A Summary of the trial - Week 2 Day 4 cont'd...
Last witness was Dr Bill Smock, forensic medicine specialist.
Direct by Jerry Blackwell.
Smock told the trial that when George Floyd cried out 'I can't breathe' he was exhibiting the desperation of 'air hunger'.
Building on the testimony from other prosecution witnesses earlier, Dr Smock was asked to give his medical opinion on Floyd's cause of death.
Smock knocked down any other suggesting, saying Floyd died from positional asphyxia, which he said was 'a fancy way of saying he died because he had no oxygen left in his body'.
'When the body is deprived of oxygen, in this case from pressure on this chest and back, he gradually succumbed to lower and lower levels of oxygen until he succumbed and he died,' he said.
Dr Smock said that he had considered and dismissed other causes including the defence's causes of choice – fentanyl overdose and excited delirium.
One by one, he explained the symptoms of excited delirium – including excessive sweating, being unaffected by pain and super-human strength – and dismissed them pointing out that Floyd was cold to the touch, complaining of pain from the moment he was on the ground and unable to throw the police officers from his back.
Asked by how many of the 10 recognized symptoms he observed, Dr Smock answered: 'Zip.'
He discarded fentanyl overdose as a possible cause of death because he said, Floyd was not falling into a coma, snoring, or slowing down in breathing.
He was, instead, fighting for his life and demonstrating 'air hunger' as he struggled to breathe. He pointed to Floyd's weakening voice as evidence that the life was draining from him and recognised Floyd's dying moments in his altering facial expressions and anoxic seizure – when his legs kicked out straight behind him.
Dr Smock explained that since Floyd was a chronic drug users the levels of narcotics and their metabolites found in his blood stream really meant very little.
He said: 'You don't rely on the level, you look at the patient.'
Defence attorney Nelson pointed to the fact that there was no bruising on Floyd's neck and throat post mortem as proof that Chauvin's knee did not dig into him until the life was squeezed out of him.
But Dr Smock, who is also a specialist in strangulation, said: 'You can be fatally strangled and died of asphyxia and have no bruising.'
Blackwell also asked Dr Smock about CPR and when, in his opinion, it should have been started.
'As soon as Mr Floyd was unconscious. He should have been rolled over and we have documentation on the video that the officer says, 'I can't find a pulse',' he said.
'It should have been started way before. He should have been rolled over, check his respiration but clearly when they can't find a pulse CPR should have been started.'
In cross examination Nelson tried to undercut the validity of Dr Smock's opinion from the outset by reminding the jury that he was neither a pathologist or board certified in forensic pathology.
He asked him what evidence for positional asphyxia had been found at autopsy, Dr Smock replied, 'The evidence was not at autopsy it was on the video tape.'
Addressing the fact that Dr Smock had dismissed the levels of methamphetamine in Floyd's system as meaninglessly low, Nelson put it to him that, 'There is no safe level of methamphetamine is there?' Dr Smock agreed.
He pointed out that Floyd had said 'I can't breathe' multiple times before anyone was on his back and before he was prone on the ground.
And he reminded the jury of all of Floyd's underlying health issues – among them a 90% blockage of an artery in his heart – painting the picture of a man under attack from his own cardiac disease and the drugs that he had ingested.
As far as the levels of those drugs found in Floyd's system Nelson suggested to Dr Smock that tolerance to controlled substances was not fixed but varied according to usage.
He said, 'If someone's not using a substance for two to three months they're going to lose that tolerance…[and if they start using again] it's not going to immediately jump back up.'
Last week the court heard from Floyd's girlfriend Courtney Ross who spoke openly about the opioid addiction with which both she and Floyd had struggled. She said how both of them had tried to stop using and that only in recent months did she notice changes in his behavior that made her think he was using again.
But when Blackwell rose to question Dr Smock again on redirect, he took him through his opinions once again and once again Dr Smock stated that Floyd's death wasn't a sudden one but due to 'a gradual decrease in levels of oxygen…because of the pressure being applied to his back and his neck.'
Court ends for the day.
