Court rulings and official documents

Judge Paul Magnuson Grants Chauvin Access to Floyd’s Heart Tissue, Citing Heart Condition Theory in Appeal

Dec 17, 2024, 05:21 PM

A federal judge, Paul Magnuson, has granted Derek Chauvin's legal team permission to examine preserved samples of George Floyd's heart tissue and bodily fluids. This decision is part of Chauvin's appeal against his federal civil rights conviction, which stems from Floyd's death in 2020. Chauvin's attorneys argue that Floyd's death may have been caused by an underlying heart condition, potentially aggravated by a rare tumor, and linked to Takotsubo cardiomyopathy, rather than asphyxiation due to Chauvin's actions. The appeal also claims ineffective assistance of counsel, alleging that Chauvin's original attorney failed to inform him about a pathologist's theory suggesting that Floyd's death was not caused by Chauvin. Floyd's autopsy previously concluded that his death was a homicide caused by cardiopulmonary arrest due to restraint and neck compression. This ruling allows Chauvin's team to analyze histology slides, tissue samples, and fluid samples from Floyd's autopsy. Chauvin is concurrently serving a 22 1/2-year state sentence and a 21-year federal sentence after a 2021 federal plea deal.