Seeking new trial for death of George Floyd, Derek Chauvin argues his rights were 'destroyed'

MINNEAPOLIS — Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin has filed another petition for postconviction relief in Hennepin County District Court seeking to overturn his conviction of second-degree murder in the killing of George Floyd.

Chauvin argues his conviction should be vacated and he should either be given a new trial or an evidentiary hearing over what he claims was faulty medical methodology and testimony over Floyd’s cause of death, misrepresentation of Minneapolis Police Department training and faulty jury instructions.

Attorney Gregory Joseph wrote in a 71-page memorandum attached to Chauvin’s filing that “while the postconviction relief stage of many criminal cases is generally something of an afterthought, this Court is removed from the hysteria of the day and can finally look at the facts and evidence through a clear lens.”

After a 14-day trial in 2021, Chauvin was convicted of second-degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. Judge Peter Cahill sentenced Chauvin to 22½ years in prison, an upward departure from sentencing guidelines. He was also sentenced to a 20-year federal prison term for violating the civil rights of Floyd and a Black Minneapolis teen over excessive use of force during an encounter in 2017. Since then, Chauvin has pursued several appeals through Hennepin County District Court, U.S. District Court, the Minnesota Court of Appeals, the Minnesota Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court.

Those appeals have advanced several arguments, including that Chauvin wasn’t given a fair trial due to intensive pretrial media coverage over riots and civil unrest around the globe that followed Floyd’s killing; that the jury should have been sequestered during the trial; and that the trial should have been held outside of Hennepin County due to bias in the jury pool.

None of the appeals have been successful.

The petition for postconviction relief was filed on Nov. 20 and references several arguments made in the popular documentary “The Fall of Minneapolis” and book “They’re Lying: The Media, the Left, and the Death of George Floyd,” both of which were produced by Liz Collin of Alpha News and heavily question Chauvin’s conviction.

The petition argues that Floyd first engaged in “a full-blown wrestling match” with Chauvin and the other officers on the scene, Tou Thao, J. Alexander Kueng and Thomas Lane. It states that Floyd’s resistance while handcuffed led him to be restrained on the ground with Chauvin’s knee on his back and neck area.

Chauvin stayed on top of Floyd for 9 minutes, 29 seconds as Floyd repeatedly said he could not breathe and begged for help. He was declared dead shortly thereafter. The murder was filmed by Darnella Frazier, who posted the video on Facebook where it spread across the world.

A still image from that video showing Chauvin with his knee on Floyd’s neck was shown repeatedly at trial and several MPD supervisors testified at length that it showed Chauvin not following department policy.

Assistant Police Chief Katie Blackwell testified that “I don’t know what kind of improvised position that is. So that’s not what we train.” Former Lt. Johnny Mercil said the image showed a use of force that can be authorized but only under certain circumstances, which didn’t include Chauvin’s restraint of Floyd.

Former Police Chief Medaria Arradondo testified that the department trained knee-on-neck restraints but the pressure had to be light or moderate. He said the still image of Chauvin showed force that was not light or moderate and that Chauvin applying that pressure for as long as he did was not policy.

“It has to be objectively reasonable,” Arradondo testified about police use of force. “We have to take into account the circumstances, the information, the threat to the officer, the threat to others, and the severity of that. That is not part of our policy.”

He added that there was a “reasonableness” to Chauvin and the officers trying to get Floyd under control in the “first few seconds” but the continued application of pressure against a person who was prone and handcuffed “is not part of our training.”

Earlier this year, Hennepin County Judge Edward Wahl dismissed a defamation lawsuit brought by Blackwell against Collin and JC Chaix, the director of “The Fall of Minneapolis.” Blackwell had argued that their questioning of the truthfulness of her testimony had caused substantial harm to her and her career.

In dismissing that claim, Wahl wrote that Collin and Chaix had presented arguments that were “substantially true” as it pertained to the high threshold for defamation under Minnesota’s new Uniform Public Expression Protection Act.

Chauvin’s petition excerpts from Wahl’s order:

“In her testimony, Blackwell stated that the restraint used by Chauvin was ‘not something we train.’ Yet MPD’s own policy manual and other officers indicate that similar techniques were part of MPD’s training materials and policies.”

The petition for postconviction relief claims that 57 current and former officers have signed sworn affidavits “attesting that the knee-to-neck tactic was trained and consistent with MPD policy.” It also argues that Arradondo, Blackwell and Mercil provided false testimony to the jury, the state made “no attempt” to correct it and “Chauvin’s right to due process was destroyed.”

The other primary argument in Chauvin’s petition centers around Hennepin County Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Andrew Baker, who performed the autopsy on Floyd, and other medical experts who testified about Floyd’s cause of death.

Baker determined that Floyd died of “cardiopulmonary arrest, complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint, and neck compression.” He concluded that Floyd’s heart stopped and ruled the manner of death as a homicide while adding that the presence of fentanyl, methamphetamine and heart disease were “significant conditions.” He testified that drugs and other factors “did not directly cause the death” of Floyd.

Four other physicians, who relied on Baker’s investigation and footage of the murder, testified that Floyd had died of asphyxia.

Chauvin argues that the testimony by those additional medical professionals about the cause of death of Floyd failed to distinguish “between forensic video evaluation and practicing medicine” and was an effort on behalf of the state to “discredit Baker.”

The professionals were Drs. Martin Tobin, William Smock, Lindsey Thomas and Jonathan Rich. All four testified that they used extensive video evidence from the scene to draw their conclusion that Floyd died from asphyxiation.

Joseph writes in Chauvin’s petition that the video evidence is circumstantial and doesn’t shed “any light on the events that took place inside Floyd’s body.” He notes that the Minnesota Supreme Court has found that “video evidence alone, without any support in medical findings, is not an adequate foundation for a causation conclusion.”

The petition states that Chauvin can provide expert witnesses from the Forensic Panel, a legal practice that uses peer review to “evaluate forensic assessments for alignment with professional standards,” who will argue that the testimony of those four medical experts about what caused Floyd’s death “is not generally accepted by the scientific community.”

Chauvin’s petition for postconviction relief has been taken under advisement by Judge Paul Scoggin. The Minnesota Attorney General’s Office is set to file a response to the motion by Jan. 4, 2026.

Chauvin filed his first petition for postconviction relief on Nov. 23, 2024. He noted that he didn’t actually intend to litigate the issues he raised in that petition — they focused on a tumor that was discovered during Floyd’s autopsy and questioned whether Baker was influenced to rule Floyd’s death a homicide. That petition was dismissed in April by Scoggin, who noted in his order that Chauvin still had time to file another petition for postconviction relief but that many of the arguments in his first petition had already been litigated at trial. The ruling also noted that Chauvin was seeking appeals for his federal sentence.

Chauvin pleaded guilty in federal court in December 2021 for violating Floyd’s civil rights and was sentenced to 21 years in prison. In his plea deal, Chauvin admitted that once he and the other officers decided not to “hobble” Floyd, his use of force “became objectively unreasonable and excessive based on totality of the circumstances.” Chauvin’s two sentences are running concurrently, and he is being housed at FCI Big Spring in Texas.

He’s set to be released in 2035.

Messages left with Chauvin’s attorney requesting comment on the petition were not returned. The state Attorney General’s Office declined to comment and said its response to the claims would be made in court.

The Hennepin County Attorney’s Office has served in a supporting role to the Attorney General’s Office throughout the prosecution of Chauvin. When asked about the petition, Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said, “Chauvin is where Chauvin belongs.”

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