Chauvin's attorney, Eric Nelson of Halberg Criminal Defense, argued at a hearing Wednesday morning that the prosecution, which rested its case on Tuesday, had provided so many expert opinions on the use of force and the cause of Floyd's death that they had introduced reasonable doubt by contradicting each other.
While the state's medical experts said Floyd died of asphyxia, Hennepin County Medical Examiner Andrew Baker's testimony suggested Floyd's "heart simply couldn't handle the stress" of his arrest, Nelson said.
And while six different use of force experts said the way Chauvin pressed his knee into Floyd's neck was excessive, they disagreed about when the force became unacceptable, Nelson said. Sgt. Jody Stiger of the Los Angeles Police Department said Floyd was resisting arrest and that the way officers manhandled him at first was reasonable. But University of South Carolina law professor Seth Stoughton said Chauvin used unreasonable force from the very beginning of the encounter.
"You have a myriad of inconsistent, complicated use of force opinions that really demonstrate the difficulty of establishing beyond a reasonable doubt that the use of force was objectively unreasonable," Nelson said. "The state has essentially introduced doubt in the context of providing multiple opinions from multiple experts, all of whom seemed to contradict each other."
Steve Schleicher, a partner at Maslon LLP working pro bono for the prosecution, countered, "The issue is not whether there are minor inconsistencies. The issue is whether as a whole the state has proved its case."
Hennepin County District Court Judge Peter Cahill agreed.
Judge Cahill said the standard for a judgment of acquittal was not the same as the "reasonable doubt" standard for a jury verdict.
"Even when there are inconsistencies — major or minor — between witnesses, the jury is free to believe some and not others and when viewing the set of facts," he said. "They could give their greatest weight to those witnesses who establish the use of force was unreasonable and the cause of death was positional asphyxia."
The defense's failed bid came only a few days before the scheduled end of trial. Closing arguments are set for Monday, at which point the jury will sequester for deliberations.
That could represent the end of a long road in a case that began with the death of George Floyd last Memorial Day. The case quickly became international news last spring, when millions of people viewed a bystander's video of Floyd's arrest.
That footage showed Chauvin pinning Floyd's neck down on the ground for about nine minutes, as Floyd, who was suspected of using a counterfeit $20 bill, begged him to stop, said he couldn't breathe and eventually lost consciousness. The video of a Black man gasping for breath under the knee of a white police officer was viewed by millions and rekindled nationwide racial justice protests last summer.
Prosecutors allege that Chauvin used an unreasonable amount of force for too long and should have known he was killing Floyd.
The defense, which began presenting its case-in-chief on Tuesday, has argued that Chauvin used a reasonable amount of force because Floyd was resisting arrest and that Floyd didn't die because of Chauvin's actions but because of a host of other reasons — chronic heart disease, drug addiction and a rare tumor that may have secreted adrenaline.
On Wednesday, Nelson, Chauvin's attorney, spent hours questioning a defense medical expert, Dr. David Fowler, the former medical examiner for the state of Maryland. Fowler has worked as a forensic pathologist for more than three decades. He backed the defense's assertions and offered some other contributing factors in the death.
Fowler said Floyd's enlarged heart demanded extra oxygen, while plaque buildup had narrowed his coronary arteries. The methamphetamine in Floyd's system put him at risk for arrhythmia, and the fentanyl in his body would have slowed his breathing, reducing the oxygen saturation in his blood, Fowler testified.
Fowler also suggested that exhaust from the tailpipe of a nearby police squad car would have exposed Floyd to carbon monoxide, which "has the potential to rob some of the additional oxygen-carrying capacity."
"You've got multiple entities, all acting together and adding to each other and taking away the ability to get oxygen into his heart," he said.
Fowler also noted that according to Floyd's autopsy, Chauvin's knee hadn't caused any broken bones, bruising or spinal injury, which "speaks to the amount of force that was applied to Mr. Floyd." He also cited various studies — that witnesses for the prosecution had previously criticized — suggesting the risk of asphyxia from lying on one's stomach while restrained is overblown.
Based on all that, Fowler said, he doubted he would have deemed the manner of death a homicide as the Hennepin County medical examiner had.
Nelson also used Fowler's testimony to introduce a still from the body-camera footage of one of Chauvin's fellow officers, who initially approached Floyd and handcuffed him. In the still, Floyd appeared to have a white substance in the back of his mouth. Nelson suggested that could pinpoint the time Floyd ingested the drugs and would suggest he was still metabolizing them when he was prone on the ground a few minutes later.
During cross-examination, Jerry Blackwell, chairman of the Minneapolis law firm Blackwell Burke PA who is working pro bono for the prosecution, showed a video of his own. In surveillance footage from inside the Cup Foods store, where Floyd allegedly spent the counterfeit bill, Floyd appeared to be chewing gum.
Blackwell also noted that when Floyd died, he was "sandwiched" between Chauvin and the pavement.
"Do you agree," he asked Fowler, "that if pressure is applied to someone's neck in the prone position and the person is squeezed until they become unresponsive, and if that pressure is maintained for a minimum of four minutes, that can cause irreversible brain damage because the brain is starved of oxygen?"
Fowler agreed that it takes four minutes of oxygen deprivation to damage the brain.
Blackwell also suggested through his questioning that Fowler's focus on arrhythmia was slightly misleading, because all it meant was a stopping of the heart.
"If a person is deprived of oxygen, they'll have a fatal arrhythmia," Blackwell said.
"Correct," Fowler agreed. "Everyone in this room will have a fatal arrhythmia at some point."
--Editing by Jill Coffey.
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