On Monday, a federal judge granted permission for Derek Chauvin’s defense team to examine the heart tissue and bodily fluids of George Floyd as part of the former Minneapolis police officer’s challenge to his federal civil rights conviction.
After being convicted of murder by a state jury in 2021, Chauvin pled guilty to federal charges in late 2021 for violating Floyd’s civil rights by using excessive force, which ultimately led to the death of the 46-year-old.
Chauvin is currently serving concurrent sentences of approximately 20 years. Following an alleged stabbing incident in late 2023 by a fellow inmate at an Arizona federal prison, Chauvin was transferred to a low-security facility in West Texas by the Bureau of Prisons.
Chauvin claims that his original attorney, Eric Nelson, failed to inform him about an email from a Kansas pathologist, Dr. William Schaetzel. The pathologist had stated that Floyd’s death was likely caused by a heart condition triggered by dangerously high levels of the neurohormone catecholamine.
In his ruling, U.S. District Judge Paul Magnuson stated that Chauvin’s defense experts would be permitted to examine Floyd’s heart tissue samples and test his bodily fluids for the presence of catecholamine.
“Given the significant nature of the criminal case that Mr. Chauvin was convicted of, and given that the discovery that Mr. Chauvin seeks could support Dr. Schaetzel’s opinion of how Mr. Floyd died, the Court finds that there is good cause to allow Mr. Chauvin to take the discovery that he seeks,” Magnuson wrote.
The court’s decision permits Chauvin’s defense to inspect microscope slides of Floyd’s heart, other heart tissue samples collected during the autopsy, any photographs of Floyd’s heart, and bodily fluids, including blood and urine.
Chauvin’s agreement with prosecutors offers limited chances to reverse his plea. In an interview with MPR News, Bradford Colbert, a professor at Mitchell-Hamline School of Law, explained that Chauvin must convince the court that his original attorney’s performance was deficient.
“That sounds easier than it is. Usually it’s very difficult to overcome your guilty plea on those grounds,” Colbert said.
In September 2023, a federal appellate court dismissed Chauvin’s appeal. Later, in a petition to the district court requesting a new trial, Chauvin argued that Nelson had failed to notify him of Dr. Schaetzel’s existence and had not allowed him to make an informed decision about whether to call Schaetzel as a defense witness or to plead guilty.
In an August filing, attorneys from the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division asserted that Nelson made a “strategic choice” not to explore Schaetzel’s “untested opinion.”
Federal prosecutors also argued that Nelson had already consulted medical experts about Floyd’s health during the state trial, and that he was not at fault for failing to inform Chauvin of Schaetzel’s email, which they said “provided additional support for a theory already rejected by a state jury.”
{Matzav.com}