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A request to grant George Floyd a full posthumous pardon is made to the office of Texas Governor Greg Abbott after a public defender claimed that Floyd was the victim of a drug seizure in 2004 by a former detective in Houston Police, now charged with murder.
In a letter sent Monday to former Floyd Public Defender Allison Mathis, the Texas Board of Pardons and Lyrics wrote that it has “completed reviewing your client’s request for a full pardon and voted to recommend the clemency”.
The board forwarded its recommendation to Abbott for final decision. Abbott did not say if he would grant a pardon.
Mathis filed the request in April, writing in the request that a “pardon is sought because it is fair and just to clear a conviction that is not supported by evidence.”
Floyd was arrested on February 5, 2004 by Houston undercover narcotics detective Gerald Goines, who alleged that Floyd provided a second suspect with 0.03 grams of crack cocaine for sale, according to the petition. The man Floyd allegedly gave the drugs to turned out to be a police informant who sold the drugs to Goines as part of an undercover operation and has not been arrested or identified, according to the petition .
Floyd ultimately pleaded guilty to a drug charge and was sentenced to 10 months in state prison, authorities said.
In August 2019, Goines was charged with two counts of murder relating to a failed narcotics raid on a house in southeast Houston. Goines police colleague Steven Bryant pleaded guilty in June to federal charges of falsifying records and interfering with a government investigation in an attempt to help Goines cover up an illegally obtained “no-kill” warrant against the Houston home of Rhogena Nicholas and her husband, Dennis Tuttle.
During the raid on January 28, 2019, a shootout erupted in which Nicholas, Tuttle and their dog were killed and four police officers, including Goines, were shot and wounded.
In announcing Goines and Bryant’s indictments, Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg alleged that Goines made “numerous false statements” in the affidavit presented to the judge who signed the “no- cut”.
The scandal prompted the Harris County District Attorney to review at least 1,400 criminal cases related to Goines.
Ogg released a statement on Monday supporting the Pardons and Parole Board’s recommendation to grant Floyd clemency.
“We mourn the loss of former Houstonian George Floyd and hope his family will find solace in Monday’s decision by the Texas State Board of Pardons and Lyrics to recommend leniency for a conviction in 2004,” the Ogg statement said. .
Mathis also welcomed the decision of the board of directors.
“A man has been trapped by a corrupt police officer with the intention of obtaining arrests rather than pursuing justice,” Mathis said in a statement. “It doesn’t matter your political affiliation, it doesn’t matter who this man was in his life or in his death, it’s not something we should be defending in the United States or in Texas.”
Ben Crump, an attorney for the Floyd family, urged Abbott to grant full pardon.
“This drug charge, which led to George Floyd’s conviction based on false evidence, helped unravel his life,” Crump said in a statement. Likewise, tens of thousands of black lives are being ruined by a criminal justice system that uses the war on drugs to target black people, force them to plead for crimes, incarcerate them, take away their franchise and destroy their rights. families. “
Floyd died on May 25, 2020 from injuries sustained when Minneapolis police attempted to arrest him on suspicion of using a fake $ 20 bill to buy cigarettes. Former police officer Derek Chauvin, who buried his knee in Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes as the 46-year-old black man passed out after repeatedly claiming he couldn’t breathe, was sentenced in April to second degree unintentional murder, third degree murder and second degree manslaughter.
Chauvin was sentenced to 22 and a half years in prison. Three more police officers accused of aiding second degree murder and aiding and abetting second degree manslaughter are due to stand trial next year.
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