Unlike the Sean Bell trial and the Zimmerman trial, I've not been doing daily posts on the subject. The major reason for that is that unlike Sean Bell and Trayvon Martin who were minding their own business before police or other individual made a situation, Floyd was a low life crook, high on drugs who made a series of bad decisions. Hence I don't have any of the sympathy for the "victim" as I had for the others.However; I am still interested in the subject because this trial will be a major test of the US criminal justice [sic] system and how this spring/summer is going to be. To that end I've been watching some of the live coverage and I saw something today that I think will be important to the jury and perhaps a flub by the defense.
There was this black guy, don't recall his name, from LA who was called as an expert in police procedure or something to that effect. There were two points that he made, or was made to make, that established a lot of reasonable doubt. Not necessarily in order:
1) That Chauvin's knee was at the "base of the neck". Now I have a post on the carotid artery that has been referenced by a lot of people. The important part is this:
The carotid arteries are major blood vessels in the neck that supply blood to the brain, neck, and face. There are two carotid arteries, one on the right and one on the left. In the neck, each carotid artery branches into two divisions
Understand that these arteries are on the sides of the neck not the back/base of the neck (you'd have to see the referenced photo exhibit to see why I said "back/base". Picture below:
So the defense got multiple "experts" including the person I referenced to say that Chauvin's knee was NOT on Floyd's carotid artery and therefore could not have cut off oxygen to the brain OR caused a drop in blood pressure leading to death.
This is important so I'll repeat it: The Defense got the expert witnesses to state under oath that it was their professional opinion that Chauvin did NOT asphyxiate Floyd.
When you combine this with the ME report that there was no signs of trauma to the neck, the defense has established that Chauvin could not have killed Floyd even IF he had him down for "too long".
Now, my commentary on the ME report was before I saw the leaked body cam video which I linked to but has been removed from the linked location. When I saw the video I had noticed that Chauvin's knee was not where I thought it was (side of neck) but appeared to be higher up towards the shoulder area. Also that Floyd was able to repeatedly raise his chest off the ground which also meant that his chest cavity was NOT under compression meaning that he could in fact "breath".
Then why was he saying he couldn't breath? Well he started saying that before he was put on the ground. I believe it was the drugs he had taken beginning to affect his body. Remember, he had a fatal dose in his system at the time. He was in fact dying before Chauvin even got there.
So there's that.
The second thing that this guy established was that putting Floyd on the ground and restraining him was appropriate force. No, he didn't say that outright. What he said was that once a suspect is in cuffs, the officer(s) should roll him over, sit him up or otherwise not apply force. However; he also said that the totality of the circumstances is the ultimate arbiter of decision making. So going back to the video we know that Floyd had been cuffed before. We was compliant and THEN became uncompliant when the officers tried to put him in the patrol vehicle. Hence; the jury would have seen that a cuffed suspect who is cooperative may not remain cooperative. Since Floyd had shown himself to be uncooperative even when cuffed, it is reasonable (which is the standard under which the MPD operates) to decide to apply force to a suspect who has just shown to not remain compliant.
Also, if memory serves correctly, since I cannot review the video, Floyd actually asked to be put on the ground rather than be in the vehicle. This is important because the expert witness said that accommodating a "resistant" suspect who may be having an "emotional moment" is an example of de-escalation. So it can be reasonably argued that by putting Floyd on the ground, per his wishes and keeping him there by restraining him due to his previous behavior was actually a de-escalation. Hence you cannot have unjustifiable force during a "de-escalation".
So I think the defense team has caused the witnesses to make their case without realizing they are doing so. I think the defense is actually being pretty non-adversarial as I thought I saw points where they should have pushed the above points, but I'm not a trial lawyer so I could be missing the larger plan.
One thing I did think should be done by the defense is to get a person of Floyd's build to be kneeled on per the video. Have EMTs there and see if the guy passes out. It would be an OJ Simpson "if it doesn't fit..."moment. If the guy can breath and speak after being subject to the same circumstances, trial is over.
Anyway. Two cents. Ponder.
