re: MPD policy allows knee to the neck restraint. Wow!

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Didn’t the ME already come out and say the knee did not do this?

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He said that preliminary findings did not indicate traumatic asphyxiation as the primary cause and that COD looked like combination of underlying conditions, possible intoxicants and being restrained, IIRC.

I read that as the overall restraint was the problem. So why are the other two policeman not arrested and charged similarly?

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ME isn't final word on the issue of cause of death, it's not necessarily something a jury is legally required to accept. Which is evidenced by the practice of one or the other parties in a criminal trial wherein death occurred retaining their own medical expert to assess the same information that the official ME considered (to the extent that all the same information is available to medical expert), and said expert offers their own opinion at trial. The jury can accept that expert's opinion just as well as it could the official ME's opinion.

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The prosecution’s neutral party ME gave those opinions. The more socially acceptable finding of the ME would have been them to blame the knee completely. Your comment makes no sense. It would be a defendant bringing in another ME in this situation.

The civil case of the family against the city will never go to any sort of trial.

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Generally not a criminal offense to not intervene to prevent the harm of another.

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The last Seinfeld episode says hello

But that's the thing, the ME and prosecutor's office are not on the same team. The ME is not seeking to provide a finding that is helpful to the prosecution's case. They are completely independent of each other, although yes it's a thing that many people may perceive them as being aligned due to both being government officials. In that same vein, judges and DAs are also both government officials. And we know the independent separation of those positions.

So it's as simple as the DA could have cause to believe that the ME is wrong in his/her conclusions. ME's job/official duty is to render an opinion as to cause of death, and that could be helpful or harmful to the DA's case/position. And as mentioned before, a ME's findings aren't legally binding in trial. Carries hefty weight, sure, but not unimpeachable.

I guess I'm getting the vibe that such a move would be seen as non-credible, shady, unprincipled, etc etc by a jury because the jury would be wondering why this govt office is refusing to accept the finding of that govt office. And sure, there could be that perception. But that's where ability and skill come into it by way of the prosecutor carefully laying out the basis of their act in seeking a second opinion. Keep in mind, this is not at all a rare action in terms of the defense at least.

Obviously the most significant component of the basis that would be laid out by the prosecution in, say, closing argument is that there was simply a differing of opinions between the DA and ME. And in the interest of justice the DA was compelled to seek a second look at the matter.

Look at it this way: as most around here are proposing, the current ME findings don't appear to support the charges by the DA. Yet DA moved forward with charges despite that proposition. Should that continue to be the case, clearly the DA wouldn't proceed to trial using this ME's findings.

MEs can simply be wrong.

That's definitely playing a large role, but going into it with an on-its-face defective case, without having an alternative reasonable basis/plan, is borderline prosecutorial misconduct.

I think they’re still going to have restraint asphyxia as the cause of death. But I’m never surprised by government incompetence.

Yeah, I'm sorta going back and forth on this. Here's what the coroner found in that Eric Garner case, and that sure seemed rather straightforward criminal act by the cops in that matter (IMO), but despite that appearance, this was the gist of the finding:

"Specifically, an autopsy indicated that Garner's death resulted from '[compression] of neck (choke hold), compression of chest and prone positioning during physical restraint by police'.[1] Asthma, heart disease, and obesity were cited as contributing factors".

And the grand jury in that case elected to decline any indictment.

Eric Garner wiki