Texas Public Defender’s Office Seeks Pardon For George Floyd
A week after winning former Minneapolis policeman Derek Chauvin was convicted in George Floyd’s murder, Harris County, Tex., public defender Allison Mathis submitted a posthumous pardon request in a Texas court.
Floyd was convicted in February 2004 for selling $10 worth of drugs. He served 10 months in jail after pleading guilty.
In the application, Mathis said the pardon filed because the arresting officer in Floyd's case "manufactured the existence of confidential informants to bolster his cases against innocent defendants."
According to ABC News, Mathis claims that Gerald Goines, the arresting officer, also made up a confidential informant in Floyd’s case, and “no one bothered to question the word of a veteran cop against that of a previously-convicted Black man.”
Gerald Goines was charged last year with murder over in a drug raid in 2019. After an investigation, prosecutors discovered that 69 people may have been convicted by Goines based on false evidence.
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A pardon “wouldn’t erase the memory, personal or institutional, of this thing that happened to him, or the things that would happen to him later... It would show that the state of Texas is interested in fundamental fairness, in admitting its mistakes, and in working to increase the accountability for police officers who break our trust and their oaths, and harm our people rather than serve them,” Mathis said.
Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg said in a statement said that Floyd was convicted “on the lone word of Gerald Goines, a police officer we could no longer trust. We fully support a request that the governor now pardon George Floyd from that drug conviction.”
Now that the application is filed, the request will head to the state’s board of pardons and paroles. If approved, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, who has a track record of siding with law enforcement, will make the final decision.
