Texas rejects request to pardon George Floyd for prior drug conviction

The Texas parole board said it would not grant George Floyd a pardon for a 2004 drug-related conviction, frustrating activist hopes to clear the convict’s name in connection with his arrest by a now-embattled police officer. 

Keri Blakinger with the criminal justice advocacy group Marshall Project reported on Twitter that Texas "denied a posthumous pardon for George Floyd" over a conviction in "a Houston drug case involving a cop now accused of fabricating informants."

Blakinger pointed out that the parole board "recommend[ed] a pardon & then rescinding it." The board gave no reason for its denial.

Floyd’s lawyer had made the request of the parole board due to the arrest in the 2004 incident having been made by Gerald Goines, a former Houston Police Department narcotics officer accused of fabricating evidence in order to secure arrests and convictions. 

Earlier this year the Harris County District Attorney’s Office said that it would support the reversal of the conviction of another Houston-area perp, Frederick Jeffery, who has been serving a 25-year prison sentence since 2018 and whose conviction "was based almost exclusively on Goines’ testimony."