Good. You stepped right into my trap. Allow me to deconstruct your points. FIRST: to assume that a judge is smart enough or moral enough to even determine that the jury is a good one is to place waaaaaay too much faith in judges. Most I have seen are academia nuts with no common sense. Second, to assume that I dislike Ventura is both a stretch, and not relevant. My only opinion of Ventura to this point was only that he was a political idiot, who never even understood why he won the governorship of Minnesota in the first place.
Now, as a result of this case - suing a widow and someone who can no longer defend himself - because he's dead - is simply proof that he's a despicable human being. But I did not reach that conclusion UNTIL this action. I did not bring it into the discussion.
And third, I've heard a discussion of the merits of the case - and none of the panel could understand what the jury was possibly thinking.
So your turn to try and again defend this jury, this judge, or this verdict. BAD verdicts are reached all the time.
The judge in the case was never an academic. He is a former attorney appointed to the bench by President Bush.
The jury watched Chris Kyle’s deposition, where he admitted that several parts of the account were false. They saw him admit that he tried to remove the story from the book after a friend warned him if it wasn’t true he could be sued. They saw him admit that he agreed to leave it in only if Ventura wasn’t named.
They saw emails from Kyle to the publisher expressing concern that Ventura’s name had been leaked and asking them to ask interviewers not to bring up the incident.
They saw Kyle in his deposition admit that he sent those emails because he was afraid he would be sued.
They heard his widow testify that his repeated claims that all proceeds from the book would be donated to veterans charities and his claims that the book had already raised significant funds were not true.
They saw the witnesses Kyle’s lawyers put on wildly disagree with each other and with Kyle’s account, and from that they concluded that what Kyle said was false.