Texas denies posthumous pardon for George Floyd

Board has reversed its decision saying it found ‘procedural errors’ in its initial recommendation

A Texas board has declined a request to grant a posthumous pardon to George Floyd for a 2004 drug arrest, suddenly changing its previous decision.

The decision on Thursday is a reversal of the board’s previous recommendation it made unanimously last year to provide a pardon to Floyd, whose death sparked the widespread Black Lives Matter protests in 2020.

The case in question is a 2004 arrest over drug-related charges made by a now-indicted former Houston police officer whose case history is under scrutiny following a drug raid.

However, according to a letter first reported by an investigative journalist with nonprofit The Marshall Project, the board has now said it found “procedural errors” in its initial recommendation in Floyd’s case and it needed to reconsider more than a third of a group of 67 clemency applications it had sent to Texas governor Greg Abbott to make a final decision.

“After a full and careful review of the application and other information filed with the application, a majority of the board decided not to recommend a full pardon and/or rardon for innocence,” it wrote in the letter sent on Thursday to Floyd’s attorney Allison Mathis, who is with the Harris County public defender’s office in Houston.

In its letter, the board said another request for a posthumous pardon for Floyd could be submitted again in two years. The letter did not specify why the board had denied the request.

The Texas board of pardons and paroles in October 2021 had initially decided to unanimously give a recommendation for a posthumous pardon for Floyd.

This would have made him just the second person in Texas since 2010 to receive such a pardon from the governor.

The first request for pardon was submitted in April 2021. But before Mr Abbott could take a final call in the case, the board reversed its decision.

Ms Mathis or the spokesperson for the paroles board has not officially issued any public statement yet.

Additional reporting by agencies