NBC 10, 4.15.2021 @7:15pm, George Floyd Murder Trial / Derek Chauvin Trial, Legal Commentary. The Defense Rests! Questions- The strengths and weakness of the case, Upcoming Closings, Chauvin not testifying, Jury having to wait until Monday to hear closings.

Video transcript

The defense rests now the murder trial of former minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin is in its final stages Chauvin is the officer seen with his knee across George Floyd’s neck the day Floyd died today the former officer told the judge that he would not testify the prosecution’s lone rebuttal witness was a pulmonology expert who disputed testimony that carbon monoxide from the muffler of the car where George Floyd was pinned down could have played a role in his death not possible it’s simply wrong and it was at most two percent at most two percent normal very i mean which is normal court is now scheduled to reconvene at nine o’clock monday morning for closing arguments and jury instructions joining us tonight is defense attorney and NBC legal analyst Enrique L1 Latoison Enrique thank you for being with us the defense wrapped up after two days of testimony compared to two weeks for the prosecution does that tell us anything about the strength of each side’s case here well the commonwealth here was the one that had the burden to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt and what they did is they kind of broke their case up into three parts first you had the testimony of the witnesses the people that were there that seen what took place and then i would say phase two was all the officers who testified talk about department policies training things of that nature and then they finished with the experts so that was kind of their three-phase approach here now the defense what they did was they cross-examined each and every point in the commonwealth everything they were doing they cross-examined the entire time and then they what they did was they put their case when they moved straight to the experts so the trial obviously is a lot shorter than what was anticipated to be in a month it’s basically been about three weeks at this point but each side knew what they were doing and they stuck to their plan Derek Chauvin opted not to testify in his own defense will that help or hurt his case in your opinion well everybody has a right to remain silent and trial attorneys struggle with this should we put the witness on the defendant should they testify should they not testify in this case so in this case the defense still was able to get some testimony of the officer because he had body cam and they heard him say that you know he had to subdue Mr. Floyd and that you know he was out of control and they still were able to get that testimony in through the body cam now there’s two really big charges here you have the manslaughter charge which is kind of the reckless behavior and then you have the other charge which is the murder charge which is the malice the depraved heart and i would thought that maybe the testimony would have been needed for that for the officer to kind of humanize himself or to explain exactly what he was doing but ultimately it’s up to the defendant it’s right to remain silent and that’s the right he chose in this case we know closing arguments are expected to begin monday first of all why not start closing arguments tomorrow and then the jury could have the weekend to deliberate okay so the judge is deciding that you know it’s going to take time to get the jury instructions together what happens is the prosecution the defense of the judge will have what you call a charging conference and they’ll talk to the judge and they’ll come to an agreement of what the judge will instruct the jury so the judge has given them time to do that and to have that hearing he’s also going to sequester the jury once they go into closing he’s going to sequester the jury so he was giving them the weekend and giving him time and he says monday we’re going to do these closing arguments and from that point forward the jury will be sequestered with those closing arguments what do you expect to see from each side well you know i think the prosecution is going to be sticking to what they’ve been doing the entire time and saying that what the officer did was a substantial reason the substantial cause of George Floyd’s death and the defense what they’ve been doing is they’ve been kind of just attacking everything kind of a throw everything at the wall kind of approach and what they’re going to say is it was the other things that caused this death which was the drug use and things of that nature i i am expecting a very organized and passionate argument from both sides and i’m looking forward to seeing that on monday it will be an interesting week that’s for sure Enrique L1 latoison thank you so much for your time today we appreciate it thank you