Texas Tribune (“Gov. Greg Abbott pardons Daniel Perry, veteran who killed police brutality protester in 2020“):
More than a year after a Travis County jury convicted Daniel Perry of murdering a protester in Austin, Gov. Greg Abbott pardoned Perry, 37, on Thursday shortly after the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles recommended a full pardon.
A Texas state district court judge sentenced Perry in May 2023 to 25 years in prison for shooting and killing U.S. Air Force veteran Garrett Foster during a 2020 demonstration protesting police brutality against people of color.
One day after a jury convicted Perry, Abbott directed the parole board to review the former U.S. Army sergeant’s case.
“Among the voluminous files reviewed by the Board, they considered information provided by the Travis County District Attorney, the full investigative report on Daniel Perry, plus a review of all the testimony provided at trial,” Abbott said in a statement announcing the proclamation that absolved Perry. “Texas has one of the strongest ‘Stand Your Ground’ laws of self-defense that cannot be nullified by a jury or a progressive District Attorney.”
Abbott approved the board’s recommendation, which included restoration of Perry’s firearm rights.
Whitney Mitchell, Foster’s common-law wife, said that she had expected to grow old with Foster before Perry murdered him. In a Thursday statement, she said Abbott’s pardon made Texans less safe.
“Daniel Perry texted his friends about plans to murder a protester he disagreed with. After a lengthy trial, with an abundance of evidence, 12 impartial Texans determined that he carried out that plan, and murdered my Garrett,” Mitchell said. “With this pardon, the Governor has desecrated the life of a murdered Texan and US Air Force veteran, and impugned that jury’s just verdict. He has declared that Texans who hold political views that are different from his — and different from those in power — can be killed in this State with impunity.”
Travis County District Attorney José Garza echoed Mitchell’s message about the governor prioritizing some lives over others.
“The Board and the Governor have put their politics over justice and made a mockery of our legal system. They should be ashamed of themselves,” Garza said in a statement. “They have sent the message that the service of the Travis County community members who served on the grand jury and trial jury does not matter. ”
[…]
In a Thursday statement, the parole board said it delved into the intricacies of Perry’s case, by reviewing documents, police report, court records, witness statements and interviews of individuals linked to the case. The board did not elaborate on why it issued a full pardon. The members of the seven-person board are appointed by Abbott.
Perry was driving for Uber at the time he encountered protesters a few blocks from the Capitol in downtown Austin. He stopped his car and honked at protesters as they walked through the street. Seconds later, he drove his car into the crowd, Austin police said.
Foster was openly carrying an AK-47 rifle at the time and during the trial, each side presented conflicting accounts as to whether the protester raised the gun to Perry who was also legally armed. Perry shot Foster and then fled the area, police said. He then called police and reported what happened, claiming he shot in self-defense after Foster aimed his weapon at him.
[…]
Shortly after Perry’s conviction, unsealed court documents revealed he had made a slew of racist, threatening comments about protesters in text messages and social media posts. Days after George Floyd’s murder by a Minneapolis police officer prompted nationwide protests, Perry sent a text message saying, “I might go to Dallas to shoot looters.” Both Perry and Foster are white.
Perry, a U.S. Army sergeant, also sent racist and anti-Muslim messages before and after Floyd’s death. In April 2020, he sent a meme, which included a photo of a woman holding her child’s head under water in the bath, with the text, “WHEN YOUR DAUGHTERS FIRST CRUSH IS A LITTLE NEGRO BOY,” according to the state’s filing.
During his trial, several colleagues in the Army testified that Perry treated everyone fairly, regardless of race. His lawyers called Perry’s social media posts and messages as “barracks humor.”
[…]
In his proclamation, Abbott took aim at Garza’s handling of the case and accused the district attorney of misusing his office. He said Garza directed the lead detective investigating the case to withhold exculpatory evidence from the grand jury.
Abbott said that Garza “prioritized ‘reducing access to guns’ that citizens may use to lawfully defend themselves” instead of protecting Perry’s right to self defense.
In March, Travis County voters handed Garza an easy victory in the Democratic primary after he ran on a progressive platform to investigate more sexual assault cases, prosecute police misconduct and attempt to divert more people from jail. He’s expected to be re-elected in November.
AP (“Texas governor pardons ex-Army sergeant convicted of killing Black Lives Matter protester“) adds:
A Republican in his third term, Abbott has typically issued pardons only for minor offenses, and he notably avoided a posthumous pardon recommendation for George Floyd for a 2004 drug arrest in Houston. It was Floyd’s killing by a white police officer in Minneapolis in 2020 that set off national demonstrations.
[…]
The sergeant’s defense attorneys argued that Foster did raise the rifle and that Perry had no choice but to shoot. Perry did not take the witness stand and jurors deliberated for two days before finding him guilty.
Perry acted in self-defense when confronted by an angry crowd and a person with an assault rifle, Perry attorney Clint Broden said after the pardon.
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Perry served in the Army for more than a decade. At trial, a forensic psychologist testified that he believed Perry has post-traumatic stress disorder from his deployment to Afghanistan and from being bullied as a child.
While I remember the trial, I did not follow the proceedings all that closely. My instinct, then, is to trust the jury absent strong reason not to.
Given Abbott’s history of grandstanding—and the fact that he has been quite stingy with pardons in other cases—this certainly comes across as politically motivated. And, frankly, it sends the signal that murdering Black Lives Matter protestors is acceptable in Texas.
It’s worth noting, too, that having a Pardons and Parole Board as a check on the governor’s veto power makes no sense if said Board is appointed by the governor. That seems like a complete sham.
That Foster was carrying an AK-47 complicates the case considerably. It would not surprise me in the least that he raised it when approached by Perry. The jury was surely instructed on the particulars of Texas’ Stand Your Ground law, though, and concluded that the shooting was not justified. And, frankly, as in the Kyle Rittenhouse case, someone going into a demonstration with a firearm looking for someone to shoot is not exactly the situation Stand Your Ground was intended for.
In the aftermath of the verdict, Perry’s attorneys claimed misconduct on the part of the trial judge for withholding evidence that would have shown that the protests in question were not peaceful and on the part of at least one juror for bringing outside evidence into the deliberations. I have no opinion on other of those claims but note that the Board made no mention of them.
It’s also noteworthy that the considerable evidence that Perry was a virulent racist (and quite probably a child molester) was withheld from the jury prior to their reaching a verdict. It was only introduced in the sentencing phase. Had it been introduced as part of the case in chief, there might well be an argument that it was overly prejudicial.
