Former officers’ attorneys raise George Floyd’s drug use history

An attorney for one of the four former Minneapolis officers charged in George Floyd’s death is highlighting Floyd’s past crimes and his history of drug use, calling him an ex-convict and an “obvious danger to the community.”

Another is taking hold of Floyd’s medical problems and addiction, saying he likely died from fentanyl, not from a knee in the neck.

Some court filings by defense attorneys in recent months are taking a blame-the-victim approach. It’s a common defense strategy that legal experts say will be used to show that officers acted reasonably and to counter a widely viewed video of bystanders showing a white police officer kneeling on Floyd’s neck for nearly eight minutes.

Experts say the strategy may resonate with a potential group of jurors, even if much of what is being said now is never presented in a trial scheduled for next spring.

Don Lewis, a prominent Twin Cities attorney unrelated to this case, said that it is not unusual for defense attorneys to “feed the stereotype of the dangers of a black man” to a jury to show that any use of force by part of the police is justified. He said only one or two members of the jury should have doubts.

Floyd, a black man who was handcuffed, died May 25 after Derek Chauvin pressed his knee against Floyd’s neck when Floyd said he couldn’t breathe and froze.

Chauvin is charged with second degree murder, third degree murder, and manslaughter. Thomas Lane, J. Kueng and Tou Thao are charged with being accomplices of second degree murder and manslaughter.

A passerby video of Floyd’s arrest circulated around the world, sparking protests and sparking increased support for the Black Lives Matter movement. Mike Brandt, a defense attorney unrelated to the case, said that countering that video with Floyd’s past is a good strategy.

“You’re trying to push the pendulum back … from those damning videos of Chauvin with his knee on Floyd’s neck,” he said.

The former officers are in court Friday for a hearing on various issues, including a request from the prosecution to try the men together and requests from the defense to move the trial out of Minneapolis. Defense requests to dismiss the charges will not be addressed at the hearing.

In the documents requesting the firing, Lane’s attorney, Earl Gray, wrote about Floyd’s previous charges of armed robbery and drug possession in Texas. He called Floyd an ex-con, a violent defendant, a liar, an addict, a drug dealer, and a danger. “Mr. Floyd was, as agents suspected, an addict,” Gray wrote. “He was worse than that.”

Ben Crump, a lawyer for Floyd’s family, rejected that approach.

“Everything you need to know is in that horrible video,” Crump said. “When the police do unforgivable things, the defense is always to kill the victim again by exposing his story and murdering his character.”

The Texas robbery is unlikely to come to trial because it would not be relevant unless officers had prior knowledge of it. Kelly Keegan, another attorney unrelated to the case, said that past incidents cannot be brought to court just to smear people, and a judge must weigh whether the information will help the jury find facts or just leave one behind. negative impression.

An earlier arrest that could crop up at trial is a May 2019 incident in which defense attorneys say Floyd acted similarly.

Body camera footage from the day Floyd died shows Lane and Kueng approaching a panicked Floyd, who says, “I’m not a bad guy!” and struggles, begging not to be put in a squad car. Gray wrote that the video shows that Floyd had something in his mouth that looked like a fentanyl pill, which disappeared. Autopsy reports show Floyd had fentanyl in his system.

Gray and Eric Nelson, Chauvin’s attorney, wrote that during an arrest in May 2019, Floyd did not listen to officers’ orders, put something in his mouth, had to be physically removed from a vehicle, and then began to cry. In that case, several opioid pills were found, along with cocaine, they wrote.

Nelson compared Floyd’s behavior in both arrests and said: “Clearly, Mr. Floyd had a modus operandi in the way he acted when police officers approached him while trying to conceal narcotics.”

Keegan said that even if officers were not aware of the 2019 arrest, defense attorneys could argue that Floyd had a habit of swallowing drugs, acting scared, crying and fighting when approached by police.

Gray wrote that Floyd shares the blame for his death.

“All he had to do was sit in the police car, like any other defendant who was initially arrested,” Gray wrote. “While trying to avoid arrest on his own, Mr. Floyd overdosed on fentanyl. Given his level of intoxication, breathing would have been difficult at best. Mr. Floyd’s willful failure to obey orders, along with his overdose, contributed to his own death. “

Nelson also focused on Floyd’s past drug use, writing that mentioning Floyd’s history of drug addiction “is not an attempt to attack Mr. Floyd’s character.” But, he said, Floyd likely died of “fentanyl or a combination of fentanyl and methamphetamine in concert with his underlying health conditions.”

The county coroner classified Floyd’s death as a homicide, and his heart stopped while police pinned him down and his neck was compressed. A summary report listed fentanyl poisoning and recent methamphetamine use under “other major conditions” but not “cause of death.”

According to prosecutors’ notes, Hennepin County Medical Examiner Andrew Baker told prosecutors that, in the absence of other apparent causes of death, “it might be acceptable” to rule out death as an overdose, based on the level of fentanyl. in Floyd’s system. A separate autopsy commissioned from Floyd’s family concluded that he died of suffocation due to compression to the neck and back.

Lewis and Keegan said Floyd’s cause of death will depend on a jury. They said it would be difficult to remove all biases from a potential jury, and the questions asked during jury selection will be important.

While the blame-the-victim approach may seem questionable to some, Lewis said a defense attorney’s job “is not to promote racial harmony or promote criminal justice reform. His job is solely to get his client acquitted. “. – AP