Motion allows George Floyd’s heart tissue to be examined in Derek Chauvin’s latest challenge to federal conviction
By Riley Moser
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MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — A judge ruled on Monday that lawyers for former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin can get tests done on preserved samples of George Floyd’s heart in the latest challenge to his 2022 federal conviction.
Chauvin is simultaneously serving a 21-year federal sentence for violating Floyd’s civil rights and a 22 1/2-year state sentence for second-degree murder.
In November last year, Chauvin’s attorney filed a motion to vacate the federal charges related to the May 2020 death of Floyd. Chauvin said he wouldn’t have pleaded guilty had he known about the theories of Kansas pathologist Dr. William Schaetzel, who does not believe Chauvin’s actions caused Floyd’s death.
Schaetzel suggests Floyd died due to a high level of catecholamines — a neurohormone important in stress response, associated with the flight-or-fight response — or Takotsubo myocarditis, a heart condition that develops in response to an intense emotional or physical experience.
The motion also accuses Chauvin’s attorney at the time, Eric Nelson, of ineffective counsel by failing to inform his client of Schaetzel’s theory and failing to test samples of Floyd’s heart despite the doctor’s recommendations.
The granted motion allows Chauvin’s attorneys to take discovery of slides and photographs of Floyd’s heart as well as tissue samples and tissue blocks containing heart tissue. They can also take fluids from the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office to test the “concentration of fractionated catecholamines and metanephrine levels present,” according to court documents.
Floyd, who was Black, died on May 25, 2020, after Chauvin, who is White, used his knee to pin Floyd’s neck to the ground for 9 1/2 minutes.
The killing, captured on bystander video, sparked protests in 2020 as part of a worldwide reckoning over racial injustice.
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