The question now is whether the jury will understand what Dr.Chundru explained to them. If they do, DP will likely be found not guilty. If, like Dr. Harris, they don't understand it, they might find him guilty.
If Chundru is correct, and there's no reason to think he isn't, JN would have died had DP and the others restraining him chosen to simply hold one arm or leg.
Because JN died of
exertional sickling, not a chokehold. It was JN's violent resistance to being restrained that triggered the sickling event. JN's mental illness contributed to his heightened state of anxiety, while the drugs in his system and his SCT combined to push his body into the sickling event that killed him.
Dr. Harris gave her best opinion, but she's just an MD who focuses on autopsies. She's par for the course in most cities. Dr. Chundru, on the other hand, is an actual forensic pathologist, someone who was first a doctor and then did a residency in forensic pathology. I hope Dr. Harris will now take it upon herself to learn what exertional sickling is because 9% of African Americans carry SCT, and they, too, are at risk.
There are only two questions the jurors need to ask themselves now:
Would a healthy person have died under DP's restraint that day? The answer is
NO.
Would JN have died had he been restrained in a different fashion? As long as he was violently resisting, the answer is
YES.
JMOO
Many peer-reviewed studies are out there about exertional sickling such as this one, this one, and this one.
