Derek Chauvin's defense team will continue presenting its case Thursday after calling just one witness on Wednesday.

Court recessed following extensive direct testimony from and cross examination of defense expert witness Dr. David Fowler, a retired forensic pathologist who was the chief medical examiner for the state of Maryland for 17 years.

The trial will resume Thursday at 9:15 a.m. local time. 

During cross-examination of defense expert witness Dr. David Fowler, prosecuting attorney Jerry Blackwell was able to get the former Maryland medical examiner to walk back some of his earlier testimony that raised questions about the cause of George Floyd's death.

Fowler conceded multiple points, including that a lack of bruising and other injuries do not prove that Floyd did not die of asphyxia and that the weight of Chauvin's gear was not factored into his calculation of the force applied to Floyd's neck.

Blackwell also managed to make a dent in Fowler's testimony that carbon monoxide was a factor in Floyd's death. The defense witness acknowledged that he did not know for certain that Minneapolis Police squad car 320 was turned on during Floyd's restraint on the street, and that he had not measured emissions made by the vehicle while idling. Fowler also conceded that squad car 320 may have been a hybrid.

On some tough questions that seemed to call into question earlier testimony, Fowler pushed back and hedged — allowing Blackwell to keep peppering in: "It's a yes or no question."

Toward the end of cross-examination, Blackwell asked Fowler whether it is true that four minutes of pressure to the back of the neck can cause "irreversible brain damage because the brain may be starved of oxygen."

Fowler hedged again, allowing Blackwell to interrupt: "Dr. Fowler, my question was, was it true?"

Blackwell restated the question, to which Fowler responded: "Correct, it takes four minutes of no oxygen supply to the brain to cause irreversible brain damage."

Continuing as an expert witness for Derek Chauvin's defense, Dr. David Fowler argued that hypoxia — a potentially deadly deficiency of oxygen in bodily tissues that can be caused by strangulation — was not to blame for George Floyd's death, for reasons including a lack of bruising on his back in his autopsy report and a rate of breathing that did not apparently increase.

"Mr. Floyd was coherent and understandable until shortly before there was a sudden cessation of his movement” Fowler said, adding that if Floyd were experiencing hypoxia, "I would expect him to become disoriented, confused, incoherent, I would expect some of those symptoms to be somewhat apparent."

"He goes from pretty much fully functioning and coherent to unconscious very rapidly," Fowler continued, telling the defense attorney that he believed Floyd died of a "sudden cardiac event" and noted "certain drugs in his system" that put Floyd at risk of death from the position.

"Multiple entities all working together and adding together," Fowler said, mentioning multiple drugs in Floyd's toxicology report and not explicitly mentioning Chauvin's knee. Fowler said he would have ruled Floyd's cause of death as "undetermined" and not "homicide" as the Hennepin County Medical Examiner did.

The prosecution has argued that Floyd's death was caused by asphyxia, or insufficient oxygen, from Chauvin kneeling on his neck.

With Dr. David Fowler on the stand, the defense introduced evidence Wednesday about open-air carbon monoxide poisoning, suggesting car exhaust could have played a role in Floyd's death.

When Floyd was pinned to the ground by Derek Chauvin, his head was close to the exhaust pipe of the responding squad car. Dr. Fowler said evidence suggests the car was still running, and that could have worsened the already existing symptoms the defense is arguing led to Floyd's death.

Fowler said he did not see evidence Floyd's blood was tested for carbon monoxide, meaning most of this argument is based on speculation.

Fowler said Floyd ultimately died from heart issues that could have been made worse by drug use and stress. 

Derek Chauvin's defense has called Dr. David Fowler, a former chief medical examiner for the state of Maryland, to testify as an expert witness.

Fowler handled a case similar to Floyd's in Maryland in 2018.

While he was chief medical examiner of Maryland, Fowler classified the death of a 19-year-old Black man, Anton Black, who died in police custody in September 2018, as an accident, The Baltimore Sun reported. No one was charged.

