The Lawsuit Against Derek Chauvin’s Expert That the Jury Never Heard (Feat. Brian Buckmire)

Objections: With Adam Klasfeld

The man who went on to become Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin's key medical witness in his murder trial was hit with a lawsuit late last year accusing him of a cover up in a case filed by the family of a 19-year-old Black man who died in a "chillingly similar manner" to George Floyd.

Though the similarities between the two incidents have received widespread press attention, Chauvin's jury never heard of the allegations against his main medical expert: Dr. David Fowler, the former chief medical examiner for the state of Maryland.

In the latest episode of the Law&Crime podcast "Objections," Law&Crime Daily host Brian Buckmire—who is also a public defender—reflects on the trial that captivated the country and probes why prosecutors never questioned Fowler about the allegations.

"So the jaded public defender in me wants to say it's very possible that the someone in the government could mess that up, because we already saw that happened once in this case," Buckmire said on the podcast, referring to a moment when the defense criticized authorities for supposedly failing to perform a carbon monoxide test on Floyd.

But as Buckmire noted, authorities had performed that test, and prosecutors discovered that fact via their expert, Dr. Andrew Baker, too late to admit the evidence.

"Dr. Baker was listening to the testimony of Dr. Fowler saying, ‘Well, they should have done this test,’ and Dr. Baker out of nowhere finds that test that would have been able to slap down that argument from Dr. Fowler," Buckmire said on the podcast. "But because of rules of evidence, you cannot spring new information on a defendant."

As the episode airs, jurors are engaged in their first full day of deliberation

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