Witness intimidation: the message is clear
We’re familiar with the fact that jurors in the Chauvin trial would naturally and almost inevitably feel that anything but a guilty verdict would spark more rioting and destruction, not only in their home town of Minneapolis but around the country. This had to have affected their decision, whether they admitted to it or not and were even aware of it or not.
Also, once the small number of expert witnesses for the defense was revealed compared to the large number of expert witnesses (most of them volunteers who testified without pay) for the prosecution, it also became clear that a lot of people were probably afraid to testify for the defense, even if they might otherwise have done so. To testify for the defense in a case that raised so much nationwide furor as well as riots and threats would be to make oneself a target.
And that’s exactly what has occurred. Now we have this chilling demonstration of what they had to fear:
The Maryland’s Attorney General’s Office said Friday it believes there should be a review of “in custody” death reports produced by the state’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner during the tenure of Dr. David Fowler, nine days after Fowler testified that an ex-Minneapolis police officer was not responsible for the death of George Floyd in police custody.
The announcement came less than 24 hours after the attorney general’s office received a letter from the former medical examiner of Washington, D.C., Roger A. Mitchell, signed by 431 doctors from around the country, saying Fowler’s testimony and conclusions were so far outside the bounds of accepted forensic practice that all his previous work could come into question…
Due to pending litigation, the office declined to comment on whether Fowler’s testimony in Chauvin’s murder trial influenced its decision to conduct a review.
The office will review all cases from 2003-2020, which falls under Fowler’s tenure. He retired in 2019 after 17 years as chief medical examiner to go into private consulting practice. He was considered one of the foremost medical examiners in the country and served on national boards.
But he has testified in some high-profile cases in ways that the woke don’t like, so he’s fair game.
But actually, it was one of the state’s expert witnesses who testified to some preposterous things during Chauvin’s trial. The following foregone conclusions from video certainly would appear to be “outside the bounds of accepted forensic practice”:
Tobin [a physician who was an expert witness for the prosecution] also demonstrated an amazing ability—or, at least, claimed an amazing ability—to make precise biological determinations from cell phone and body camera video. For example, Tobin claimed to be able to tell the precise instant when Floyd suffered brain damage as a result of low oxygen levels (it was when Floyd abruptly kicked out a leg).
He could discern precisely what was happening within Floyd’s body, despite there being no physical manifestation of those processes either while Floyd was alive or upon medical examination after Floyd had died. Indeed, he claimed to discern the exact moment that Floyd died, by the expression on Floyd’s face: “One second he’s alive, and one second he’s no longer.”
I don’t think a single one of those 451 doctors would have any quarrel with Tobin’s testimony. But that’s not even the point. The real issue is that it is up to the court to decide if an expert witness is expert enough, and up to the jury to evaluate the truth and applicability of his or her testimony. The sort of punitive look-back investigation these doctors are recommending and that the AG of Maryland seems to be interested in performing is an obviously partisan case of intimidation of witnesses in any politicized trial in the future.
That intimidation has already occurred, even prior to this announcement, and I strongly believe it was already operative in the Chauvin trial. But this news makes it even more overt and obvious. This is the sort of thing we’re familiar with in nations known as banana republics, in addition to other tyrannical regimes around the world.
Most Americans should be very incensed about this development. But I doubt most Americans even know about it. I also think that the leftist indoctrination and/or dumbing down of people in this country has reached the point where I’m not at all sure most people would object or even see what’s wrong with this. And if that’s the case, it’s the biggest problem of all.
Your last paragraph: “Most American” should be “Americans.”
Every informed American knows that some of the infamous trials of black people in our past were unfair, and that the lynchings were horrible injustices.
Now we’re being asked to accept wildly unfair trials and witness intimidation in reverse. It was wrong before, and it’s wrong now.
They want their vengeance (sorry, “justice”) and they want their “reparations” (sorry, “payouts”).
And the “Biden” administration (of glorious “myths” and “ideas”) has promised that they will get it.
At any cost.
File under: “Vengeance, vengeance thou shalt pursue….”
Unfortunately until most regular people begin to experience the negative consequences of this sort of mob justice due to a lack of proper application of rule of law I don’t imagine there will be much attention paid to any of this. Meanwhile, the communities that are most effected by a lack of proper law enforcement due to this sort of intimidation will continue to get worse in terms of crime and economic decline. I imagine things are going to have to get much worse before people begin to wake up and recognize the true costs of lawlessness that’s being abetted by all this.
And something similar could be said about everything going on right now in our culture beyond law enforcement. Our current ruling class has utter contempt for its subjects, but not enough regular voters seem to realize this yet.
Kate:
Thank, fixed.
This is how the purge begins.
First it was just tech censorship & locking up the MAGA folks from January 6th.
Now…everything’s fair game.
And then…
Isn’t this the same as what the Mafia would do in cases?
WITNESS INTIMIDATION!
Roger Mitchell is now associated with Howard University. He also part of the DC nomenklatura.
How much you want to bet the ‘431’ doctors in question are a mix of prank entries on a website and randomly selected doctors who are not pathologists? If I’m not mistaken, pathologists in this country number about 13,000 and forensic pathologists fewer than 1,000, so it’s unlikely more than a few of these people are actually pathologists. Given that the state’s own witnesses admitted that if they’d found the body in some other venue they’d have ruled it an overdose death or a death from coronary artery disease, the notion that Dr. Fowler is ‘far outside the bounds of blah blah’ beggars belief.
What was distressing about the whole Floyd business (and the Freddie Gray business) was the willingness of medical professionals to put their name on obvious lies.
Most Americans should be very incensed about this development.
