State board says Floyd should get posthumous pardon in ’04 arrest
George Floyd should be given a posthumous pardon for his 2004 arrest and subsequent conviction at the hands of a former Houston police officer now charged with murder and a raft of other misconduct — including repeated lying — after a botched 2019 drug raid, officials with the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles recommended Monday.
Floyd died in May 2020, during an arrest in Minnesota in which a police officer knelt on his neck, ultimately killing him. Floyd’s death, captured on camera, prompted nationwide riots against police brutality.
But Floyd spent much of his life in Houston, and had several run-ins with police here, including one in 2004 when Floyd was arrested by Gerald Goines on a minor drug charge. Court records show that Goines arrested Floyd for possessing less than half a gram of crack cocaine and Floyd had “provided drugs to an unnamed ‘second suspect,’” who was not arrested.
In the pardon application written on Floyd’s behalf, Harris County Assistant Public Defender Allison Mathis wrote that because of falsified evidence, Floyd had no ability to contest his guilt, and because of past convictions, was facing the possibility of a minimum of 25 years in prison.
Instead, Floyd pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 10 months confinement in a state jail.
“Floyd confessed to save his life,” she wrote.
On Monday, Mathis said she was “super happy” to hear of the pardon board’s recommendation and hoped Gov. Greg Abbott would concur.
“A man was set up by a corrupt police officer intent on securing arrests rather than pursuing justice,” she said. “No matter what your political affiliation is, no matter who that man was in his life or in his death, that is not something we should stand for in the United States or in Texas.”
“Our freedom is the most important thing we have, and the state shouldn’t be able to take it away so easily,” she continued. “I hope that Gov. Abbott will agree and will grant the pardon, but I also hope that he, and the Texas Legislature, will work more stridently toward reforming the integrity of the racist, classist criminal justice system in Texas. That hope definitely runs counter to my experience as a criminal defense attorney in this state.”
In Floyd’s pardon application, Mathis contended that Goines lied about a confidential informant and no one bothered to question his word because he was a veteran cop and his defendant was a previously convicted
Black man.
“This pardon is being sought because it is just and right to clear a conviction that is not supported by evidence with the new information that has come to light since Floyd’s conviction —- and this is the only legal vehicle available to do so.”
Goines came under suspicion in 2019 after the Harding Street drug raid, in which police raided a south Houston home, looking for heroin. The raid turned into a firefight, in which two homeowners were killed and four officers injured. Police subsequently said they believed Goines lied about buying drugs from the home.
The scandal led to investigations from the FBI, the Harris County District Attorney’s Office, and an internal probe by the police department. The FBI’s investigation led to federal charges against Goines — for violating the rights of the slain couple, Dennis Tuttle and Rhogena Nicholas — and Goines’ former partner, Stephen Bryant, with lying on government documents.
Bryant pleaded guilty in federal court, but has not yet been sentenced. A judge recently dismissed charges against Felipe Gallegos, accused of killing Tuttle, after prosecutors raised concerns about a former prosecutor who presented the case to a grand jury. After the case was dismissed, District Attorney Kim Ogg said it would be presented to another grand jury — but it’s not clear when, or if, that will take place.
Local prosecutors, meanwhile, began re-examining hundreds of cases Goines and his colleagues worked, dismissing many of them and pushing to have some convictions overturned. Ultimately, Goines was charged with felony murder, and a grand jury indicted him and 10 other current and former officers with a slew of other crimes, mostly related to lying on government documents to pad their overtime pay.
In the years since the Harding Street raid, at least four people have had their convictions overturned.
On Monday, Goines attorney Nicole DeBorde Hochglaube described the latest developments as “a political statement, and nothing more.”
“There is no new evidence whatsoever to support there was anything wrong with the arrest of Mr. Floyd,” she said.
The recommendation from the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles now goes before Abbott, who will decide whether or not to grant Floyd the posthumous pardon.
In a news release, Ogg urged Abbott to follow the pardon board’s recommendation and grant clemency.
“We lament the loss of former Houstonian George Floyd and hope that his family finds comfort in Monday’s decision by the Texas State Board of Pardons and Paroles to recommend clemency,” she said.
In the letter, she noted that prosecutors had agreed with Mathis in April that the circumstances around Floyd’s arrest warranted a posthumous pardon.
Abbott’s office Monday evening did not return a request for comment
In the afternoon, news of the pardon board’s recommendation slowly filtered out to Floyd’s friends.
“Wow,” said Travis Cains, on learning of the news. His friend “deserved it,” he said. He saw the pardon as a repudiation of Goines’ years “terrorizing” Third Ward.
“That man has done a lot to us in our neighborhood,” Cains said. “Now he is reaping what he sowed. We have to forgive, but we never forget what he did.”