Actually, they know who sold Floyd his dope. But the pusher is pleading the 5th, even though its certainly exculpatory evidence in favor of Officer Chauvin.
If the pusher gave Floyd a "hot (lethal) dose", he should be (at the very least) in the dock as well.
Yes but they would have to give the pusher immunity by testifying that he sold Floyd bad dope. Given the environment, that's not likely to happen.
I think that's rather telling. The offer of immunity has to come from the prosecution, and that they're perfectly happy to go, "No, that's fine, we don't need to hear what you have to say" tells us that the prosecution is 100% interested in preserving their narrative, and 0% interested in finding out the truth.
Well... they are the prosecution. That is their job, present the best case they can.
No, actually, their job was to have found the truth as best as they possibly could in order to determine whether a case needed to be made at all. And they blew it off in favor of serving a political narrative.
Well, no. Their job really is not to find the truth. That is what we WANT the outcome to be and our system uses the competing sides of a prosecutor and a defense in hopes of actually getting at the truth. The job of the prosecutor though is to present the best possible case they can minus actively hiding exculpatory evidence. They do not have any obligations whatsoever to present that exculpatory evidence though, again they are to present the best case possible. They just have to provide that evidence to the defense so they can present it if they choose. You may think that there was not enough to bring this to trial but I would disagree there. Chauvin may be innocent and the case to weak but that does not mean there is not enough there to convince the DA there is a good chance he was guilty. It is pretty clear there is a case here, the prosecution has presented at least that much. We will see after the defense gets to tear it apart. I think they have made some solid points on some details in the body cam footage as well as details on the coroners report. The prosecution managed to get an expert witness to make this amazing claim though:
Dr. Jonathan Rich said Mr. Floyd had an “exceptionally strong heart” and ruled out a drug overdose and a primary cardiac event.
www.nytimes.com
"Dr. Rich said he had considered two other potential causes, including a primary cardiac event and possibly a drug overdose. But he said: “I can state with a high degree of medical certainty” that Mr. Floyd “did not die from a primary cardiac event and did not die from a drug overdose.”
Clearly there is at least a case here.
They certainly are not going to provide immunity for the defense. That may be a weakness in our system but no one anywhere afaik has had the DA offer immunity for a defense witness. I wonder if testimony in such situations should not be sealed and protected in the first place so that immunity was not even a question and the defense could freely call the dealer.
If the job was to get to the truth there would be only the judge who would investigate the case but we know such a system is rife with corruption and does not work.
I will not argue that politics is getting in the way though.