Why Derek Chauvin Deserves A New Trial (And Will Win It)

With the acquittal of Daniel Penny in Manhattan, its clear that Democrats are going to have some difficulty rounding up political prisoners for the next few years. As that trial demonstrated, they cant even sell a BLM narrative to a jury full of liberal women (and a guy wearing a COVID mask). People are more skeptical of race hysteria now, across party lines. They understand when theyre being manipulated. They care more about facts, instead of whatever the corporate press is saying. And thats all very bad news for Democrat prosecutors who are looking to collect a scalp.

But this development is obviously small comfort to the many victims of these prosecutors who are still languishing away in prison, after being convicted in show trials to appease the mob. And of course, maybe the single most prominent of those victims is a man named Derek Chauvin. Chauvin was a police officer in Minneapolis who went to work in May of 2020 with the goal of protecting his community from violent felons people like George Floyd. Hes been sentenced to more than two decades in prison because Floyd, who had a recent history of overdoses, died in his custody while high on fatal levels of fentanyl.

The issue of causation was the single most important issue of the trial that is, the question of whether Chauvin actually killed Floyd. If Chauvins actions werent a substantial factor in Floyds death, then under Minnesota law, hes innocent. That pretty much sums up the entire case.

But after the trial was over, the jury came out and publicly admitted that they didnt really care about this issue at all. Causation just didnt matter to them. They gave an interview with CNN where they explained that, in their view, Chauvins actions didnt matter at all. Instead, they determined that Chauvin was guilty because of what he didnt do. They didnt convict him for murdering Floyd. They didnt convict him because his actions caused Floyds death. Instead, they convicted him for failing to care for George Floyd in some unspecified way.

Its an incredible piece of footage. First of all, theres no reason for a jury to be looking for a light bulb moment which allows them to rationalize a guilty verdict unless they were looking for some pretext to convict Chauvin (which they obviously were). The jury shouldnt be trying to find a way to get a conviction. They should be looking at whether the prosecution proved its case beyond a reasonable doubt. And if they find themselves doubting that the prosecution proved its case, they dont get to rewrite the law to help the prosecution out.

But in this case, thats exactly what the jury did. They ultimately decided to hold Chauvin accountable for things he didnt do. He didnt respond compassionately enough to George Floyds overdose, or live up to the police departments motto, I guess even though none of those things, even if they were true, would make Chauvin a murderer. The new rule, according to this jury, is that police officers have an obligation to perform CPR on violent suspects the moment they say they cant breathe even though Floyd was claiming that he couldnt breathe just a few minutes earlier, when he was resisting arrest and struggling with the officers in the back of a patrol car. And if police officers dont administer CPR, and someone dies, then well just assume that the officer killed them. Well just make that leap of logic, because why not? WATCH: The Matt Walsh Show

But just because the jury didnt consider the issue of causation to be relevant, that doesnt mean its not relevant. From a legal perspective, on appeal, its still very important. And thats why a federal judge in Minnesota named Paul Magnuson, who was appointed by Ronald Reagan, has just issued a ruling that could ultimately lead to a new trial in this case. This is a decision thats worth dissecting at length, because it highlights what a farce the trial of Derek Chauvin really was. No matter how corrupt you think this trial was, it was actually a lot worse than that.

The decision came in response to a motion filed by Chauvins new lawyer in federal court. Chauvins legal team is seeking to have his conviction overturned, in part, because his previous lawyer was ineffective to the point that he denied Chauvin his constitutional right to a fair trial. There are other objections too including that many of the jurors said they felt threatened by the mob, so Chauvin couldnt get a fair trial.

But there are two central claims in the motion arguing that Chauvin received ineffective assistance of counsel. The first is that Chauvins lawyer, during the trial, failed to tell Chauvin that a doctor had determined that George Floyd died due to acute heart failure, resulting in pulmonary edema and death. There were indications that Floyd had a heart tumor that couldve caused sudden cardiac death, and Chauvin was never told about it nor was it brought up at trial.

The second claim is that Chauvins lawyer should have listened to the doctor, and ordered tests on samples that were preserved from George Floyds body. Those tests could have determined whether Floyd died of a type of myocarditis, or some other heart ailment. And now, several years later, the federal judge has finally allowed Chauvins new legal team to conduct those tests. Depending on what they show, they could completely undermine the prosecutions argument that Chauvin caused the death of George Floyd. And that, in turn, could lead to the conviction being thrown out and potentially a new trial, if prosecutors decide to pursue it.

One of the reasons this is such an important ruling is that, in Chauvins trial, there was clear evidence that the prosecution lied about the concentration of fentanyl in George Floyds system when he died. And if this case is tried again, this is going to be a major issue. You might remember that, in the initial autopsy report, the medical examiner determined that Floyd had lethal levels of fentanyl in his system. He said that there were no physical signs of strangulation, and that it looked like a textbook overdose. But shortly afterwards, his assessment changed.

The threats and the political pressure, were supposed to conclude, didnt influence the medical examiner. Were supposed to pretend that he somehow wasnt bothered by the mob that was threatening to destroy the entire city of Minneapolis when he changed his determination about the cause of George Floyds death.

Were also supposed to think that Democrats in Minneapolis didnt exert any political pressure at all. But as the reporter Liz Collin found, there was even more pressure on the medical examiner than many people realize.

