difficult because it's such a polarizing situation. People have their feelings on it, especially after these last three years. It will be very difficult to get 12 people to view the same from different backgrounds.