On May 31, prosecutors learned Floyd died of an overdose. On August 25, they admitted it in court.
Charges against the officers still have not been dismissed. One remains in jail, in super-max prison, in Oak Park Heights.
I seem to recall someone in the comments lecturing me on the ethical duties of a prosecutor as explanation why he was confident the state would win a conviction. Yeah? Not when your own medical examiner concedes it was an overdose.
I’m ready for my apology. I bet Chauvin is, too. I wonder if the Lawyer’s Board of Professional Responsibility is taking complaints in person these days, or on-line only. Because sitting on exculpatory evidence for three months, publicly branding a man you know to be innocent as a murder, encouraging people to riot to protest a crime that never occured . . . those acts seem to violate the Rules of Professional Conduct, particularly Rules 3.8 (a), (d) and (f).
Joe Doakes
Part of my enduring pessimism about politics in Minnesota is that, between the media, the irregularities in the election system, and the mass of brainwashed droogs that would vote DFL if Josef Mengele came back from the dead and got the DFL endorsement by standing on his head while chanting “Black Cadavers Matter” and give him 70% of the vote anyway, is that accountability – at least, the accountability not manifested by people voting with their feet – always evades them.
If it doesn’t happen soon – in some form other than “Minneapolis turning into a cold Flint” – I’m not sure that it’ll matter anymore.
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I had an interesting though futile text message exchange with a campaign worker for Senator Tina Smith. I got the impression she was unaware of Floyd’s Fentanyl blood levels and the fact the autopsy showed none of the typical signs of asphyxiation: tracheal damage, hyoid bone fracture, hemorrhage into the eyes. A lot of people are walking around with eyes wide shut.
I lectured, but did not lecture Doakes, and would not characterize my lecture as something something the “ethical duties of the prosecutor’.
That GF was super high must be reckoned with. Chauvin still killed him.
On Friday a judge will be ruling on whether or not charges should be dismissed for three of the four officers. My company has an office downtown on Washington and Nicollet. Only a handful of my co-workers actually go there right now, but yesterday the company sent messages that all Minneapolis employees stay away from the office tomorrow, because of the potential reaction to the judge’s decision.
^ The charges aren’t going to be dismissed. I don’t care who the judge is, he doesn’t have the balls to dismiss the charges even if warranted.
JK – You may be right regarding whether the charges will be dismissed. The judge will have the same information that the prosecutors had, but didn’t get until after they filed charges. The decision in early June, obviously, was that it was too dangerous – physically and politically – to say, “Oops, never mind”, regardless of the facts. The judge may still come to the same conclusion – again out of fear, not facts. As for Chauvin’s role, the 2nd degree charge against he and the others has always seemed a bit of a reach. Manslaughter is more likely, but if the defense can show that MPD training videos show that the neck restraint was policy (and they say they can) this becomes even harder. Regardless, it’s going to get ugly.
John K – I was refering to this comment on an earlier post:
“News flash for you, SJ, prosecutors are prohibited by cannons of practice (and the law) from filing charges they don’t have a good reason to believe can be upheld. If Chauvin is wrongly convicted then he’ll easily win on appeal if the cause of death is so easily attributable to Fentanyl.”
It’s the sort of ignorant comment that makes experienced attorneys sigh in despair. After your client sits in jail for a year awaiting trial, after he spends six figures on attorneys’ fees, after he’s wrongfully convicted and sent to prison for a crime he didn’t commit, after his good name has been dragged through the mud for another year awaiting the Court of Appeals decision, there’s a chance they might reverse the trial court judgment and send the case back for a new trial. And that’s “justice?” We’re supposed to be satisfied with that?
The prosecutor should have dropped the charges the day his own Medical Examiner told him it was death by overdose, not death by cop. Any consideration of placating the mob by continuing unjust charges against a man you know to be innocent is worse than unethical, it’s evil.
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I agree with JD. Not only unethical, but evil.
The calculation isn’t about ethics, but consequences. “What’s the worst Chauvin can do to us? Sue, get a huge settlement, while the public believes we did the right thing based on the video. What can the mob do to us? Hang us from the lampposts. Let’s go with Option A.”
Alexandre Dumas covered this in The Count of Monte Cristo.
the Emery’s are sycophant apologists devoted to deflecting, defending, denying, and dissembling on behalf of serial murderers (lets name them; Cuomo, deBlasio, Whitmer, Lightfoot, Walz, Malcom, Inslee, Newsom, Pelosi, Schumer, and Harris) whom they knowingly aid and abet in their crimes. To just now twig to the evil that the Emerys knowingly propagate is disappointing.
To say that Chauvin definitely killed Floyd, you’ve more or less got to prove that (a) Chauvin had a dose of Narcan on him or on one of his colleagues and (b) that a dose of Narcan would have saved the life of a man with ~ 4x the ordinary lethal dose of Fentanyl in his veins, and then that (c) he would have had good evidence that Floyd needed it. I’m guessing the answers are no, no to maybe, and maybe.
I don’t believe Chauvin belongs in a police uniform, but the evidence doesn’t support the charges, as far as I can tell. There are, to put it mildly, a bunch of prosecutors who need to be looking for other work as well for going with this charade.
^ That isn’t the framing of how it’s understood Chauvin killed Floyd, that doesn’t have to be proved at all. The county autopsy asserts he was induced into an MI by not being able to breathe because Chauvin kneeled on his neck for 7 minutes. That’s what the prosecution will argue.
The jury can accept that over the defense’s argument about fentanyl, which will be powerful and substantial sounds like.
I dunno, John K. I can’t find what you assert in the autopsy. Maybe I’m missing it for the jargon. Would you mind pointing it out?
https://www.hennepin.us/-/media/hennepinus/residents/public-safety/documents/floyd-autopsy-6-3-20.pdf
Notice that I’m referring to the official autopsy report which was signed by the Medical Examiner on June 1, the day after the toxicology report came back.
Are you perhaps referring to the preliminary autopsy that was released May 26, before the toxicology report came back? That one was merely a preliminary report, it is not the final official report, and it won’t be the evidence introduced at trial.
Either I’m horribly confused, or you are. Help me out, please.
I’d appreciate a clarification too, John.
my… my… my…
According to the television reporters covering the hearing from an overflow room, Hennepin County District Judge Peter Cahill decided to disqualify Freeman and his staff from the case, calling their work “sloppy” because they sent prosecutors to question the medical examiner, making them witnesses in the case.
Funny how Mr NeverInDoubt went so quiet. I’m sure he just needs time this weekend to pore over that pdf, JD. And wasn’t there a bet, Swifty? I wonder if the judge, the defense team, an eventual jury will need protection?
The one thing that strikes me as problematic with the official report and the toxicology results is that the police lost Floyd’s pulse a couple of minutes before the knee was off his neck. That noted, if the drug would be wandering in death from blood to other tissues, we might guess that as Floyd’s life ebbed away, his blood levels were even higher.
Can’t do the experiment, obviously, but as far as I can tell, the obvious “to dos” for the MInneapolis PD are (a) stop restraining people that you’ve got cuffed and are unconscious and (b) learn how to recognize the signs of narcotic-induced respiratory distress and administer Narcan (or other remedies) in a timely way.