There’s a lot that’s happened in the last eight years that should incense people. It won’t, because we live in an age where about 1/2 the population is too puerile to make impartial judgments..
“Isn’t this the same as what the Mafia would do in cases?”
Yes but in this case the “Mafia” is also running the government and the legal system so unlike when the Mafia does it there is no where to go to get protection. You’re on your own as to protection for now. Like this linked by Sarah Hoyt this morning.
https://stream.org/the-fears-of-autumn-how-americas-best-spy-novelist-pulled-me-out-of-a-honey-trap/
Now the Left has the play book they will use it every chance they can
The Left will learn in time that Justice Systems have been known to operate in parallel to the state.
Yeah, it’s the last part I’m concerned about.
So many people believe that Chauvin just HAD to take the fall for all the other bad cops. He just HAD to be made an example of. So do they care if the trial was fair?
@Shadow:
Fair and Impartial Justice can only exist within a Mono-ethnic State. What we are reverting to is Tribal Justice.
People taken in the mass will always favour their own… except for Late Stage Dying Civilization Whites who weirdly have turned pathological altruism and/or a touching sentimental attachment to some moldy old bits of paper belonging to a Long Dead People of Dead Beliefs into substitutes for religion according to tastes.
In a multi-ethnic empire, all you can hope for is that the dominant race doesn’t oppress you too much and that each ethne has responsibility for policing its own and managing relations with the other groups. Occasionally the Sultan hangs the Greek Patriarch and forces the Jewish Cattle Butchers to drag his naked corpse down to the Bosporus and chuck it in — just to keep things spicy and divide and rule… But it kind of can work for a while.
Worrying about unfairness is beside the point at this point. You want fairness, you’re going to have to go and manufacture some *Unfairness* in your group’s favour and then trade it with other groups to barter a little fairness when you need it.
For a while (*), Whites are going to have to make like Armenians or Phanariote Greeks. Jews, Genoese, and Venetians are all taken 😀
(*) But have to play to win in the Long Game. Things didn’t work out too well for most of the above in the end. And no, making like an Armenian doesn’t involve posting Instagram shots of your gigantic Kardashian ass.
451 … 451 … where have I heard that number before …
Oh, yeah, Ray Bradbury’s dystopian “Fahrenheit 451.“
Ohh sooo appropriate today even if not intentional.
Nonapod,
“I imagine things are going to have to get much worse before people begin to wake up and recognize the true costs of lawlessness that’s being abetted by all this.”
The game plan is to denounce policing and crucify cops for doing their job to such an extent that the police are rendered impotent. Which is already happening and, with every crucifixion of a cop resulting in increased lawlessness until it becomes utterly intolerable.
Rendering a public so desperate for a return to law and order that support for calls to nationalize law enforcement becomes overwhelming. Convincing even reluctant legislatures to support it.
Followed by a judiciary so corrupt as to rule it constitutional.
The Left wants eager cooperation from its brownshirts.
And a public so tramatized by lawlessness and chaos that they view the left’s stormtrooper’s actions against “deplorables” as justified.
GB (11:17)
Nailed it.
(But you forgot to add how this manufactured crisis will factor in to a weakened, watered down or abrogated—make that “fundamentally transformed”, i.e., for all intents and purposes repealed—Second Amendment.)
Gotta keep on manufacturing those crises. It’s the only way to “Constitutionally” consolidate and solidify your rule. And it’s a cinch with a compliant—make that co-conspiratorial—media providing cover (and cover-ups) 24/7.
Related:
https://thefederalist.com/2021/04/26/black-cop-lies-about-institutional-racism-are-making-america-more-violent/
H/T Instapundit
+ Bonus:
“Crisis by Design” (on the border crisis):
https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/446487/
Of course, there’s always the UNITY card…
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2021/04/26/jen-psaki-makes-a-stunning-admission-about-bidens-unity-pledge-n1442862
GB… don’t forget the race angle.
They want a Civil race War.
And that will get us to the nationalized policing.
My response, punch back twice as hard. Sue the lot of them for defamation and slander and then have them deposed and testify individually what specifically about his testimony was wrong and look for cases where they have interpretative differences. Have their qualifications put under question and send the questions to their boards for adjudication.
We need an organization that could fund this but when a legal document shows up in your inbox suing you virtue signaling just got a whole lot more costly. When you ask an organization, you stand behind your certification of this person? There may be some waffling.
Give them an easy way out. Retraction and reimbursement of your legal costs.
@Spartacus:
Perhaps if you invented the Flux Capacitor you could travel back in time and buy Bitcoin cheaply and do the funding.
I don’t think there are any billionaires floating around who are going to stick their necks out to help. And make no mistake it would take that level of financing to make any kind of difference when you’re up against Soros, Zuckerbergs, Google, and all the other usual suspects. And even then, judges are all looking over their shoulders.
There’s legal things to be done at the very local level — Town Dog Catcher to Sheriff (in more rural counties). For the rest, it’s going to have to wait until they push too far and it all comes to a head. No litigating out of this mess in the bigger leagues.
Barry and John,
Yes, strangling the Second Amendment and exacerbating racial tensions is definitely part of the Left’s strategy. In addition, fundamentally transforming the US Military is critical to their agenda.
The more realistic on the left know it’s going to come down to who has the most and biggest guns.
https://amgreatness.com/2021/04/26/the-feds-nonexistent-case-against-alleged-sicknick-assailants/
While we’re at it, is there a single judge appointed by Obama who is fit to hold the position he does?
And the more I see of AG Garland, the happier I am that McConnell held fast on the SCOTUS appointments in 2016.