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| -War on Police- |
| Chauvin Trial - Day 10 Wrap-up by Branco |
| 2021-04-12 |
| [Legal Insurrection] OK folks, I’m playing a bit of catch-up here on last Friday’s testimony of state witnesses, Dr. Lindsey Thomas, a forensic pathologist retained as another expert witness for the state, and Dr. Andrew Baker, the Hennepin County Medical Examiner who conducted the autopsy of George Floyd. In the case of both Thomas and Baker, there was a common pattern in the nature of their testimony. On direct questioning by Prosecutor Blackwell they would both say the magic words they certainly knew the state needed them to say on the witness stand; in effect, and perhaps even literally word-for-word; they identified the primary cause of George Floyd's death as asphyxia complicated by law enforcement subdual restraint and neck compression. When asked on direct if any of the other notable factors everyone knew the defense would raise on cross; the existing cardiovascular disease with 75% to 90% occlusion of all three major coronary arteries, the hypertension-induced enlarged heart, the presence of fentanyl and methamphetamine in Floyd's system, the adrenaline induced by Floyd's poorly made decision to fight four police officers for 10 minutes; could any of that have been the cause of Floyd’s death. The answer was a flat no, period. Floyd's death could only be attributable to asphyxia complicated by law enforcement subdual restraint and neck compression. Good for the state, right? On cross examination, however, both Thomas and Baker agreed that every single one of those factors, by themselves, even in the absence of any police involvement, or any of the other factors, if viewed in isolation could be an entirely reasonable cause of death for an official death certificate. (I'm amalgamating the responses of both Thomas and Baker, as they were so similar; video of their individual cross-examination testimony is embedded below for those wishing a more granular sense of what each said.) In other words, had Floyd been found dead at home and autopsy revealed the 75% to 90% occlusion of his three major coronary arteries, would it have been reasonable for a medical examiner to attribute cause of death to that heart condition? Yes. |
| Posted by:Mercutio |
| #12 Of course, when juries used to convict and sentence to death teenage blacks for whistling at white women, that was wrong. This? Not so much. |
| Posted by: M. Murcek 2021-04-12 17:03 |
| #11 It is fun to argue the legal niceties, but I fear the jury already made up its mind. It is not the first time in history that a human sacrifice was offered up to satisfy angry gods. |
| Posted by: SteveS 2021-04-12 15:44 |
| #10 Does not a 'murder' conviction require establishment of intent and/or motive? Where is the police officer's intent or motive ? Has the police officer 'murdered' other people in a like manner. Has anyone in the officer's department murdered anyone in a like manner? |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2021-04-12 15:29 |
| #9 Agreed. This is a reverse lynching in slow-mo. Get out of the mob's way, or you'll be lynched too |
| Posted by: Blossom Bourbon6278 2021-04-12 13:53 |
| #8 #6, concluding that way is one thing. Voting that way in the jury room is quite another when the mob threatens you, your family and your home. I would not want to be one of those jurors. |
| Posted by: Abu Uluque 2021-04-12 13:22 |
| #7 What country are we living in? A country where gender is a matter of how you feel about it? |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2021-04-12 12:46 |
| #6 What reasonable person would NOT conclude that this lifelong drug-abusing scumbag with 75-90% blocked arteries -- this freak who filled his mouth with EVEN MORE pills laced with fentanyl upon arrest, and who was also "hooping" meth, fer crissake -- how could you not conclude that this asshole died of a drug overdose? Why is this trial even taking place? What country are we living in? |
| Posted by: Eohippus Lover of the Platypi5804 2021-04-12 12:25 |
| #5 #3, Squinty, it's called reasonable doubt. In a perfect world, it would be all that Chauvin needs. Too bad we know that Minneapolis is far from perfect. The pre-trial publicity was extremely prejudicial, the local establishment seeks only to appease the mob outside the court house and that mob threatens the jury. To establish reasonable doubt, Eric Nelson must convince the jury that Floyd had so much fentanyl in his system that he would die no matter what the cops did. If Nelson can do that, understandably a big if in the toxic atmosphere of this trial, he will become the most celebrated criminal defense lawyer in the country. |
| Posted by: Abu Uluque 2021-04-12 12:17 |
| #4 What did Judge Roy Bean say? "This morning we are going to give this man a fair trial. After lunch we are going to hang him..." |
| Posted by: M. Murcek 2021-04-12 10:52 |
| #3 Apparently (per Dershowitz and also Minneapolis lawyer John Hinderaker) the standard of causality that's being applied in this trial is NOT whether Floyd's death was primarily or necessarily caused by "subdual" i.e. Bury-George's-Heart-At-Officer's-Bended-Knee. Instead, the wording in the Minnesota statute which both sides allowed the judge to apply to Chauvin's knee is "a substantial cause." So not the necessary condition, or even a necessary condition, but this slippery, vague bullshit term "substantial." Q's: Are the jurors going to interpret "substantial" to mean what logicians and Jesuits call a necessary condition of the observed outcome, i.e. what lawyers mean by their term "but for..."? As in, "But for the automatic override feature in the 737's avionics software, the 737 pilot would necessarily have righted the plan and avoided a crash" or "But for Our Lord's intercession and death on the Cross, we would necessarily all be deprived of eternal life...." OR Does "a substantial cause" mean simply a contributing factor that merely compounded the much more fundamental cause? For example, say a person with four times the legal amount of alcohol in his blood goes driving in a snowstorm on New Year's Eve, revs it up to 90mph and then hits an overpass, hurling himself through the windshield and killing himself. He didn't wear a seat belt. Was his failure to buckle up a "substantial" cause of death? Without actually replicating the particulars of that accident, and setting some kind of statistical threshold for your fuzzy notion, "substantial", how would you or anyone arrive at a valid answer to this question? How the hell do you expect an intelligent estimation from a jury made up of non-specialists lacking such a simulation of the event, and lacking the resulting accurate measurements and knowledge of how to interpret them? This standard -- "a substantial" cause of death -- is a smokescreen for what is nothing more than a politically ordered, fore-ordained conclusion. AKA a Show Trial. What a disgrace. |
| Posted by: Squinty Dribble7780 2021-04-12 09:11 |
| #2 ....had Floyd been found dead at home and autopsy revealed the 75% to 90% occlusion of his three major coronary arteries, would it have been reasonable for a medical examiner to attribute cause of death to that heart condition? Yes. In other words, many people expire from these symptoms WITHOUT police assistance. Could a jury conclude 'beyond a reasonable doubt' that the trauma of the ride to the station, booking process, slamming of the cell door, or anxiety from forced drug withdrawal would not have resulted in his death ? Can the prosecution list other instances where police restraint such as that used on Floyd has resulted in death ? |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2021-04-12 08:05 |
| #1 ! |
| Posted by: Mercutio 2021-04-12 07:47 |
