New autopsy finds George Floyd died of asphyxiation, conflicting with official report

A new autopsy report, commissioned by the family of George Floyd, finds that Floyd died of asphyxiation, conflicting with an official report from the Hennepin County medical examiner.

The medical examiner’s preliminary conclusion was that Floyd did not die of “traumatic asphyxia or strangulation” after former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin pinned Floyd by the neck with his knee for nearly nine minutes. Rather, the official report suggested that Floyd’s “underlying health conditions including coronary artery disease and hypertensive heart disease” played a role in his death, as well as the fact that Floyd may have been intoxicated.

But the new report reaches a different conclusion, finding that Floyd did die of asphyxiation as Chauvin compressed Floyd’s neck and back. The new report was conducted by two forensic pathologists, one of whom, Michael Baden, previously served as chief medical examiner for New York City.

Chauvin has been charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter in Floyd’s death, and the official report does not excuse Chauvin’s behavior. Rather, it suggests that “the combined effects of Mr. Floyd being restrained by the police, his underlying health conditions and any potential intoxicants in his system likely contributed to his death.”

But the question of how Floyd died could matter a great deal at Chauvin’s trial. Minnesota’s third-degree murder statute applies to anyone who “causes the death of another by perpetrating an act eminently dangerous to others and evincing a depraved mind, without regard for human life.” A key word here is “causes.”

That is, to convict Chauvin of murder, prosecutors have to do more than simply show that Chauvin behaved brutally, or that Floyd died during or shortly after his encounter with Chauvin. Prosecutors must prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Chauvin’s actions were the cause of Floyd’s death.

A death can have several causes. So if Chauvin’s actions exacerbated Floyd’s preexisting health conditions and that’s what caused his death, Chauvin can still be convicted of murder — the fact that a healthier individual may have survived the encounter is not a defense.

But it is also not easy to prove something beyond a reasonable doubt. So if Floyd’s death was related to his underlying medical conditions, defense attorneys could argue that those conditions, and not Chauvin, was the real cause of death.

If Floyd died of asphyxiation, by contrast, it will be very hard for Chauvin’s lawyers to argue that the death resulted from something other than Chauvin’s knee.