Does “reversed on appeal” mean the verdict will be changed by an appeal court to not guilty, or that the verdict will be vacated and there will be another trial?
The latter I think by a slam dunk.
No appellate courts either confirm verdicts or vacate verdicts and remand (or dismiss with prejudice, depending on the circumstances). They won’t replace a jury verdict with one of their own.
Generally, appellate courts give jury decisions incredibly broad latitude. Cases are almost never reversed on appeal based upon an appellate court’s finding that the evidence didn’t merit the verdict the jury reached. The chances of that happening in this case are zero.
Instead, Chauvin’s lawyers will have to demonstrate that the judge, rather than the jury, committed a reversible error, either in the application of the law as instructed to the jurors or in once of the decision he made during the course of the trial, like refusing the defense’s many motions (ie change of venue request).