The testimony of forensic pathologists in Minneapolis, including the doctor who performed the autopsy of George Floyd, was in the murder trial of Derek Chauvin, a former Minneapolis police officer, on Friday.
Lindsey Thomas, a semi-retired forensic pathologist with more than 35 years of experience, began the tenth day of the trial in the high-profile case.
Forensic and other medical specialists were a mainstay during the latter part of the week’s testimony, and the prosecutor focused on May 25 on Floyd’s cause of death.
Cause of death is an important battlefield in the trial.
To hold the most serious charge of Chauvin – second-degree murder – the prosecution must prove that Chauvin intended to attack Floyd by kneeling on his neck for about nine minutes and killing him unintentionally in the process.
During the trial, graphic bystanders of the fatal arrest were regularly played, showing how Floyd pleaded with Chauvin and said he could not breathe. Chauvin continued to kneel on Floyd after he stopped responding and did not release self-control until paramedics arrived on the scene.
Floyd had no pulse when paramedics arrived, and was later pronounced dead at Hennepin County Medical Center.
Prosecution defended the defense
The prosecution has repeatedly pointed to the cause of death that appeared in Floyd’s autopsy report by the Hennepin County Medical Officer’s Office: ‘Cardiopulmonary arrest [the stopping of both the heart and lungs] complicates complicated law enforcement, self-control and neck compression. ”
But Chauvin’s defense attorney, Eric Nelson, insisted Floyd had died from a combination of the drugs in his system and his underlying heart disease.
The defense’s position took a hit on Thursday when pulmonologist Martin Tobin drew the jury’s attention with his testimony in which he stated that Floyd died of oxygen deficiency, also known as suffocation.
“Mr. Floyd died of a low amount of oxygen, and it damaged his brain we see, and it also caused an ERW [pulseless electrical activity] arrhythmia that stopped his heart, ”Martin Tobin told prosecutor Jerry Blackwell.
Tobin also showed up at the moment when he believed that Floyd’s oxygen level had reached zero.
“The knee remained on the neck for another three minutes and two seconds after we reached the point that there was not one gram of oxygen left in the body,” Tobin told the court.
Like Tobin, Thomas’ testimony refuted allegations that Chauvin’s actions did not lead to Floyd’s death.
Thomas, who spent much of her career at the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office, dismantled the declared cause of Floyd’s death.
She explained to the court that the term ‘cardiac arrest’ is not unique – everyone’s heart and lungs stop when they die – but that forensic pathologists use the term to distinguish from cardiac arrest – a heart attack.
“What this means for me is that the activities of law enforcement have led to Mr. Floyd’s death,” Thomas said. “Mr Floyd was in a position because of the covert self-control and [neck] compression, where he could not get enough oxygen to maintain his bodily functions. ”
Thomas later drove to her home during her testimony, saying, “There is no evidence that he would die that night, except for the interaction with law enforcement.”
The author of Floyd’s autopsy report testifies
After the court lunch, Andrew Baker, the Hennepin County medical examiner who performed Floyd’s autopsy, takes a stand.
In his afternoon testimony, Baker admits that Floyd did have an underlying heart disease – a slightly enlarged heart and multiple coronary arteries – as well as fentanyl and methamphetamine in his system.
The doctor told the court he referred to them as ‘significant conditions’ because he believed they played a role in Floyd’s death but were not direct reasons.
“In my opinion, law enforcement was submissive restriction and the neck compaction was just more than Mr. Floyd could take on the basis of these heart conditions,” he told the court.
Nelson’s cross-examination of Baker was lengthy, but the doctor often dismissed what he had said before, or of specialists such as pulmonologists and toxicologists who had already testified during the trial.
‘I would still classify [Floyd’s death] today as a murder, ‘Baker told Blackwell at the end of his testimony.
A murder order has a different meaning in autopsies. Medical examiners have five possible names to choose from when determining their cause of death: Of course, accident, suicide, homicide and indefinite.
Murder in his field of forensic pathology, Baker explained, means death by someone else.
Look ahead
Thomas and Baker were the only two witnesses to testify Friday.
Before Peter Cahill, a judge in Hennepin, adjourned the court just before 4pm local time over the weekend, he told the jury that there was one more medical doctor who would testify on Monday.
The prosecution is expected to rest early next week and drop the defense’s testimony.