Mark Osler watched in amazement as a medical expert testified for the defense in Derek Chauvin’s murder trial.
Osler, a professor of law at the University of St. Thomas School of Law in Minnesota, said he wonders why the defense in a race-driven case would rely so heavily on a ‘white expert’ raised in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). ) and trained in South Africa during apartheid.
“He spent much of his life in places where white supremacy was literally a form of government,” Osler said. “People with that background are not necessarily racists, but the symbolic link with historical racism was unmistakable.”
Eventually, he said, he decided they probably had no better options. The defense called only seven witnesses, including only two experts: a violent expert and the medical expert, Dr. David Fowler.
“I really thought the defense would have more arrows in their quiver – but I would imagine they were having trouble finding credible facts and expert witnesses given the nature of the case,” he said.
This was a conclusion by several legal experts who commented on the prosecution and defense, both of which are now resting their cases after nearly three weeks of testimony in the case which has been closely watched.
“The defense was actually weaker than I thought,” said David Schultz, a visiting professor of law at the University of Minnesota. “I expected more witnesses and more medical evidence.”
Schultz said he suspects other witnesses seeking defense attorney Eric Nelson did not want to testify because they were worried they would be considered ‘on the wrong side of history’.
Chauvin is charged with second- and third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter in the death of George Floyd, who cried out for his breath and stuck his mother lying on the ground under Chauvin’s knee for what prosecutors said was more than nine. minute. The trial set out the last moments of Floyd’s life in exciting detail.
Anxious eyewitnesses testified about their grief because they could not help him. Medical experts told jurors how long it takes to get one’s body’s oxygen. Police officers tried to distance themselves from someone who was one of their own less than a year ago.
And the viral video that rocked this nation and others – which provoked protests, calls for racial justice and demands for police reform – was played to jurors almost every day.
The prosecutor argued that Floyd died of insufficient oxygen or asphyxia caused by Chauvin’s knee pressed to his neck while he was pinned to the ground with his hands handcuffed behind him. The defense said Floyd’s drug use and a bad heart are to blame.
Chauvin did not want to testify and appealed to his fifth amendment to avoid self-incrimination. The closing arguments begin Monday.
All in all, Osler said, the prosecution was much more effective – not because of the lawyers, but because of their witnesses, specifically the Minneapolis police chief, Medaria Arradondo and dr. Martin Tobin, a world-renowned pulmonologist. They were among 38 people called to the standpoint by the prosecution.
“The two strongest witnesses in the trial were Chief Arradondo and Dr. Tobin, who both spoke in clear language without ambiguity and from a wide range of experience,” Osler said. “On the other hand, the defense witnesses were much less convincing.”
Nelson argued that Chauvin merely followed the training he received during a 19-year career, but Arradondo was among a handful of veteran police officers who testified otherwise. Prosecutors were also able to dig holes in the testimony of the defense’s violent expert, Barry Brodd, who testified that Chauvin did not use lethal force.
Brodd testified that Chauvin’s actions were partly justified because Floyd did not comply. According to him, a person who was comfortable would rest ‘comfortably’ on the sidewalk while pinned under Chauvin’s knee.
“Did you say ‘comfortable rest’?” prosecutor Steven Schleicher asked Brodd.
“Or lying comfortably,” Brodd replies.
“Quiet on the sidewalk?” Ask Schleicher.
“Yes,” said Brodd.
Eventually, he admitted that Chauvin’s knee to Floyd’s neck was probably causing Floyd’s pain and that it could therefore be considered violence.
Schultz said he believes the prosecution is the testimony of multiple medical experts, such as Tobin, a specialist in lung and critical care at Edward Hines Jr. VA Hospital and Loyola University Medical School in Illinois, should be considered a victory. Tobin testified that “a healthy person subject to what Mr. Floyd was subject to would die.” He said Floyd died of a low level of oxygen caused by shallow breathing.
