Juror #9

Juror #9, Dan Benjamin

Meet Dan Benjamin, Juror #9 in the groundbreaking trial that led to the first-ever murder conviction of a police officer in Washington state. Dan has been recollecting his experiences in his blog Juror #9: A Holdout in the State of Washington v. Officer Jeffrey Nelson Trial.

In our interview, Dan reflects on the weight of serving in this historic case, sharing insights into the jury's deliberations, the evidence presented, and the impact this trial has on police accountability. His perspective offers a unique and personal glimpse into a pivotal moment in our state's legal history.

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Before this case, did you have any feelings about police accountability?

I hadn't heard a thing about this case. It never reached my consciousness that this happened. And I watched the news, but somehow this whole thing completely escaped me. But of course, I followed things like George Floyd and just was heartbroken over those things.

It really felt that those were egregious oversteps of the police. Law enforcement needed to be held into account for that. So, yeah, in those big cases I certainly had a feeling that… Look, police have a very difficult job, but they have to be held accountable when they completely overstep what their authority should be.

You had done jury duty before, so there must have been a point where you're like, this is not the same thing.

Yeah. From the get-go it was weird. And I didn't know if it was because of COVID or different things. The questionnaires were very detailed and started to get around homelessness and police accountability and how do you feel about the police and things like that? And so I knew, okay, this is something that's a not like a routine assault charge. This is something different. But I still didn't have a really good grasp of what it possibly could be.

We watch so much court on tv, but it's nothing like that, right? It’s really boring.

I'm a weirdo. I enjoy our legal process. I think there's an alternate universe where I would have gone into the law or gotten a law degree. I kind of am fascinated by it. I just find it to be so fundamental to our constitutional government, to our way of life.

I go in that building, and I always felt a great level of respect. I mentioned in the blog that what's really weird to me about court is how much respect they paid to the jury.

I didn't remember this thing where everyone stands for the jury to come in, and that extended all the way back to the first time we walked in when there were hundreds of us. So it gives you a feeling of, oh, wow, this is like, this is a big deal. They're standing for me.

What is it like to have that responsibility of having, potentially, the rest of this person's life in your hands?

It's something that was never lost on me. That's something that I felt throughout the entire process was there's no room to get this wrong.

I even said that at one point that I felt this sense that if you're going to get it wrong in one direction, it shouldn't be on the side of guilt. That goes a lot to the notion that people are presumed innocent until proven guilty, so you can't put somebody in prison or convict them of a crime. To convict someone and not know for sure is a travesty to me.

You talked about the Auburn police chief on the stand saying he was doing everything he could to dodge the questions, and he thought it was wrong for Nelson to be on trial at all. What was your takeaway from that?

He was an interesting witness because I expected more. When he was called to the stand there was just this feeling of him being adversarial in a way, and it was nothing that he said. It's just like an overall demeanor. I didn't know what to do with it. I expected, like, okay, this is going to be like other testimony we've heard. It just was super quick. I didn't know what to make of it.

Have you made anything of it since? 

I've known enough police officers over time to know that they want to protect their folks. I get it in a way. It's also a big problem. I think that police officers are 99% or more really good people who are really doing a great public service, but like any situation, there are police officers who need to be held accountable that aren't. And it's not right when the police protect without any caveats whatsoever.

Have you looked up Jeff Nelson since the case ended? 

Yeah. I've tried to keep up. I actually attended the hearing on Tuesday. So I saw Jeff Nelson and I continue to have a mix of emotions over him, over the whole thing. I'm tremendously sad for those who knew Jesse Sarey. From seeing the video the first time in court,  I shuddered. I think practically came to tears. It was very emotional for me to see Jesse get killed and then at the same time seeing Jeff Nelson the other day, I'm heartbroken for him. 

He had a look on his face that I hadn't seen during the trial. It was sadness and diminishment. That made me emotional as well. So, yeah, it's a hard situation.

When you looked him up, did you see all of his past issues on the police force?

Well, yeah, that was jarring to see. We didn't know any of that during the trial. I certainly didn't know anything about it. I don't think anybody else knew anything about it. The moment that we had read the verdict, the judge released us from the orders that we couldn't research anything and the first thing we all did was googling and I googled right away and saw that he had killed two other people. I said that out loud and there was just this gasp in the room and we just kind of all shook our heads and went, “Oh, my gosh.”

You talked about Woodard's testimony a lot. After hearing his testimony and then seeing his “two testimonies” where it's his current recollection and then his recollection immediately after the incident. What's your thought now on eyewitness testimony?

I put so much stake in his testimony in the moment. That's what was really kind of the linchpin for me of Nelson having justification for the first shot that he took at Jesse. He's standing right there. He's 5 feet away and he's essentially narrating the event. So, I took that as super important testimony.

And then had to come back and realize, well, wait a second, people do remember things or might say things that aren't exactly true. I think it was maybe about a half hour after the incident was, “yeah, and then Nelson pointed the gun at me.” And it's like, well, no, that didn't happen. You believe that happened, but that's not what actually happened.

