A judge has greenlit the examination of George Floyd’s heart tissue and bodily fluids, providing a possible pathway for appeal against the conviction of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin.
The judge approved the request on Monday after Chauvin’s lawyers presented arguments to the court.
Chauvin was found guilty in the case concerning the death of George Floyd.
Following the contentious, politically motivated, and highly publicized trial, Chauvin is currently serving a 20-plus-year sentence for second-degree murder.
Chauvin’s new defense attorney, Robert Meyers, filed a motion last week.
Meyers wants to explore samples taken during Floyd’s autopsy.
The new investigation is being launched 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.
Schaetzel says Floyd suffered 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 suffered from heart disease and hypertension and had fentanyl and methamphetamine in his system at the time of his death.
He did not die until he was at a nearby hospital.
It has been alleged that Floyd swallowed a large amount of drugs when the police arrived on the scene.
Chauvin has been trying to appeal the conviction.
In 2023, attorney William Mohrman filed an appeal at the U.S. Supreme Court.
Mohrman argues, 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 said 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, who has already been stabbed in prison, has also been convicted of a federal civil rights violation, for which he is serving over 20 years concurrently with his state sentence.
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