U.S. Army Sgt. Daniel Perry, center, and his attorney Doug O'Connell, left, walk out of the courtroom during jury deliberations in his murder trial, Friday, April 7, 2023, at the Blackwell-Thurman Criminal Justice Center in Austin, Texas. Perry was convicted of murder on Friday for fatally shooting Garrett Foster, an armed protester in 2020, during nationwide protests against police violence and racial injustice. (Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman via AP)
Jay Janner/Associated PressJust how unusual is the governor’s pardon request for convicted murderer Daniel Perry, tweeted out before the U.S. Army sergeant even received his sentence for shooting and killing Air Force veteran Garrett Foster at a Black Lives Matter protest in 2020?
“[A]bsolutely, astronomically strange.” That’s how Gary Cohen, an Austin-based criminal defense attorney specializing in pardon and parole law, described to the Chronicle the possibility that Perry could be pardoned before even being sentenced.
The case was already a political lightning rod. The inevitable, logical conclusion to permissive gun laws set against the backdrop of widespread protest. Both Foster and Perry were legally armed but Perry claimed that he, after driving into the crowd of protestors, felt threatened by Foster. Witnesses shared conflicting accounts.
The jury also read posts and conversations from Perry, including the statement: “I might have to kill a few people on my way to work they are rioting outside my apartment complex.”
He even strategized with a friend about what constituted a “good shot” and his search history showed he had looked for protest locations around the city.
In the end, the jury deliberated for two days and found Perry guilty of murder but not aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Upon hearing the unanimous verdict, family members of Foster and Perry broke into tears .
Right-wing commentators such as Tucker Carlson had their own reaction: instantly lambasting the verdict and pressuring Gov. Greg Abbott to pardon Perry.
Abbott either caved quick or didn’t need the prodding because, less than 24 hours after the verdict, he tweeted his intent to pardon him as soon as the paperwork hit his desk.
Will the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, which announced Monday it will investigate the conviction, be so easily swayed?
We hope not but fear otherwise.
This is the same board, appointed by Abbott, that rescinded its initial recommendation for a posthumous pardon for George Floyd’s minor drug conviction after the governor gave indications he wasn’t planning to follow through.
What had been a unanimous recommendation from the board to pardon a conviction that was based on testimony from an since disgrace officer turned into a political football. Instead of clarifying the reversal, the board shared a letter arguing that the chairman had become concerned about the volume of pardons recommended and began a review of every case. That review turned up “procedural errors” in more than two dozen recommendations back in 2021.
The about-face was flabbergasting in its own right, leaving this editorial board and even Allison Mathis, the public defender who first petitioned the pardons board for clemency for Floyd, whose in-custody murder by a police officer sparked the protests that brought Perry and Foster together, in the dark.
By September 2022, the board had officially rejected Floyd’s pardon application.
That saga wreaked of politics and we smell the familiar stench again.
Again, the appearance of a governor's heavy hand fiddling with the scales poses a threat to the public's trust in our justice system. While Perry's lawyers have filed a motion for a new trial, citing evidence they said was not shared, Abbott has not only asked for greater scrutiny in the case but demanded a particular outcome.
The power to pardon people who have been wrongfully convicted is vital to a just society and to holding courts accountable. The way Abbott seems to be wielding his power here not only betrays that responsibility, it undermines the legitimacy of our legal system.
So much for law and order.
