(TheRedWire.com) – On Tuesday, Texas prosecutors requested from the highest criminal court in the state to reverse a pardon that Gov. Greg Abbott had granted to a former U.S. Army sergeant who has been found guilty of fatally shooting a protester during a demonstration associated with the Black Lives Matter movement.
Travis County District Attorney Jose Garza (D) stated that he had requested for the state Court of Criminal Appeals to grant a special order so as to overturn the actions taken by Abbott. In a news briefing, he argued that Abbott with his move had violated the separation of powers doctrine which is outlined in the state’s constitution. He added that he had also not followed the proper legal procedures in order to pardon Daniel Perry.
Last year Perry had been convicted and sentenced to 25 years in prison for killing U.S. Air Force veteran Garrett Foster during a Black Lives Matter protest in July 2020. The protests had broken out across the country following the killing of George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis a month earlier.
Both Perry and Foster were white. Perry, who at the time of the fatal shooting had been 37 years old, argued that he had been acting in self-defense and that he had only opened fire because Foster, 28, was carrying an AK-47 rifle. However, during the trial, there were conflicting accounts on whether or not Foster had pointed his rifle at Perry.
Prosecutors have argued that Foster had been legally armed at the time and that the only reason he had approached Perry’s car was in order to protect his fellow protesters.
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