Dr Andrew Baker, the Hennepin County medical examiner who performed an autopsy on Floyd and declared his death a homicide, testified that fentanyl and heart disease contributed to Floyd’s death, but that the actions of the police officers was the main cause.
The more technical and specialized testimony of medical experts and the police is balanced with that of everyday people who went through their day when they encountered Floyd and Chauvin.
Darnella Frazier, who was 17 when she recorded the now viral video and uploaded it to Facebook, emotionally testified that Floyd’s death haunted her. Several bystanders cried on the stand. They said they felt helpless when they saw Floyd die and that Chauvin looked indifferent before their pleas.
“They all testified to the horror they saw,” Schultz said. “I think it helps a jury to deduce a corrupt mind or criminal negligence, standards necessary to prove a third-degree murder or a second-degree manslaughter.”
“There was a logic and sequence of what they were doing here,” Schultz added.
Rebecca Kavanagh, a criminal lawyer in New York who is closely monitoring the case, said: “What is more surprising to me than the quality of the prosecution is the flawed defense. I want to contrast that with the strong defense team George Zimmerman had, which in my opinion was probably instrumental in his acquittal. ‘
Nelson, according to her, proves that the team of prosecutors does not match: Keith Ellison, Minnesota’s first African-American elected attorney general; Steven Schleicher, a former federal prosecutor and veteran attorney; Jerry Blackwell, who in June 2020 received a posthumous pardon for a Black man wrongly convicted of rape before the 1920 Duluth lynchings; Matthew Frank, a 21-year veteran of the Attorney General’s Office; Erin Eldridge, a former federal prosecutor who joined the attorney general’s office in 2018, and several others.
“He’s not terrible,” Kavanagh said of Nelson. “He just can not stand the persecution.”
As powerful as the case of the prosecution was, Kavanagh said, a conviction is far from certain because of the racial composition of the jury and the possibility of implicit prejudice to come into play.
Fourteen jurors, including two deputies, listened to the case.
It includes nine women and five men. Eight of the jurors identify as white, four as black and two as mixed race. They are between 20 and 60.
‘I remembered that it felt anything but inevitable that George Zimmerman would be convicted and a jury of six women, five of whom were white, acquitted him. We saw in that case that race trumps gender. And we see it time and time again in I’m afraid it could happen to a majority white jury in this case again, ‘she said. “I fear that in this case it could happen again with a majority-white jury.”
Kavanagh said she believes the prosecution did a good job through the testimony of white witnesses.
“Many of the law enforcers who testified against Chauvin were white and, very critically, the expert forensic and medical experts were white,” she said. “Dr. Tobin was perhaps the most important here. Objectively, he was just an incredible witness, with probably untouchable credibility, but there is no doubt that his whiteness, his Irish accent, everything, as far as implicit prejudice was concerned, contributed to a appearance of authority. “
One of the obvious mistakes she said is that the prosecution was apparently ill-prepared for the defense to introduce a theory that carbon monoxide poisoning through car exhausts played a role in Floyd’s death.
She said prosecutors should have expected the defense to cast doubt that way. Instead, prosecutors had to recall Tobin at the scene as evidence for refuting the claim.
‘Although I thought it was helpful to dr. To let Tobin hear the last word, it was less helpful to have the final testimony about what should be a non-issue in the trial, and to remind him in some way to testify about it could allow jurors to think it is more important than it is, ”she said.
Schultz said during the closing arguments that the prosecutor should remind the jury that Chauvin should be found guilty of murder, that he should determine that his self-control of Floyd was a ‘material causal factor’ in his death, and not that it was the cause. . They will also have to make one last attempt to convince jurors Chauvin had a spoiled mood when he knelt on Floyd.
What the defense is going to want to do is confuse the jurors, Schultz and Osler said.
“The defense has a lot more work to do in the closing argument,” Osler said. “The challenge for Eric Nelson is to put together several different threads of evidence to form something that will create reasonable doubt.”