Texas Board Withdraws Pardon Recommendation for George Floyd

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A Texas board has withdrawn a unanimous pardon recommendation for George Floyd over a 2004 drug arrest in Houston.

The Texas Board of Pardon and Paroles says it had identified “procedural errors” in how pardons were issued this year. The same board in October had unanimously recommended that Floyd be pardoned over his arrest by a Houston police officer whom prosecutors have since accused of falsifying his casework.

Floyd lived in Houston for much of his life before his death in 2020 in the custody of a white Minneapolis police officer. Allison Mathis, a public defender in Houston who submitted the pardon application on behalf of Floyd, called the last-minute withdraw a “ridiculous farce.”