Texas board rejects posthumous pardon for George Floyd — after recommending one to Greg Abbott

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The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles has denied a posthumous pardon of George Floyd for a minor 2004 Houston drug conviction, The Marshall Project reported. The choice comes 11 months after the company initially advisable a pardon earlier than reversing course and rescinding that suggestion, citing a procedural error.

In a letter Thursday, the board didn’t clarify its reasoning for rejecting the requested pardon. The letter doesn’t embody Floyd’s identify, however his lawyer, Allison Mathis, confirmed to The Texas Tribune that his software was the one pardon she utilized for. The letter stated Mathis can reapply for the posthumous pardon in two years.

Floyd’s 2020 homicide by the hands of a white police officer in Minneapolis set off a wave of protests in opposition to police violence that disproportionally impacts folks of shade.

Floyd was arrested by embattled former Houston police officer Gerald Goines in 2004 after he was discovered to have lower than half a gram of crack cocaine. Goines stated on the time that Floyd had given the medication to an unnamed particular person. Floyd finally pleaded responsible and acquired a 10-month sentence in state jail. However Goines has since been accused of repeatedly mendacity or making up confidential informants to bolster his phrase in opposition to defendants, which was revealed after a botched, lethal raid in 2019 led to homicide costs in opposition to the officer.

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