A Minneapolis judge ruled that Derek Chauvin's legal team can examine heart tissue and fluid samples taken from George Floyd's autopsy for an appeal of the former police officer's federal civil rights conviction.
Chauvin, 46, was convicted in 2021 of murdering Floyd during a May 2020 police encounter in which he kneeled on the Black man's neck for more than nine minutes. The former officer, who is white, now is little more than three years into his 21-year federal prison sentence.
U.S. District Judge Paul Magnuson ruled in favor of Chauvin's attorneys, who argued it was a heart condition that claimed the 46-year-old Floyd's life, and not Chauvin's knee on his neck, DailyMail.com reported.
When Chauvin pleaded guilty to the federal charge, he waived his rights to appeal except on the basis of a claim of ineffective counsel, Newsweek reported.
Chauvin is arguing that his original defense attorney, Eric Nelson, failed to inform him that a forensic pathologist based in Topeka, Kansas, told Nelson he did not think Chauvin caused Floyd's death, The Minnesota Star Tribune reported.
"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. [William] 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 in Monday's order, the Star Tribune reported.
Magnuson added that Chauvin's defense team may take discovery of Floyd's heart tissue and fluid samples, and slides of the heart.
Prosecutors had asked Magnuson to deny Chauvin's motion that claims he received deficient performance by Nelson. They described forensic pathologist Dr. Schaetzel's email to Nelson as an "unsolicited opinion from a doctor who had seen [Chauvin's] state trial on television."
Chauvin also is serving a state sentence. A Hennepin County judge sentenced the former police officer to more than 20 years in prison after a jury there found him guilty of second-degree murder.
The Hennepin County medical examiner's office ruled Floyd's death was a homicide, caused by "cardiopulmonary arrest" complicated by "restraint, and neck compression" while he was being subdued by police.
However, the autopsy report said Floyd had severe "atherosclerosis heart disease" and an enlarged heart due to high blood pressure, or hypertension.
Chauvin is not set to be released until 2037, according to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons.