UpdatedWed, Apr 28, 2021 at 6:45 pm ET
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A Texas public defender is seeking a posthumous pardon for George Floyd, whose death in 2020 with a Minneapolis police officer s knee on his neck galvanized racial justice and anti-police brutality activists around the country, on a 2004 drug conviction. (Photo by Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)
HOUSTON, TX A Texas public defender is seeking a posthumous pardon on behalf of George Floyd for a 2004 drug arrest made by an ex-Houston police officer who was since been indicted for murder and records tampering.
Allison Mathis, with the Harris County Public Defender s Office, filed an application for Floyd s pardon on Monday saying the arresting officer has a history of making up confidential informants to bolster his cases against innocent defendants, according to a report from CNN.
ABC News
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Pardon request submitted for George Floyd in 2004 Texas case
A posthumous pardon request has been submitted to Texas officials on behalf of George Floyd for a 2004 drug arrest that was done by a now indicted ex-Houston police officer whose case history is under scrutiny following a deadly drug raid
By JUAN A. LOZANO Associated Press
April 27, 2021, 12:14 AM
• 4 min read
George Floyd’s loved ones treasure his memory: Part 11
“Daddy changed the world,” Floyd’s daughter, Gianna, said. Floyd’s sister and other activists say it’s important to keep that momentum going so that police will continue to be held accountable.The Associated Press
Posthumous pardon for George Floyd s 2004 drug charge gets support from Harris County DA
Gerald Goines is the officer who arrested Floyd, but investigators later learned Goines had lied about evidence and informants in hundreds of other drug cases. Author: Michelle Homer, Marcelino Benito (KHOU) Published: 8:00 PM EDT April 26, 2021 Updated: 8:06 PM EDT April 26, 2021
HOUSTON Sixteen years before George Floyd was murdered by ex-police officer Derrick Chauvin, he had a run-in with a Houston cop named Gerald Goines.
Goines arrested Floyd on Feb. 5, 2004, and accused him of selling crack cocaine to an unnamed suspect.
Floyd pleaded guilty and spent 10 months in jail.
CNN
A mural painted in honor of George Floyd.
HOUSTON, Texas An application for a posthumous pardon of George Floyd’s 2004 conviction in Texas was filed Monday on behalf of Floyd and his surviving family, according to a copy of the application obtained by CNN.
In the application, Allison Mathis of the Harris County Public Defender’s Office said that even though Floyd worked to change his life after being released in 2013 from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, the request for posthumous pardon wasn’t based on what had or had not been done. Mathis said it was filed because the arresting officer in Floyd’s case “manufactured the existence of confidential informants to bolster his cases against innocent defendants.”
A pardon “wouldn’t erase the memory, personal or institutional, of this thing that happened to George Floyd, Mathis said, continuing by saying it would also not erase things that would happen to him later.
But 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,” she said.
The pardon application was made public Monday by a reporter with The Marshall Project.
In a statement to KHOU-11, Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg said that she supported the pardon, commenting that her office had looked into a posthumous pardon before.