A judge has granted Derek Chauvin's lawyers permission to examine tissue samples from George Floyd's body. It is part of the former Minneapolis police officer efforts to challenge his federal conviction violating Floyd's civil rights after he was too convicted of Floyd's murder in 2020.

U.S. District Judge Paul Magnuson granted the order on Monday, agreeing to allow the defense to examine Floyd's heart tissue and fluid samples. This will be done to test a theory that Floyd died of heart disease aggravated by a rare tumor, not asphyxiation caused by the white officer pressing his knee on the black man's neck for nine and a half minutes. minutes of May 2020.

Chauvin's federal defense attorney for his attempted appeal, Robert Meyers, argued 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, had contacted Nelson before Chauvin entered his plea and offered an unsolicited theory that Chauvin did not cause Floyd's death.

Chauvin claims this amounted to "ineffective assistance of counsel" and it 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 documents that Nelson made a reasonable "tactical decision" not to explore an unproven opinion "offered by someone posing as an expert."

The Supreme Court dismissed the appeal against the murder conviction

They noted that Nelson consulted with other medical experts to prepare Chauvin's cases, including one who testified in state court, but that the jury in that case rejected Chauvin's medical defense. Federal prosecutors also noted that the legal barriers to success in an ineffective counsel claim are very high.

Nelson declined to comment Tuesday.

Chauvin was convicted in state court on murder charges in 2021 and he pleaded guilty later that year in federal court for violating Floyd's civil rights. He is currently serving his 20-year federal civil rights murder and 22 1/2-year murder sentences concurrently in a federal prison in Texas.

The US Supreme Court rejected Chauvin's appeal of his murder conviction last year.

Floyd's death and his dying cries of "I can't breathe" sparked worldwide protests, some of which became violent — and forced to accounts of police brutality and racism