Muldoon wrote:
Borya wrote:Doesn't this argument apply equally the other way around? Someone who is being knelt on by police might have died of a drug overdose, but someone who has taken drugs might have died as a result of being knelt on by police.
Yes, the argument could apply the other way around. But I don’t think it has anywhere near as much strength. A lethal level of drugs, by definition, will kill a person. Floyd had a lethal level of drugs in his body (he ingested a LOT of fentanyl he was in possession of when the police showed up). Knee restraints to the neck are seldom lethal - we would know about it if they were. So when the standard is “reasonable doubt” as to whether Chauvin’s knee restraint was the cause of death, which it must be to get a conviction, the lethal level of drugs in Floyd's system would seem to at least raise reasonable doubt as to whether Chauvin’s knee restraint was the cause of death.
It doesn’t really work as well the other way around. It is theoretically possible to murder someone who is about to die of other causes. The example I’ve been given in the past is that if someone falls off a 100 foot cliff (from which they will surely die), and someone shoots them through the heart on the way down, that would still be an illegal homicide, despite the fact that the person would have died seconds later from the fall. The prosecution may decide to argue that Chauvin’s knee restraint was the cause of death before the drugs killed Floyd. It’s possible that could be the case, but there seems to be reasonable doubt there too. He was going to die in minutes or seconds, then Chauvin jumped in and killed him before he was going to die anyway? Seems like a stretch to me. But it could work.
I suppose the prosecution may try to challenge whether the fentanyl was lethal at all. That seems very difficult to do, and even trying that could hurt the prosecution’s credibility. Their best option seems to be just to play the video of Floyd’s death over and over, as many times as possible, and hope the emotional impact of the video, coupled with vague allegations of racism, makes the jury upset enough to ignore the fentanyl evidence. That seems to work on many of the posters in this thread.
Borya wrote:
I think you may have been disingenuous. Medical examiner Baker said that Floyd's toxicology report showed he had a "fatal level of fentanyl under normal circumstances" and that "if he were found dead at home alone and no other apparent causes, this could be acceptable to call an OD."
An independent autopsy found his death was a "homicide caused by asphyxia due to neck and back compression that led to a lack of blood flow to the brain."
I'm not sure if these are the same report/autopsy, in which case it seems they acknowledged drugs but did not conclude they killed him. Otherwise it seems there are differing reports, in which case how do we know who and what we should believe?
I think I pointed out earlier that the “independent autopsy” you mentioned was one commissioned by Floyd’s family (and their lawyers who have a huge civil action payday in the works). It’s an autopsy of a body already autopsied, so there are missing body parts, parts that can’t be tested twice, body structures that were destroyed in the first autopsy, and of course it is inherently biased and not “independent” in the sense that it was done for neutral purposes. Such autopsies seldom get admitted. The state would be saying its own independent examiner is not good enough, so the jury should listen to someone Floyd’s family hired? I don’t see that. Anyway, I think most people would give it very little weight whatever it says.
Borya wrote:
How can we hope to find out the cause of death and whether the police response was appropriate?
Won't prosecutors and defenders each find experts to argue it was the knee/drugs that killed him and the knee restraints was unjustified/justified? How do we know which expert to believe if differing claims are presented?
The prosecution and defense will do that. A person has to just make determinations based on the facts presented, and other things like how credible the expert witnesses are, whether what they say is making sense, etc. You and I won’t get to see a lot of that, not being jurors. But basically that's how you do it, and you try not to let bias or emotion get in your way, and you keep in mind the legal standard of proof and which side has the burden of proof. It's not always easy, but I think most juries take it seriously.
Borya wrote:
Are there cases where someone was not harmed after having a knee on their neck for 8 minutes? Unless there are examples of the police using this restraint for so long against compliant suspects, I can't see how they can justify Chauvin's actions.
I don’t know if there are, but I’d guess there are many such cases. Police restrain tens of thousands of people a year, and from what I’ve read, they often use knee restraints like Chauvin did. They aren’t often (if ever) lethal or intended to be lethal. I assume there will be a lot of trial testimony on that. But again, as someone else pointed out, Chauvin’s behavior can be completely unjustified (and probably was at some point) and he could even be guilty of assault on Floyd, but still not be the cause of death. It sure doesn’t look like it was the cause of death. Floyd had 11ng/ml of Fentanyl (and other other drugs in his system), which was suppressing his respiration (Floyd said so before Chauvin ever went near him), and it killed him, unless you believe Chauvin killed him just before he would have died from the drugs overdose seconds or minutes later.
You are more knowledgeable about the autopsies than I am, but parts of your arguments rely on misplaced certainties.
You say that Floyd ingested a lethal dose, but do we know the dose was lethal for him? Might he have a higher tolerance than most people? Don't people have very widely varying tolerances? Floyd was a big man, so isn't it possible he had a bigger tolerance.
Also, why would he have knowingly taken a dose which he expected to kill him?
You say that people are certain to die if they fall 100ft from a cliff. They will in the majority of cases, but there are people who have survived falls from higher cliffs. If these fall survivors had been shot, they would have died from the gunshot, but you would think, incorrectly, they would have died from the fall. Maybe this fits Floyd's case: most would have died from the drugs, but he died from the restraint. I think because people can survive falls from cliffs, shooting at a faller would always be considered attempted murder. Chauvin could argue he wasn't attempting to kill Floyd, arguing the restraint was making him safer. But I don't see how he can argue that restraining him whilst unconscious was still making him safer. I think that is where the case for attempted murder becomes at least arguable.
Knee restraints seem quite common, but I think they might only be safe for short periods of time (much shorter than Floyd was restrained for). Tony Timpa died as a result of a similar restraint. A man in Ontario did too (no video exists of this incident). The only other cases I can find are of police kneeling for short periods. As I can't find examples of it being done safely for a long time, I'm skeptical that it is safe. My assumption is that it isn't safe and so police use them to get people under control and not to control them for long periods.
It's said that Chauvin was trained not to get off until the ambulance arrived. Surely there must have been incidents where the ambulance took much longer than 8 minutes to arrive. Unless there are such examples, I think it will be hard to justify using it for so long.