The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles has denied George Floyd a posthumous pardon for a 2004 drug conviction spurred on by a now-indicted Houston police officer.
The unexpected u-turn comes one year after the same parole board voted to unanimously recommend Floyd’s pardon.
Floyd rose to national prominence after his death at the hands of Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin.
The board did not explain its decision in a letter to a Houston-area public defender representing Floyd’s surviving family members.
Hot Air’s Ed Morrissey has more on the possible reasons behind the surprising reversal:
The ostensible predicate for the pardon application was alleged police misconduct in Floyd’s drug case in 2004. The arresting office has been indicted in an unrelated case of felony murder and tampering, and the attorney for the Harris County Public Defender’s office claims that the Floyd case suggested misconduct as well. Then-officer Gerald Goines arrested Floyd but didn’t arrest a second suspect involved in the potential sale of crack, which makes it look like a set-up — or so the PD argues.
At first, the Texas board agreed, or at least ostensibly agreed. It’s almost certain that they didn’t actually care much about the argument from the PD, but rather wanted to make sure they looked politically woke. Either way — whether they have changed their minds on the case itself or not — the politics certainly have changed. Setting up a pardon for a dead man was an easy way for some cheap virtue-signaling at a time when politicians were worried about being painted as racists for not enthusiastically supporting Floyd’s secular canonization.
With crime rates skyrocketing and police recruitment falling, though, the politics have changed around cheap virtue-signaling. Now it looks more costly to undermine the law enforcement personnel who remain, especially in a case where a pardon doesn’t make much sense anyway. Nine months ago, the board signaled that it had begun to recalculate this when it withdrew its initial clemency recommendation along with two dozen others, and now its signaling reset is complete.
That doesn’t lessen the injustice of Floyd’s death. However, it also doesn’t overlook the fact that Floyd was no saint either. There’s no need to paint him as one to get accountability for his death, just as there’s no need to remove accountability for the choices he made in life, especially through a pardon that would be entirely performative at this point anyway.
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Hooray awesome
George Floyd was a crack head violent carrer felon. Those who praise him are even worse. PEOPLE ARE MORONS. STOP ROLLING OVER FOR THE EVIL LEFT.
George Flood? F~~k him
“…death at the hands of Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin”
That was the lie of the year. The Coroner was NOT allowed to testify in Chauvin’s trial because the real cause of the criminal floyd’s death was a fentanyl poisoning, self inflicted! The boons can sure pick a winner……
Isn’t it amazing that the person who did the autopsy was not questioned? That has never happened before. The reason is simple, his testimony would completely destroy the persecution.
Why in the world does anybody think he should be pardoned? Totally ridiculous!
The Good,The Bad The Ugly………The good, he’s off the streets, The Bad, should never have happen, The Ugly, The ones he hurt.
YES! . . . It’s about TIME to quit HONORING criminal BEHAVIOR. It’s TIME to start PROSECUTING them (even posthumously). One Enlightened Patriot.
Oh,please!! Pardon him posthumously? He was a criminal, an illegal drug user. He would be alive today if he had not been high, passed a fake bill, and then stupidly resisted. He killed himself fighting the police and screaming he couldn’t breath. He could have breathed if he had shut up and quit fighting. He lived his life the way he wanted and paid for it. No, indeed, no pardon for this man who caused a lot of damage in riots and arson because he was also stupid! His very name gags me to death!
What happened years earlier has nothing to do with the current situation!
The point you just made is valid. The situation has no bearing, therefore there is no reason to even consider a pardon for a previous crime. Posthumous awards are given to heroes primarily to benefit their relatives. Floyd was not a hero and deserves no award. The police being accused of his death doesn’t negate his previous criminal behavior.
How about a pardon for Derek Chauvin
Why not, He cleaned the streets of one more useless criminal. It’s surprising just how stupid the left can be what with them falling all over themselves trying to play to the blacks so they can get their votes.
Georgie was a career criminal and an addict who was sanctified by the Left as a saint. But he was treated as courteously as possible for a miscreant out of control. But the emotionality of a deranged and furious public encouraged judicial systems to punish the innocent while the criminal was honored by apotheosis. Angels are weeping and the Devil is howling with glee as honest police officers are being hamstrung and criminality rages.
The only injustice in the george floyd case is the fact that Chavin was even indicted in the drug-caused death of a scumbag. Floyd committed suicide by ingesting EIGHT times the lethal dose of fentanyl. He got exactly what he deserved