Former prosecutor TJ Harker: Derek Chauvin is affirmatively innocent. Minnesota changed its theory of George Floyd’s death in the middle of the trial.

American Scapegoat ships October 27 from Passage Press.

TJ Harker spent twenty years as a lawyer. A graduate of Michigan Law, he served as a New Jersey deputy attorney general and as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Middle District of Tennessee. He prosecuted billion dollar frauds and espionage cases. He wrote a law review article arguing that prosecutors, in the main, do their jobs honestly. Then he dug into the Chauvin file and concluded the case never should have been brought.

On this episode of Counterweight, Harker walks through what the State actually did. Prosecutors ruled out an air choke the day after George Floyd died — the autopsy showed no damage to the neck. They rode a blood-choke theory through opening statements, then dropped it after their own witnesses said you cannot kill a man, or even knock him out, by compressing one carotid artery. Mid-trial they pivoted to positional asphyxia, the theory they had already disclaimed in the charging complaint. Hennepin County’s medical examiner, Dr. Andrew Baker, did not agree with asphyxiation, carotid compression, or positional asphyxia. The first two county prosecutors withdrew rather than charge second-degree murder. Harker’s finding: Chauvin did not cause Floyd’s death.

A federal pardon leaves the Minnesota sentence standing. The book is the case for the public.

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TJ Harker: @TJ_Harker on X · Amicus Republicae on Substack

Will Chamberlain: @willchamberlain

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0:00 Teaser

0:46 Intro

3:01 TJ Harker

6:27 Why he wrote the book

8:51 The State changed its theory of George Floyd's Death

14:37 The blood choke theory collapses

20:05 The prosecutors who withdrew

24:04 Tobin's fanciful positional asphyxia theory

33:22 How "neck compression" ended up in the autopsy

45:05 How Floyd actually died

49:50 The EMS delay

53:10 What now for Chauvin?

59:34 American Scapegoat