One internal memo from a prosecuting attorney in Minneapolis at the time says that on May 26, 2020, a team of six FBI agents met with medical examiner Andrew Baker to discuss his preliminary findings. And then after this meeting, he changed his conclusions. He decides that Floyds death was a homicide caused by neck compression and that fentanyl wasnt the cause.

A new trial would offer Chauvins new defense team an opportunity to pick this claim apart. This is an opportunity that Chauvins first legal team missed completely, during the first trial. Outside of a few accounts on social media people like Data Hazard for example no one has talked about this. But its an incredible oversight by the defense team, and a remarkable act of corruption by the prosecution. And if anything completely blows apart the case against Derek Chauvin, its this.

Heres the moment in the trial that Im talking about. This is maybe the single most important testimony in the whole case. The prosecution is questioning a forensic toxicologist about the levels of fentanyl in Floyds blood.

Its a lot to process, with the graphs and the numbers flying around. But the basic idea is that the expert is telling the jury that they collected post-mortem blood samples from George Floyd, meaning the samples were taken after Floyd died. And they compared these samples to other overdose victims, and DUI suspects, after their deths. And Floyds levels of fentanyl were well below both of those groups, at the post-mortem stage. The conclusion was that Floyd didnt overdose on fentanyl.

The fundamental problem here is that Floyds samples, according to the medical examiners records, were not actually conducted post-mortem, or after death. Theyre comparing Floyds pre-death samples with other peoples post-death samples.

To restate: There were samples of blood collected from George Floyd before he died in the hospital, according to the governments own documents. He wasnt actually pronounced dead until an hour after this incident with Derek Chauvin, when he was in the hospital. And while he was in the hospital, his blood was drawn. As the judge put it in his ruling this week, quote, the autopsy report shows that ante-mortem blood was collected. And the prosecutors own statements from 2020 confirm that. Another internal memo shows what they said at the time.

Dr. Andrew Baker said he had the final toxicology results from Mr. George Floyds samples Those samples are from Mr. Floyds hospital admission and were not acquired at autopsy. [Baker] said that these samples are better for determining actual blood toxicity than samples taken at autopsy, the memo said. Samples taken at autopsy may have undergone post mortem distribution.'

So here we have ante-mortem samples, or pre-death samples of Floyds blood. That means they were taken before the effects of Floyds death could impact the samples.

And the autopsy report also confirms that Floyds samples are ante-mortem.

It reads, testing performed on antemortem blood specimens collected 5/25/20 at 9:00 p.m. Fentanyl 11 nanograms per milliliter. This couldnt be any more clear. These are pre-mortem samples, according to the prosecutions own records. WATCH: The Matt Walsh Show

Now, you might be asking whats the big deal who cares if Floyds blood was collected before his death, or after it? As it turns out, the distinction is extremely significant. After death, fentanyl concentrations in the bodies of overdose victims are dramatically higher than they are before death. Its a difference of up to 900% within eight hours of death. Thats because when you die, blood stops pumping, so blood concentrations change.

So what the prosecution did, in effect, was compare Floyds fentanyl levels before this massive spike with the fentanyl levels of overdose victims after this massive spike. Of course, Floyds levels were lower. And based on this apples-to-oranges comparison, the prosecutors convinced the jury that Floyds death had nothing to do with fentanyl.

In other words, when he arrived at the hospital Floyd had a level of fentanyl in his blood that was consistent with an overdose victim, when his pre-mortem blood was tested. In fact, Floyds levels of fentanyl were more than two times the average lethal level that you see in fentanyl overdoses. But the prosecution hid this fact from the jury, by presenting these blood samples as post-mortem. They compared Floyds numbers with other people who had been dead for several hours.

Its impossible to overstate the significance of this deception. This was the crux of the prosecutions entire argument. They hit it again and again, including during closing arguments.

Again, hes showing the chart with the false information, presenting the numbers as post-mortem. And then at the end of that clip, the prosecutor claims that Floyd had built up a tolerance to fentanyl implying that because he had overdosed before, his body could handle a high concentration of the drug.

But that was never proven at trial, either. We know that George Floyd had used fentanyl several times before. He even overdosed just months before his death, resulting in his hospitalization. But thats very different from saying that Floyd was somehow immune to the fatal effects of a fentanyl overdose, which was never demonstrated at trial because its impossible.

The other major problem here is that the prosecutions witness testified that Floyd died on the street, which seems incompatible with the idea that pre-death blood samples were later collected in the hospital

This whole trial was full of incidents like this. There was the fact that Floyds suspected drug dealer wasnt prosecuted, which allowed him to take the Fifth and avoid testifying about the drugs in Floyds possession. There was the prosecuting attorney who was allegedly threatened with professional consequences for refusing to add charges against Chauvin. There was testimony from Andrew Baker, who admitted under cross-examination that Chauvins knee did not cut off Floyds airway. There was that statement from the judge in the case, saying every case is about racial justice. There was the fact that the prosecution tried to hide the tape of George Floyd saying I cant breathe, when he was still in the squad car and Chauvins knee was nowhere near his neck.

In 2024, there would be a chance that a jury would see through all of this corruption, and vote to acquit Derek Chauvin. But in 2021, Chauvin was never going to receive a fair trial. The threat of violence by BLM was too real. Propaganda from corporate media was still believable to millions of Americans, in part because all social media was censored. And Democrats had far too much political power.

None of thats true anymore. Thats why Daniel Penny was just acquitted. And its why, if hes granted the new trial he clearly deserves, Derek Chauvin will be acquitted too.