Judge grants Chauvin access to Floyd’s heart tissue, bodily fluids in bid to reverse guilty plea
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A federal judge on Monday allowed defense attorneys for Derek Chauvin to examine George Floyd’s heart tissue and bodily fluids as part of the former Minneapolis police officer's challenge to his federal civil rights conviction.
In late 2021, eight months after a state jury convicted Chauvin of murder, he pleaded guilty to federal charges of violating Floyd’s civil rights by using excessive force that ultimately killed the 46-year-old.
Chauvin is serving concurrent sentences of around 20 years. The Bureau of Prisons transferred him to a low-security facility in west Texas after a fellow inmate allegedly stabbed him at an Arizona federal prison in late 2023.
Chauvin argues that Eric Nelson, his original attorney in the state and federal cases, failed to inform him about an email from a Kansas pathologist. Dr. William Schaetzel opined that Floyd died of a heart condition brought on by excessive levels of the neurohormone catecholamine.
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In an order, U.S. District Judge Paul Magnuson writes that defense experts may examine Floyd's heart tissue samples and test his bodily fluids for 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 writes.
The order allows the defense to review microscope slides of Floyd’s heart, other heart tissue samples taken during the autopsy, any photos of Floyd’s heart and bodily fluids including blood and urine.
Chauvin’s agreement with prosecutors provides few avenues to reverse his plea. Bradford Colbert, a professor at Mitchell-Hamline School of Law, said in an interview with MPR News that Chauvin must convince a court that his lawyer was ineffective.
“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 rejected Chauvin’s appeal. In a later petition with the district court to request a new trial, Chauvin argued that Nelson “did not even notify defendant of Schaetzel’s existence or allow defendant to make an informed decision on whether to call Schaetzel as a defense witness or to plead guilty in this case.”
In an August court filing, attorneys with the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division argue that Nelson made a “strategic choice” not to explore Schaetzel’s “untested opinion.”
Federal prosecutors also contend that because Nelson consulted experts about Floyd’s medical issues at the state trial, Nelson did nothing wrong by not telling Chauvin about Schaetzel's email, which “provided additional support for a theory already rejected by a state jury.”