Eyewitness testimony is funny. Our brains have a way of sometimes seeing things that may or may not have actually happened.

What was the most compelling piece of evidence for you?

I would say it was Woodard. I had to really go back and reconcile a lot of things about his testimony. That was the biggest thing. 

The evidence around the knife was very important to me during the trial. I had to work through and go back and look at things in the jury room and decide how much significance did that play? 

I'd say probably those were the two factors that were the biggest things that I keyed in on.

You heard the prosecution's version of events. You heard the defense's version of events. Can you tell me what happened that day from your perspective? 

I believe that Jesse was in whatever state he was in. I'm not going to presuppose why he was acting the way he was that day. That's immaterial.

I think he was having a rough day and hanging around the Walgreens and messing with cars at Starbucks and all these different things, not doing anything that was a danger to the public, but acting quite erratically.

It seems to me that Nelson did a fairly good job at diffusing things. When he was at the Walgreens, at Starbucks, he seemed quite calm driving over.

Once Jesse left that scene and went across the street to the Sunshine grocery, I didn't see that Nelson had this anger or any panic. 

He decided this has been going on for hours now that there's been these disturbances created by Jesse and I'm going to put an end to it.

He could have waited a few minutes. He could have had the help that was on the way that he had called for. And I don't think when he got out of the car to arrest Jesse he got out thinking that anything bad would happen or that he had bad intent in what was going on. I think he rashly decided, “I'm just going to take care of this.” And I think it got out of control very quickly.

I think he made a series of really, really big mistakes that, as I see it at this point, no other officer on the planet would have made. He let the situation get out of control. He let emotions get out of control.

He did not instinctively fall back on the training that he had. I don't believe that he initially shot Jesse maliciously, but that's not the standard of the law.

I've listened to all that testimony and thought, well, you didn't maliciously do that. Like, there's no, there's no malice here.

Well, malice is not the standard of the law. I had to work through that in deliberations.

When the defense rested and you were sent back to deliberations, what was that like?

I think everyone was very kind to everyone's point of view. There was one juror that sometimes frustrated us, but, these are great people that really, really cared and really took the entire process seriously.

Did you start with a vote in the beginning and then kind of pick sides and try to change each other's minds? 

The very first thing we did after we selected the foreperson is we let him say, “Okay, how do we want to do this?” The first thing he wanted to do is say, “Well, let's see where we're at.”

And I was shocked by where things were at.

I had this feeling like everybody's gonna feel the way I did. And no, quite the opposite. And so I was shocked. 

The second count [first-degree assault] was a lot easier. That one happened quickly.

Can you talk about what changed your mind on count one [second-degree murder]?

It had to be the way that I thought about Woodard. I had to look at things and his testimony and decide his level of credibility. I also had to really dig deep into the instructions further and really parse some keywords like good faith and reasonable and all these things and understand if I'm really following the instructions where are we at? 

Those were kind of the major things. 

What was the mood like when you finally came to a consensus in the jury room?

I think we all hugged each other. When our foreperson conducted one last secret vote and had us write everything on a paper, he started reading out, and then he said, “My friends, we’re unanimous.” There were tears. We did not think we were going to get there.

We don't feel good about what that means for Nelson, but we know we've come to the right decision. I wouldn't call it a mood of elation, it was just a relief.

So you are a big believer in the jury system and American justice. What was it like to, not only to be on a jury, but to be on this jury; the first officer that was charged under the new law and the first one that was found guilty?

I'm a huge believer in our justice system. It was daunting. It still is. To be associated with the first to do this is always a little bit humbling. It's hard to have that scrutiny.

It's hard to read and see the criticism over things that happened that involved the jury. You don't want to be part of the story.

There's this sense of it being an awesome responsibility that it was the first case like that. We just thought it was an important case. You don't get police officers tried for murder very often.

Now knowing kind of the importance that it had, it's humbling. 

Do you think justice was served? 

I do. I really do. I believe in our verdict. I believe that we got there the right way. And I believe that we started the conversation with officers need to be held accountable when they, you know, we cannot have a society. My friend said this during deliberations: “I don't want to live in a society where a police officer can just kill someone like this without consequence.”

So, yes, I think the outcome was proper. 

The CJTC instructor talked about time, distance, and cover and that made an impact on you. That's the standard for officers to be compared to. When you see police shootings now, does that go through your mind, what they should have done, or what the standard training procedure is? 

Yeah, that's a big thing. All those things in this case. Slow things down.

We saw the video of another police officer, an example of someone losing it on the street, and how those officers just calmly took the time, and took minutes and minutes and minutes of time to keep things calm, use that time and not rush in to do anything.

I think it would definitely inform the way I look at things from this point forward. 

Why are you putting out the blog and doing interviews?

I think there's a story to be told about jury service. I think it should be of interest to attorneys to understand better what goes through a juror's mind; and what happens in that room in deliberations. How does that play with a person who's on the jury?

I think this case is just so important, and I want all people to know what it was like from the inside.