Black's family sued Fowler, two police officers, two police chiefs and others in a federal lawsuit in December, alleging that Fowler "covered up and obscured police responsibility" for Black's death. 

Black died after three white officers and a civilian pinned him for more than five minutes as they handcuffed him and shackled his legs, according to the lawsuit. He was in the midst of a mental health crisis, his family said.

One of the officer's, the lawsuit says, had "a documented history of violence and excessive force against Black residents." 

Fowler conducted an autopsy and concluded there was no evidence the restraint was a direct cause of Black's death.

The autopsy and body-camera video were not released until Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan "personally intervened," the lawsuit says.

"Even after Anton was handcuffed, the officers ignored the danger they were causing and kept Anton in a prone restraint for approximately six minutes as he struggled to breathe, lost consciousness and suffered cardiac arrest," the lawsuit alleges.

Fowler was the chief medical examiner of Maryland for 17 years, according to his LinkedIn profile. He retired in 2019. He has testified in other high-profile police use-of-force cases and is now a member of a consulting firm.

The defense in the murder trial of Derek Chauvin asked the judge Wednesday for a judgment of acquittal, arguing the prosecution “has failed to present sufficient evidence” to establish two of the principal issues in the case.

Attorney Eric Nelson said the state had not provided sufficient evidence when it came to use of force and whether the use of force was reasonable. He added that the prosecution had not proven George Floyd’s cause of death beyond a reasonable doubt.

“The state has essentially introduced doubt in the context of providing multiple opinions from multiple witnesses, all of which seem to contradict each other,” Nelson said.

Prosecutor Steve Schleicher countered Nelson’s argument, saying the issue was not whether there were “minor inconsistencies” in what witnesses had said, but whether taken as a whole “the state has proved its case in terms of the force analysis."

“There’s no question that the witnesses who have testified all opined that the defendant’s force was objectively unreasonable,” he said. 

“The state has introduced evidence that if believed by a reasonable jury, clearly established that the defendant’s conduct was a causal factor” in Floyd's death, he added.

Hennepin County District Judge Peter Cahill denied the motion for a judgement of acquittal Wednesday morning, saying the jury could give its greatest weight to the witnesses who established that the use of force was unreasonable.

Morries Hall, the man who was with George Floyd on the day of his fatal arrest, invoked his Fifth Amendment privilege Wednesday when asked if he would testify.

Hall was in the passenger seat of the car on the day of Floyd’s fatal encounter with police. The defense had sought to call him as a witness. He appeared in person in the courtroom on Wednesday. 

His attorney argued he could not answer any questions without incriminating himself because drugs were found in the car that day. Hall’s lawyer also said whether or not Chauvin is convicted, Hall would still be implicated in drug-related charges if he were to testify. 

The judge spoke directly to Hall about his intention to plead the fifth, noting he could disregard his attorney’s advice.

Hall told the judge he is “fearful” of additional charges and the judge ultimately said he found the argument of Hall's counsel to be persuasive. 

A use-of-force expert testified Tuesday that former Minneapolis police Officer Derek Chauvin was justified when he knelt on George Floyd's neck as he tried to arrest him in May, contradicting testimony from other use-of-force experts and the police chief.

The defense witness, Barry Brodd, a former Santa Rosa, California, police officer, also said that he did not believe that the responding officers' actions — pinning Floyd to the pavement while he was handcuffed facedown with Chauvin's knee on his neck for what prosecutors have said was 9 minutes, 29 seconds — qualified as a use of force. He said that he believed it was a "control hold" and that he did not think Chauvin was inflicting any pain on Floyd.

Veteran officers from inside and outside the Minneapolis Police Department, including Chief Medaria Arradondo, have said Chauvin used excessive force and violated a number of department policies he had been trained in. 

Under cross-examination by prosecutor Steve Schleicher, Brodd backpedaled on a number of statements he made when he was questioned by the defense.

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