The jury was free to choose to convict on manslaughter or murder. They chose murder. On what grounds can this be appealed?
Sure, they were technically free to convince on any of the different degrees of homicide, or to exonerate of the charges completely. But do you honestly think that each, if not most, jurors didn’t feel at least the shadow of duress during the trial? Each is known, or can be known, and murderous BLM goons would have no compunction about exacting their own “street justice” against any dissenters.
It can be appealed on the basis of TESTIMONY of law enforcement professionals questioned, that they saw that the incident did NOT rise to the level of a crime, at least not to the higher level of “murder.” That was a fatal mistake in this case, but the jurors saw that the mob wanted their pound of flesh, and so gave them what they wanted.