DECEMBER 17, 2024:
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A judge has granted permission to lawyers for Derek Chauvin to have samples from George Floyd examined as part of the former Minneapolis police officer’s efforts to challenge his conviction on a federal civil rights charge stemming from Floyd’s death in 2020.
U.S. District Judge Paul Magnuson agreed in an order Monday (Dec. 16, 2024) to let the defense examine Floyd’s heart tissue and fluid samples to test a theory that Floyd died of a heart condition aggravated by a rare tumor, not — as prosecutors contend — from asphyxiation caused by the white officer pressing his knee on the Black man’s neck for 9 1/2 minutes despite Floyd’s dying cries of, “I can’t breathe.”
Floyd’s death touched off protests worldwide, some of which turned violent, and forced a national reckoning with police brutality and racism.
Chauvin was convicted in state court on murder charges in 2021 and pleaded guilty later that year in federal court to violating Floyd’s civil rights. His federal defender for his appeal attempt, Robert Meyers, argued in his request that Chauvin’s original attorney, Eric Nelson, failed to inform his client that an outside pathologist not directly involved in the case, Dr. William Schaetzel, of Topeka, Kansas, had contacted Nelson before Chauvin entered his plea and offered an unsolicited theory that Chauvin did not cause Floyd’s death.
Chauvin claims that amounted to “ineffective assistance counsel” and is seeking a new trial, saying he would not have pleaded guilty if he had known about the pathologist.
But federal prosecutors have argued in court filings that Nelson made a reasonable “tactical decision” not to explore an untested opinion “offered by someone holding himself out as an expert.” They pointed out that Nelson consulted with other medical experts in preparation for Chauvin’s cases, including one who testified in state court, but that the jury in that case rejected Chauvin’s medical defense. They also noted that the legal barriers to succeeding on a claim of ineffective counsel are very high.
Nelson declined to comment Tuesday.
Chauvin is serving his 20-year federal civil rights and 22 1/2-year state murder sentences concurrently at a federal prison in Texas. The U.S. Supreme Court last year rejected Chauvin’s appeal of his murder conviction.
JULY 20, 2023:
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — An attorney for former Minneapolis police Officer Derek Chauvin says they’ll ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review his second-degree murder conviction in George Floyd’s killing. The Minnesota Supreme Court on Tuesday (July 18, 2023) denied without comment Chauvin’s petition for his case to be heard, maintaining his conviction and 22 1/2-year sentence. Chauvin’s attorney said Wednesday the most significant issue is whether holding the proceedings in Minneapolis in 2021 deprived Chauvin of a fair trial due to pretrial publicity and concerns for violence. Chauvin faces long odds at the U.S. Supreme Court, which hears only about 100 to 150 appeals out of thousands every year.
JUNE 8, 2023:
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — State prosecutors have urged the Minnesota Supreme Court to reject former Minneapolis police Officer Derek Chauvin’s request to reconsider his conviction for murdering George Floyd, saying lower courts already got it right. Chauvin’s attorney asked the state’s highest court last month to hear the case after the Minnesota Court of Appeals rejected his arguments that he had been denied a fair trial. The three-judge panel affirmed his conviction for second-degree murder and his 22 1/2-year sentence. In a response filed Tuesday (June 6, 2023), the attorney general’s office asked the Supreme Court to let that stand, saying it’s time to bring the case to a close.
APRIL 17, 2023:
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The Minnesota Court of Appeals has upheld Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin’s second-degree murder conviction for the May 2020 killing of George Floyd. A three-judge panel also affirmed Chauvin’s 22 1/2-year sentence. His attorney had asked the appeals court to throw out all of his convictions for a long list of reasons, including the massive pretrial publicity. But the appeals court sided with prosecutors who said Chauvin got a fair trial and just sentence. The appeals court wrote that police have difficult jobs, but when they commit crimes they must be held accountable. It said Chauvin crossed the line by using unreasonable force on Floyd.
AUGUST 26, 2022:
UNDATED (AP)- Derek Chauvin has been moved from a Minnesota state prison where he was often held in solitary confinement to a medium-security federal prison in Arizona, where the former police officer convicted in George Floyd’s killing may be held under less restrictive conditions. Chauvin was taken from a maximum-security prison in a Minneapolis suburb to the federal prison in Tucson. A Bureau of Prisons spokeswoman declined to give details of the circumstances of Chauvin’s confinement in the new location. But Chauvin often spent most of his time in the state prison confined to his cell, in part for his safety in a population that typically has more violent offenders than federal prisons.
JULY 7, 2022:
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — A federal judge on Thursday sentenced Derek Chauvin to 21 years in prison for violating George Floyd’s civil rights, telling the former Minneapolis police officer that what he did was “simply wrong” and “offensive.” U.S. District Judge Paul Magnuson sharply criticized Chauvin for his actions on May 25, 2020, when he pinned Floyd to the pavement outside a Minneapolis corner store for more than 9 minutes as he lay dying. Even so, Magnuson’s sentence was at the low end of the 20 to 25 years called for in a plea agreement in which he will serve the federal sentence at the same time he serves his 22 1/2-year sentence on state charges of murder and manslaughter.
JUNE 23, 2022:
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Federal prosecutors are asking a judge to give former Minneapolis Officer Derek Chauvin a 25-year sentence for violating the rights of George Floyd, as well as the rights of a 14-year-old Black boy who was restrained in an unrelated case. Chauvin pleaded guilty in December to violating Floyd’s rights when he knelt on the Black man’s neck during a May 2020 arrest. U.S. District Judge Paul Magnuson has already accepted a plea agreement, which calls for a sentence ranging from 20 to 25 years. Prosecutors say Chauvin should face the high end because of the serious nature of the crime and other reasons. Chauvin was convicted on state charges of murder and manslaughter and is serving a 22 1/2-year sentence.
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