A judge in the US state of Minnesota has granted former policeman Derek Chauvin’s legal team access to George Floyd’s heart tissue and fluid samples, in a bid to overturn the 2020 case.
Chauvin is simultaneously serving a 21-year federal sentence for civil rights violations, and a more than 22-year state sentence for the second-degree murder of George Floyd, a black man who died in his custody in 2020. The police conduct in a video of the incident in which Chauvin kneeled on Floyd’s neck was widely criticized in the media and led to widespread riots both in the US and worldwide.
In November 2023, the ex-cop’s legal team filed a motion challenging his federal conviction. Chauvin argued that his original defense attorney had failed to inform him of Kansas pathologist Dr. William Schaetzel’s theories suggesting that the former officer’s actions did not cause Floyd’s death.
On Monday, Minnesota Judge Paul Magnuson ruled that the defense be allowed access to samples or slides of Floyd’s heart tissue, as well as his bodily fluids. Schaetzel believes that Floyd may have died as a result of either a high level of catecholamines, a neurohormone important in stress response; or Takotsubo’s myocarditis, an acute stress-induced heart condition.
According to the initial autopsy carried out in Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s office, Floyd had severe arteriosclerotic heart disease, as well as a clinical history of hypertension. The death was ruled a homicide, with the cause of death: “cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint and neck compression.” Other factors included fentanyl and methamphetamine, among other drugs, found in Floyd’s blood.
Chauvin and three other police officers who assisted in the arrest have been convicted of causing the man’s death.
Last year, Chauvin was stabbed 22 times by another inmate using an improvised knife, while serving time in the Federal Correctional Institution in Tucson, Arizona. The inmate told officers he chose Black Friday to attempt to kill the ex-cop for a symbolic connection to the Black Lives Matter movement. Chauvin was released from the hospital a few days after the attempt and was moved to a different prison in the months following.