MINNEAPOLIS– A judge has granted attorneys permission for Derek Chauvin to have samples taken from George Floyd examined as part of the former Minneapolis police officer’s efforts to disputes his belief on a federal civil rights charge arising from Floyd’s death in 2020.
U.S. District Judge Paul Magnuson on Monday agreed to an order to let the defense examine Floyd’s heart tissue and fluid samples to test a theory that Floyd died of a heart condition exacerbated by a rare tumor, and not – as prosecutors claim – due to suffocation caused by the white man. The officer pressed his knee on the black man’s neck for 9.5 minutes, despite Floyd’s final cries: “I can’t breathe.”
Floyd’s death sparked protests worldwide, some of them become violent, and forced a subject take police brutality into account and racism.
Chauvin was convicted in state court on murder charges in 2021 and pleaded guilty later that year in federal court for violating Floyd’s civil rights. His federal defense attorney for his attempted appeal, Robert Meyers, argued in his motion 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, contacted Nelson before Chauvin entered his plea and unsolicited offered a theory that Chauvin did not cause Floyd’s death.
Chauvin claims this amounted to “ineffective assistant counsel,” and it does looking for a new process, saying he would not have pleaded guilty if he had known about the pathologist.
But federal prosecutors have argued in court filings that Nelson made a reasonable “tactical decision” not to investigate an untested opinion “offered by someone holding themselves out as an expert.” They pointed out that Nelson consulted other medical experts in preparation for Chauvin’s cases. , including one who testified in state court, but that the jury in that case rejected Chauvin’s medical defense. They also noted that the legal barriers to succeeding in an ineffective counsel claim are very high.
Nelson declined to comment Tuesday.
Chauvin is serving his 20-year federal civil rights sentence and 22 1/2-year state murder sentence concurrently in a federal prison in Texas. The The US Supreme Court rejected this last year Chauvin’s appeal of his murder conviction.