Board backs away from Floyd pardon
AUSTIN, Texas — A Texas board that had unanimously supported a posthumous pardon for George Floyd over a 2004 drug arrest in Houston backpedaled in an announcement Thursday, saying “procedural errors” were found in their recommendation months after leaving the decision to Republican Gov. Greg Abbott.
The unusual reversal was announced by Abbott’s office two days before Christmas, around the time he typically doles out his annual pardons.
The withdrawn endorsement was met with anger from a public defender who submitted the pardon application for Floyd, who spent much of his life in Houston before his death in 2020 under the knee of a white Minneapolis police officer.
In February 2004, Floyd was arrested in Houston for selling $10 worth of crack in a police sting, and later pleaded guilty to a drug charge and served 10 months in prison. Pardons restore the rights of the convicted and forgive them in the eyes of the law. But in Floyd’s case, his family and supporters said a posthumous pardon in Texas would show a commitment to accountability.
Floyd’s name was withdrawn along with two dozen other clemency recommendations that had been submitted by the Texas Board of Pardon and Paroles. In a letter dated Dec. 16 but not released publicly until now, the board told Abbott that it had identified “unexplained departures” from its process of issuing pardons and needed to reconsider more than a third of the 67 clemency recommendations it sent to Abbott this year, including the one for Floyd.
In October, the board had unanimously recommended that Floyd become just the second person in Texas since 2010 to receive a posthumous pardon from the governor.
Allison Mathis, an attorney in Houston, accused the two-term governor of playing politics ahead of Texas’ March GOP primary elections as he faces challengers from the far right.
Mathis called the last-minute reversal a “ridiculous farce.” She said the board — which is stocked with Abbott appointees — did not make her aware of any issues before the announcement from the governor’s office.
In a statement, Abbott spokesman Renae Eze said: “As a result of the Board’s withdrawal of the recommendation concerning George Floyd, Governor Abbott did not have the opportunity to consider it.”