Texas board rejects posthumous pardon recommendation for George Floyd

A Texas board on Thursday declined a request that George Floyd be granted a posthumous pardon for a 2004 drug arrest made by a now-indicted ex-Houston police officer whose case history is under scrutiny following a deadly drug raid.

The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles in October 2021 had initially decided to unanimously recommend that Floyd become just the second person in Texas since 2010 to receive a posthumous pardon from the governor.

But before Texas Gov. Greg Abbott could make a final decision in the case, the board in December reversed its decision, saying that "procedural errors" were found 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 Abbott.