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Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin‘s legal team obtained permission to examine samples of heart tissue and fluids taken during George Floyd‘s autopsy as part of a civil rights challenge to his federal conviction.

U.S. District Judge Paul Magnuson on Monday granted a motion to inspect evidence in Chauvin’s claim that it was an underlying heart condition — not Chauvin’s knee on Floyd’s neck — which caused the death of the black man in 2020.

Why it matters

Floyd, 46, died May 25, 2020, in Minneapolis after Chauvin, who is white, knelt on his neck for more than nine minutes.

Bystander video showing Floyd repeatedly gasping for air as he couldn’t breathe as Chauvin held him pinned to the ground sparked protests across the country and beyond and a reckoning over police brutality and injustice racial.

Chauvin was sentenced to 22 1/2 years in prison in 2021 after jurors found him guilty of second-degree murder and other charges — a moment that was seen as an important step forward in holding officers accountable killings of unarmed people.

Chauvin later pleaded guilty to a separate federal charge of violating Floyd’s civil rights and was sentenced to 21 years in federal prison, which he is serving concurrently with his state sentence.

Chauvin is not expected to be released until 2037, according to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons. However, even if his federal conviction is vacated, he will still have to serve the remainder of his sentence in the state.

What you need to know

Chauvin seeks to overturn his federal civil rights conviction for “ineffective assistance of counsel.”

He argued that he would not have pleaded guilty if he had known about pathologist Dr. William Schaetzel’s belief that he did not cause Floyd’s death.

He said Eric Nelson, his original defense attorney, failed to inform him of an email from Schaetzel in which he said he did not believe Chauvin caused Floyd’s death.

Nelson did not seek to test heart tissue samples that Schaetzel said would show evidence of a heart disease called takotsubo cardiomyopathy, according to Chauvin.

“Given the important nature of the criminal case for which Mr. Chauvin was convicted, and given that the discovery sought by Mr. Chauvin could support Dr. Schaetzel’s opinion on how Mr. Floyd died “, the Court finds that there are good reasons to allow Mr. Chauvin to make the discovery he seeks,” Magnuson wrote in Monday’s order.

Nelson was contacted for comment by email. Robert Myers, an assistant federal defender in Minneapolis who is handling Chauvin’s appeal, was also reached for comment by email.

What George Floyd’s autopsy report says about his death

The Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled Floyd’s death a homicide.

An autopsy report by Dr. Andrew Baker, the county’s chief medical examiner, said Floyd’s death was caused by “cardiopulmonary arrest” complicated by “restraint and compression of the neck” while he was subdued by the police.

The report said Floyd suffered from severe “heart disease due to atherosclerosis” and an enlarged heart due to high blood pressure.

Derek Chauvin’s life in prison

Chauvin is currently being held at the Big Spring Federal Correctional Institution, a low-security prison in Texas.

He was transferred to the establishment in August, nine months after being attacked by another inmate in a federal prison in Arizona. Chauvin was stabbed 22 times at FCI Tucson by John Turscak, a former gang leader and former FBI informant.

Turscak told investigators he targeted Chauvin because of his notoriety for Floyd’s killing.

Before moving to Arizona, Chauvin was held in solitary confinement in Minnesota’s only maximum security prison due to concerns for his safety. He was kept in his cell every day except for one hour when he was allowed outside to exercise.

Could Derek Chauvin’s conviction be overturned?

Chauvin argued that no jury would have convicted him if it had heard Schaetzel’s testimony.

When he pleaded guilty to the federal charge, he waived his right to appeal except based on a complaint from ineffective counsel.

United States Supreme Court in November 2023 refused to hear Chauvin’s appeal of his murder conviction in state court.

What people say

Ben Crump, an attorney who represented Floyd’s family, said the: “A judge has ruled that Derek Chauvin’s lawyers can test preserved samples of George Floyd’s heart, challenging his federal conviction. Nothing changes what we all watched: his knee on George Floyd’s neck for 9 minutes and 29 seconds.”

What’s next

Chauvin’s team “may uncover all histologic slides” of Floyd’s heart and other heart tissue samples taken during the autopsy, Magnuson’s order states.

They can inspect and make copies of any photographs taken of Floyd’s heart and can “take quantities of certain fluids” for testing.