What to expect in closings for ex-cop’s trial in Floyd death
For three weeks, prosecutors at the trial of a former Minneapolis police officer charged with killing George Floyd played and replayed video, supplementing the bystander video that shocked the world with multiple other angles of Floyd’s arrest. And over and over, Derek Chauvin’s attorney argued that the visual evidence is deceptive, and that Floyd was killed by his drug use and a bad heart.
On Monday, attorneys on both sides will seek to drive home their cases in closing arguments that cover much of the same ground, seeking to tie their evidence into neat packages for jurors.
Prosecutors will draw on expert testimony, videos and other evidence to explain how the white officer’s actions on May 25, when he pinned the Black man’s neck to the pavement with his knee for nearly 9 ½ minutes, were “a substantial cause” of Floyd’s death. And they’ll highlight testimony from top Minneapolis police officials and outside use-of-force experts that an “objectively reasonable” officer would not have used that kind of force.
Meanwhile, defense attorney Eric Nelson will try to persuade jurors that elements of testimony he elicited from prosecution witnesses
and his own witnesses add up to reasonable doubt over what caused Floyd’s death, whether Chauvin is responsible, or whether Floyd deserves a substantial amount of the blame.
“If I was Nelson, I’d do a lot of things, because a lot of things need to be done,” Joe Friedberg, a local defense attorney not involved in the case, said. “He’s in desperate trouble here.”
Both sides gave some insight this week after Nelson asked Hennepin County Judge Peter Cahill to acquit Chauvin. It was a routine motion that was quickly rejected, but both sides covered the main points they will probably make in closing arguments.
Nelson argued that the state’s use-of-force witnesses gave contradictory
evidence on the point at which Chauvin’s use of force became unreasonable. That could be a tough sell, and even Nelson acknowledged that they all agreed it was objectively unreasonable.
Nelson might have more success with another argument that he will surely make again Monday. That’s to hammer at the difference between the four prosecution experts who concluded Floyd died of asphyxiation and the county medical examiner, Dr. Andrew Baker, who did not.
Baker did, though, classify Floyd’s death as a homicide and said his heart stopped as a result of police “subdual, restraint and neck compression.”
Friedberg said he expected Nelson to highlight the lack of forensic evidence of neck injury, as well as studies that raised doubts about “positional asphyxia” — that is, the dangers of a person suffocating while being restrained as Floyd was.
He also said he expects Nelson to emphasize Floyd’s drug use and resistance.
“He has to begin with the fact that the way George Floyd lived, taking these drugs, you hold yourself open to being arrested, and when you’re arrested the law requires that you do not resist,” Friedberg said. “When you resist ... it’s a crime. It accelerates the abilities of police to take further action.”
Mary Moriarty, the former longtime chief public defender in Hennepin County, said she expected Nelson to use a familiar defense for police officers: the difficult nature of their jobs.
“I’m sure he’ll say it’s not fair for people in the comfort of their offices or the courtroom, who have the opportunity to look at video over and over again, to second-guess the actions of a police officer,” Moriarty said.
Chauvin invoked his right not to testify, but former U.S. Attorney Tom Heffelfinger said Nelson might try to convince the jury that Chauvin meant no harm by pointing to body camera video in which the officer is heard telling a bystander: “We gotta control this guy ‘cause he’s a sizable guy ... and it looks like he’s probably on something.”