George Floyd will not be receiving a posthumous pardon for his 2004 drug conviction, as the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles has made the decision not to grant it after all.
As Blavity previously reported, in October 2021, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles had unanimously recommended that Floyd receive a posthumous pardon from the governor — which would have made him only the second person in Texas since 2010 to obtain this.
In the application for pardon, Allison Mathis of the Harris County Public Defender’s Office said: “Even though Floyd worked to change his life after being released in 2013, the request for a posthumous pardon wasn’t based on what had or had not been done.” “It was filed because the arresting officer in Floyd’s case manufactured the existence of confidential informants to bolster his cases against innocent defendants.”
Officer Gerald Goines arrested Floyd on February 5, 2004. Floyd was arrested and charged with the delivery of a controlled substance. At the time of arrest, Goins alleged that Floyd possessed crack cocaine and provided drugs to an unnamed ‘second suspect’. This suspect agreed to sell the drugs to Goines. Goines was undercover. The 35-year law enforcement veteran was later indicted and pleaded not guilty on unrelated charges of felony murder and tampering with a government record. His case remains pending.
Floyd’s case was one of many that prosecutors looked at in Goines’ history. Goines was also involved in a fatal 2019 drug raid that left him facing murder charges for the death of a husband and wife. Prosecutors said the officer lied to obtain a search warrant for the raid. Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg has since dismissed more than 160 cases tied to Goines. Goines is no longer with the Houston Police Department.
Mathis released a statement to CNN along with the original application for Floyd’s pardon.
“This is about honoring the memory of George Floyd, as well as about correcting the records of the State of Texas.” the statement read. “We can’t have confidence in the integrity of the convictions obtained by Officer Goines. George Floyd suffered at the hands of a corrupt and racist system throughout his life, not just at the end.”
Every year around Christmas, the Texas governor grants a pardon to one of Texas’ regular citizens, typically for minor offenses. According to supporters, a pardon in Floyd’s case would be a significant step in righting some past wrongs in the state of Texas.
In December, the Parole board reversed its decision, saying that “procedural errors” were found in its initial recommendation in Floyd’s case. The board needed to reconsider more than a third of a group of 67 clemency applications it had sent to Texas Gov. Greg Abbot.
HuffPost reviewed a letter sent from the parole board that stated, “After a full and careful review of the application and other information filed with the application, a majority of the Board decided not to recommend a Full Pardon and/or Pardon for Innocence.”
Floyd’s life was tragically cut short after moving from Houston to Minnesota. When ex-police officer Derek Chauvin pressed his knee on his neck during an arrest, his death incited a massive wave of Black Lives Matter protests and prompted a larger conversation on the flaws in the U.S. policing system.
