Judge will declare 'mistrial' if prosecution witness 'even mentions' new evidence in Chauvin trial

first of all in dealing with the these lab test results i find that the dr fowler's report gave sufficient notice to the state that carbon monoxide the carbon monoxide that potentially was in george floyd's blood could have affected cause of death i read page 15 of his report which i don't have at my fingertips at this point that basically they said dr fowler came right out and said it should be tested that gave the state notice with sufficient time in february to either test the samples that are still there or to dig a little deeper uh it's just by serendipity that dr baker calls the state and says oh by the way it does exist it should be in there it seems to me very odd i'm not claiming any bad faith on the state's part but it seems odd that hennepin county medical center when they're asked to turn over all their records that they don't include records that maybe are just buried a little deeper i think their response to the subpoena is probably insufficient in and of itself and they should check their standard operating procedures so that in the event this happens again that they will supply all the information they have but in any case uh the defense gave notice that this was going to be an issue and specifically talked about testing the sample the state had sufficient time to investigate and disclose to even if it's just because dr baker called the state and said we we can actually find this at eight o'clock this morning uh when the state is or the defense expert is done testifying has left the state uh it's untimely to give the notice and it prejudices the defense by the late disclosure even if it's not due to bad faith but the late disclosure has prejudiced the defense it's not going to be allowed so dr tobin will not be allowed to testify as of those lab results if there's anything he wished to add about carbon monoxide as far as environmental factors but if he even hints that there are test results the jury has not heard about it's going to be a mistrial pure and simple this late disclosure is uh not the way we should be operating here in that case dr tobin may testify as to carbon monoxide if he sticks to the environmental factors and as a pulmonologist looking at the videos for example and seeing mr floyd's location and not knowing whether the vehicle is even on or not which the state brought out in cross-examination all those factors you can talk about environmentally and what the likelihood is that it would affect his carbon monoxide concentration in mr floyd's blood that's fine but nothing about these lab test results that were just just disclosed 8 am this morning after the defense expert is done with regard to the demaio i will allow uh i have a little concern that we're having a pulmonologist opine whether it's an enlarged heart or not but given his background which as i think mr blackwell appropriately stated is a cardiopulmonary system it is a system and i think he has some expertise in the function of the heart in its relation to the lungs and so i i think it is appropriate that he'd be allowed to opine whether or not the heart was enlarged or not based on those studies and specifically responding to those studies as far as the scientific research the defense did bring up as a new issue whether or not narrowing of the hype pharynx is supported in literature and dr fowler said he did a check and he didn't find anything i think it is permissible that dr tobin be allowed to come and say since then since dr fowler's testimony he has done his own search or he relied on this and there is literature and he can talk about the literature in a summary fashion with regard to the hypoxic seizure it was pretty clear from dr tobin's testimony that he had an opinion that there were movements of george floyd's legs that those were myoclonic or anoxic seizures due to the lack of oxygen dr fowler did not really dispute that he also indicated that it was a lack of oxygen to the brain that causes such seizures the only difference between the two was the mechanism did the lack of oxygen was that caused by positional asphyxia versus cardiac arrhythmia and as i recall dr tobin excluded cardiac arrhythmia or cardiac event as the cause of the lack of oxygen since he has excluded cardiac cardiac event as the cause of the lack of oxygen he's already that evidence is already in the record i don't have to remind both sides that the purpose of rebuttal evidence is not to restate what has already been testified to it's to bring up new evidence to rebut something that came up in the other side's case accordingly as the hypoxic seizure that's not going to be allowed the scientific research supporting hypofairing's narrowing will be allowed the lab tests uh are not allowed to be discussed but dr tobin can talk about carbon monoxide and the likelihood of a high carbon monoxide reading based on environmental factors if he wishes because that was gone into a great extent and finally the reports and he may opine whether in his opinion uh george floyd's heart was enlarged or not uh do we have the pretty much the ground rule set just one question for clarification uh on the carbon monoxide uh there were test results uh that existed before the ones that are at issue from last night's last this morning what dr tobin these are the ones that relate to the oxygen saturation so that was known before last night and uh and so i haven't talked to dr tobin uh this morning about what he's gonna say or when i might ask the court for a few minutes before we start but uh what what he was able to come to last night without seeing anything at all related to these test results at issue was we had the results already both sides do on the oxygen saturation in his blood from may 25th 2020. well let me ask you this is his opinion going to be that when the oxygen saturation levels are this high that precludes high co because a high carbon monoxide reading would depress the saturated oxygen that's correct they are would be inversely related so a high oxygen saturation would indicate a low carbon monoxide yes mr nelson uh as i understood dr fowler's testimony the at lower levels of carbon monoxide because the pulse oximeter does not it's not going to differentiate based on the color of the blood between oxygen and carbon monoxide this is the bright cherry red testimony i think that's appropriate cross but i think if that is in fact dr tobin's opinion that these oxygen saturation readings which have been disclosed earlier would indicate a low carbon monoxide reading because they are inversely proportional or and it's appropriate however to say those readings are based on uh pulse ox color of the blood color of the fingernail and did you the bright cherry red essentially confronting him with that testimony i think his appropriate cross but it does not preclude the state from recalling dr tobin for that purpose yep that's the clarification you are all right thank you yeah that would be permanent

Channel: The Hill

Views: 770,737

Keywords:

Id: UslJtluzpBM

Length: 8min 36sec (516 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 15 2021