Derek Chauvin trial: medical examiner stops short of backing fellow experts’ testimony
The medical examiner who conducted the state’s autopsy on George Floyd stopped short on Friday of backing other expert witnesses at Derek Chauvin’s murder trial who testified that Floyd was asphyxiated under the knee of the accused former police officer.
Dr Andrew Baker told the court that the police pinning the 46-year-old Black man to the ground was “just more than Mr Floyd could take” by making it hard for him to breathe, causing stress hormones that worsened a heart condition and led to his death.
But the Hennepin county medical examiner did not support the evidence of other medical specialists who told the trial that Floyd was suffocated under Chauvin’s knee, on his neck for more than nine minutes as he was pinned to the ground by him and two other police officers.
“In my opinion, the law enforcement subdual, restraint and neck compression was just more than Mr Floyd could take, by virtue of those heart conditions,” he said.
Baker said that “the stress of that interaction tipped him over the edge” because Floyd had heart disease and used illicit drugs.
Baker classified the death as a homicide, which he said in a medical context meant that it resulted from the actions of a person or persons but did not imply any criminal action.
Asked by the prosecution if he stood by that, Baker replied: “I would still classify it as a homicide today.”
Chauvin, a 45-year-old white man, has denied charges of secondand third-degree murder, and manslaughter, over Floyd’s death last May, which prompted mass protests for racial justice across the US and other parts of the world. He faces up to 40 years in prison if convicted of the most serious charge.
Baker’s appearance was keenly awaited because the findings in his autopsy report have been interpreted in different ways. The report said that Floyd’s death was caused by “cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint, and neck compression”.
Baker also listed hardening and thickening of the artery walls, heart disease and illicit drug use as “other significant conditions”.
Chauvin’s lawyer, Eric Nelson, said that this was evidence Floyd died of heart problems combined with drug use.
In an unexpectedly short bout of questioning by the prosecution, Baker said that cardiopulmonary arrest was “really just fancy medical lingo for the heart and the lungs stopped”, which happens to everyone who dies.
Baker said that the heart disease and presence of illicit drugs – the powerful opioid fentanyl and methamphetamine – in Floyd’s system may have been contributory factors to the cardiopulmonary arrest but that he would not have died from them at that point if it had not been for the additional factor of the police intervention.
“Mr Floyd’s use of fentanyl did not cause the subdual or neck restraint. His heart disease did not cause the subdual or the restraint,” he said.
Aware that Baker’s testimony could be damaging to its case by raising doubts about the cause of death in the minds of jurors, the prosecution has called a succession of other medical experts who have told the trial that Floyd died from “lack of oxygen”.
Baker acknowledged that he had previously said there were a “lack of anatomical findings” to back a conclusion of asphyxiation.
Nelson reminded Baker that he had previously said under questioning from investigators that Floyd had what would be considered “a fatal level of fentanyl under normal circumstances” in his system.
He also said that “if he were found dead at home alone and no other apparent cause, this could be acceptable to call an overdose”. However, Baker added: “I am not saying this killed him.”
He also said that drugs could have exacerbated Floyd’s hypertension and heightened the risk of death.
Nelson also pressed Baker on the impact of methamphetamine on Floyd’s heart condition.
“It’s certainly hard on your heart,” he said. “Methamphetamine is not good for a damaged heart.”
Earlier, Dr Lindsey Thomas, a forensic pathologist and medical examiner brought in to review the official autopsy, told the trial that the autopsy was “only a tiny part of the death investigation”.
Thomas said the autopsy findings did not take into account wider evidence, such as Floyd being held down under Chauvin’s knee for more than nine minutes, but she was in no doubt that he died because he couldn’t breathe.
“The activities of the law enforcement officers resulted in Mr Floyd’s death, and that specifically those activities were the subdual, the restraint and the neck compression,” she said.
The prosecution used Thomas, who helped train Baker many years earlier, to try to show that the autopsy findings were not at odds with the past three days of testimony from medical experts that Floyd died from lack of oxygen and that drugs were not a factor, as the defence claims.
The trial continues.