A political scientist says the timing of a state board's reversal of a pardon to George Floyd is suspicious.
The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles in October unanimously voted to posthumously pardon Floyd, who used to live in Houston, for a 2004 drug bust. Floyd was arrested for selling $10 worth of crack cocaine. Floyd spent 10 months in prison. The officer in question has since come under intense scrutiny.
In October, the board voted unanimously to pardon Floyd. They have changed their mind.
25 recommendations have been rescinded, including Floyd.
Rice University political scientist Mark Jones says this takes the pressure off of Texas Governor Greg Abbott to actually issue the pardon. It's now out of his hands.
"The benefit for Abbott is Abbott was in a no-win situation," Jones said. "Now he is in a winning situation because he doesn't even have to address the issue during the Republican primary. So if Don Huffines or Allen West asks him are you going to pardon George Floyd, he can say I am going to wait and see what the pardon board says. This helps Abbott politically."
Jones believes the board made the move to do just that.
"I think without question they are doing something to help the governor out, and they're doing it on probably one of the slower news days (The news was released on 12/23)" Jones said. "If you want to bury something this is probably a good day to release it on because so many people are pre-occupied with the holidays."
Gerald Goines, the arresting officer was accused in 2019 of lying in order to get a warrant for a drug raid in which two Texans were killed and five peace officers wounded. Since then, the Harris County District Attorney's office has dismissed over 150 of Goines' cases.
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