Derek Chauvin asks courts to vacate George Floyd murder conviction, expunge records

Kyeland Jackson, Star Tribune on Aug 20, 2026

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MINNEAPOLIS — For the third time, Derek Chauvin has asked Minnesota courts to vacate his conviction for the murder of George Floyd.

Chauvin’s attorney Gregory Joseph filed the petition for postconviction relief on Aug. 18 in Hennepin County. State officials violated Chauvin’s right to due process, Joseph wrote in the petition, adding that the complaint leading to Chauvin’s conviction was “unlawful, unfounded, and illegitimate.”

The move revived criticism of the landmark trial and stirred conversations from citizens and business leaders like Elon Musk.

In the petition, Joseph argued that Gov. Tim Walz broke the law in reassigning authority of the case to Attorney General Keith Ellison’s office, making Ellison’s involvement illegitimate. The petition also claimed “there was no medical evidence to support the bogus theory of ‘asphyxia’ advanced by the state,” and that the Hennepin County District Court should have convened a grand jury before charging Chauvin.

If court officials deny the petition, Joseph asked that they grant an evidentiary court hearing about the case.

A day after the petition, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said in a social media post that Chauvin should be freed. Musk added that Chauvin’s conviction was unjust and that the conviction of Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane and Tou Thao was “also extremely unfair.”

“The facts show that he was not the cause of death, nor did he at any time intend for a death to occur,” Musk’s social media post read. “Whatever else he may be, he is not a murderer. That is the truth.”

Our reporting shows: This is not the first time Chauvin’s lawyer argued that his rights were violated.

Chauvin first filed a petition to overturn his conviction in 2023, stating that he would not have pleaded guilty if his attorney told him that a pathologist offered to testify that Chauvin didn’t cause Floyd’s death. The courts denied his petition. Chauvin and Joseph returned in 2025 requesting another review of his case, arguing his rights were violated by faulty testimony and jury instructions. The courts dismissed that petition, as well.

The backstory: Chauvin was convicted of murdering Floyd on May 25, 2020. Three former Minneapolis police officers Alexander Kueng and Thomas Lane and Tou Thao were charged, convicted and sentenced for their involvement in Floyd’s death.

Chauvin has pursued several appeals since his conviction through the 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 made 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.

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(Jeff Day of the Minnesota Star Tribune contributed to this story.)

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