A judge on Monday approved the examination of George Floyd’s heart tissue and bodily fluids, offering a potential legal avenue for appeal in the conviction of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin.
Chauvin was found guilty in the contentious and highly-publicized case concerning the death of George Floyd and is currently serving a 20-plus year sentence for second-degree murder.
Chauvin’s new defense attorney, Robert Meyers, filed a motion last week to explore samples taken during Floyd’s autopsy on the basis that Chauvin was given “ineffective assistance of counsel” under his last attorney, Eric Nelson.
Meyers noted that Dr. William Schaetzel, a Kansas-based forensic pathologist, told Nelson before conviction that he believed Floyd died from heart failure due to an excessive release of catecholamines, not from Chauvin’s actions, ABC5 reported. However, Nelson never discussed this with Chauvin.
“Nelson provided ineffective assistance of counsel to Mr. Chauvin by failing to consult with him on this issue,” Judge Paul Magnuson agreed.
JUST IN: In new court ruling, Derek Chauvin will be allowed to test heart tissue of George Floyd. pic.twitter.com/51Kzl1qoIP
— Liz Collin (@lizcollin) December 16, 2024
Floyd, who suffered from heart disease and hypertension and had fentanyl and methamphetamine in his system at the time of his death, did not die until he was at a nearby hospital.
Chauvin, who has already been stabbed in prison, has been trying to appeal the conviction.
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In 2023, attorney William Mohrman filed an appeal at the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing, in part, that Chauvin was denied the right to a fair trial. However, the high court refused to hear the appeal.
“Under the Sixth Amendment of the U. S. Constitution, every criminal defendant is guaranteed a right to a fair trial,” Mohrman told The Daily Wire at the time. “And part of that fair trial-right is not to be tried in a location where the jurors have either been exposed to extensive pre-trial publicity, or there has been such community outrage and the like that the jurors, before they even were impaneled before the trial, would have concluded the defendant’s guilty, or would have been pressured into rendering a guilty verdict.”
Mohrman also suggested that jurors were scared not to convict.
“During the questioning, I would say the vast majority — not only the vast majority, probably 75 to 80 percent of the jurors — expressed concerns for their own personal safety as a result of being impaneled on the jury,” he said. “Virtually every juror had obviously heard about the case, knew about the riots, had seen the videos that were taken when George Floyd was arrested; virtually all the jurors have seen that, so it’s difficult in a case like that to impanel the jury where the jurors haven’t formed firm conclusions before the trial even starts.”
Chauvin has also been convicted of a federal civil rights violation, for which he is serving over 20 years concurrently with his state sentence.
Related: Derek Chauvin Stabbed In Prison, ‘Life-Saving Measures’ Administered: Report
