David Fowler
© Court TV via AP, PoolDr. David Fowler giving testimony during Derek Chauvin's murder trial.
The medical expert who testified for the defense in convicted ex-cop Derek Chauvin's murder trial is going under the microscope himself.

Seventeen years' worth of death reports produced by Dr. David Fowler, Maryland's former chief medical officer, will be reviewed in the wake of complaints over Fowler's testimony that Chauvin was not to blame for the in-custody death of George Floyd in Minneapolis last year.

"Independent experts" will "review reports issued by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (OCME) regarding deaths in custody" from 2003 to 2020, when Fowler headed the office, the state attorney general's office told the Baltimore Sun Friday.

The decision came less than a day after more than 400 medical examiners — Fowler's former colleagues — issued an open letter criticizing Fowler's opinion that Floyd's death was caused not by police restraint, but by exhaust fumes from the cops' squad car and Floyd's poor health.

"We believe the unsubstantiated opinion ... is far outside [the] standard and is grounds for an immediate investigation," the letter declared.

Fowler, who retired from the office in 2019, defended its "large team of forensic pathologists" who "always did tremendous work" — and tried to shrug off the coming review.

"People need to do what they need to do," he said.

Chauvin was found guilty of murder Tuesday in the death of Floyd during an arrest last May.