Former police officer Derek Chauvin’s attorneys followed the wrong approach when questioning the prosecutor’s expert witness, Civil Rights Attorney David Henderson said Thursday.
“They did no harm,” Henderson told CNBC’s “The News with Shepard Smith.” “You’re not trying to wrestle with a gorilla. This doctor is very clear, he knows more than you about medical things.”
Dr Martin Tobin, the prosecutor’s medical witness, is a well-known lung specialist working in critical care. He concluded that “Floyd died of low oxygen levels.” Tobin’s testimony comes on the ninth day of Chauvin’s murder trial.
Chauvin’s defender, Eric Nelson, suggested that Tobin’s report captured only a small portion of what happened during George Floyd’s arrest last May.
Henderson explained that Chauvin’s defense team did not focus instead on the medical details on an ‘in’ that Tobin gave them during testimony.
The Chicago-based doctor said there were four major factors that contributed to Floyd’s suffocation. He said Floyd was “prone to being on the street, that he had the shackles in place, combined with the street, that he had a knee on his neck, and that he had a knee on his back and on his side . “
Henderson added that Chauvin’s knee to Floyd’s neck was only one of the factors.
“There are three other factors, because Derek Chauvin’s knee has to be the essential contributing factor, that’s what you had to do cross-examination about,” Henderson said. “There are three other ways in which George could have caused Floyd’s death, which are not directly attributable. [Chauvin]. “
Henderson, a former prosecutor and CNBC contributor, also said Tobin had effectively “flattened” the defense’s argument that drugs – especially fentanyl – could have caused the death of George Floyd.
Chauvin’s defense team did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.