A judge has granted permission to lawyers for Derek Chauvin to have samples from George Floyd examined as part of the former Minneapolis police officer’s efforts to challenge his conviction on a federal civil rights charge stemming from Floyd’s death in 2020, the Associated Press reports. U.S. District Judge Paul Magnuson agreed in an order Monday to let the defense examine Floyd’s heart tissue and fluid samples, to test a theory that Floyd died of a heart condition aggravated by a rare tumor, not — as prosecutors contend — from asphyxiation caused by the white officer pressing his knee on the Black man’s neck for 9 1/2 minutes despite Floyd’s dying cries of, “I can’t breathe.”
Chauvin was convicted in state court on murder charges in 2021 and pleaded guilty later that year in federal court to violating Floyd’s civil rights. His federal defender for his appeal attempt, Robert Meyers, argued in his request that Chauvin’s original attorney, Eric Nelson, failed to inform his client that an outside pathologist not directly involved in the case, Dr. William Schaetzel, of Topeka, Kansas, had contacted Nelson before Chauvin entered his plea and offered an unsolicited theory that Chauvin did not cause Floyd’s death. Though Chauvin claims that amounted to “ineffective assistance counsel” and is seeking a new trial, federal prosecutors have pushed back against that, saying that Nelson consulted with other medical experts in preparation for Chauvin’s cases, including one who testified in state court. Chauvin is serving his 20-year federal civil rights and 22 1/2-year state murder sentences concurrently at a federal prison in Texas. The U.S. Supreme Court last year rejected Chauvin’s appeal of his murder conviction.