Texas Governor Pardons man who shot BLM Protestor

[Tennessee Gentleman]

https://apnews.com/article/army-serg...bcf1e8cd75a7e5

Wonder why this took so long. Abbott said right after the conviction he would do it.

Blue city in a Red State and this happens all the time in Nashville. The DA here is very liberal and will prosecute those who use firearms in Self Defense. He just lost one against a Security Guard last year.

Glad the Governor intervened. Based on what I remember about the incident, the justification of self defense seemed strong.

[Tom Servo]

The case is terrible all around, and Perry did just about everything to kill his own defense. He made several social-media posts about shooting and/or running over protesters before the incident. Folks, those are absolutely admissible as evidence.

By his own admission, Perry was looking for a fight. One night, he found it. He created the situation by driving his car into a crowd. Even if Foster pointed a rifle at him (the evidence is ambiguous), Foster was legally justified under the circumstances.

I can't say I'm pleased with Abbot's decision here.

[zukiphile]

Wonder why this took so long. Abbott said right after the conviction he would do it.

The article indicates that Abbott didn't have the authority to issue the pardon until it had been handled and recommended by the state board.

I followed the links embedded in your link, and it seems there is some dispute about whether the Garrett Foster raised his rifle in the direction of Perry after the crowd of which Foster was an apparent member had begun "beating on" Perry's car.

It's remarkable how readily people will become part of or let themselves very near crowds. There is no security in either place.

[Mainah]

If the politics of the shooter and the victim had been reverse there would not have been a pardon.

[44 AMP]

If the politics of the shooter and the victim had been reverse.....

Change any significant factor and you invite the possibility of a different outcome.

Play that game all day long and twice on Sundays and you won't come up with anything valid outside of the alternate reality one creates to play that game.

[Mainah]

Play that game all day long and twice on Sundays and you won't come up with anything valid outside of the alternate reality one creates to play that game.

We've been blessed with interesting times.

[The Verminator]

Maybe a better way to say it is things like pardons are clearly heading in the direction of being decided by how many votes they're worth.

Not a good sign at all.

[Mainah]

Maybe a better way to say it is things like pardons are clearly heading in the direction of being decided by how many votes they're worth.

It is, thank you,

[Double Naught Spy]

It has always been that way. Everything in politics comes with a cost-benefit analysis on the part of the politician.

[44 AMP]

Ever notice how outgoing Presidents frequently issue a number of pardons during their last couple weeks in office???

They could have issued the same pardons at any time during their tenure in office, but they don't, not until they are at the very end of their time in office.

The "why" should be obvious....

[cjwils]

It seems a jury of his peers convicted this shooter, based on the facts and the law. If the governor chooses to overturn that, it seems totally political and corrupt, in my opinion.

[The Verminator]

Well, there's "Politically Correct" and there's "Politically Corrupt."

And I hate them both.

[Double Naught Spy]

The beauty of being Governor is the power to pardon people. Same for being the President. It is 100% legal. No reason it should be considered corrupt, but if that is how you feel about it, work to change the laws.

[mehavey]

Executive pardons are deliberate/constitutional check & balance on legal systems/circumstances gone awry/out of control.
https://www.texastribune.org/2023/04...arrett-foster/

What was once a great (though proudly/weirdly free-spirited) city to live in (Austin) has become the center of a left leaning anarchy/lawfare trend over last decade two.
But the particular case at issue here is a very predictable reaction to that, with troubling complexity from multiple angles when looked at carefully.

[Aguila Blanca]

In the case in Texas, it's perhaps unfair to label the governor as "corrupt" for pardoning this individual. Texas state laws don't allow the governor to issue pardons unilaterally. If I understand it correctly, he can do so only if some board (the parole board?) issues a recommendation to do so.

So, if the governor is corrupt, so is the parole board. Possible, of course, but it's perhaps much more likely that the jury wasn't a jury of the defendant's "peers" (which our Constitution does not and never has called for) but a group of people antithetical to the notion of personal responsibility and self-defense.

[5whiskey]

It seems a jury of his peers convicted this shooter, based on the facts and the law. If the governor chooses to overturn that, it seems totally political and corrupt, in my opinion.

I completely disagree, but then I am intimately familiar with the criminal justice system...

A prosecutors discretion is near absolute. They have to consider their decision to prosecute based on the weight of the evidence, the reliability of witnesses, the criminal history of the defendent, the justifications likely presented by the defense, the severity of the crime, mitigating factors, aggravating factors, etc. Those are all legitimate considerations for prosecutorial discretion. Politics should not be a factor, but we all know that it is. I'm waiting with baited breath to see additional prosecutions in New York of nefarious criminals altering business records. My bet is on... not very many.

So it is that some prosecutors may choose to prosecute a crime to its fullest extent, when another prosecutor in a different jurisdiction believes that it would either be grossly unfair or the juice wouldn't be worth the squeeze. Since it's obvious that politics can play a role in prosecutorial discretion, there is almost always a system of special council or special prosecutor who is supposed to be independent of the elected official. That is to ensure that prosecutions aren't declined because of politics, when they probably should be prosecuted. The pardon is the other end of the spectrum. It ensures that convictions that were motivated by politics have some form of counterweight against them.

And yes, convictions come from a jury of your peers... but juries are limited to hearing evidence based on proper criminal procedure. The defense may be barred in many circumstances from stating that they were the only ones charged with altering business records in that jurisdiction in the past 5 years, and that would infer that they were on trial only because a prosecutor investigated the person and found an offense... when it's supposed to be the other way around.

[Aguila Blanca]

One might think that, in a sane world, a prosecutor who won a conviction would stand down and move on to the next hundred cases his office is handling. Not this one. This prosecutor is taking the governor to court, to try to have the pardon nullified.

Possibly it's because he's a very principled individual ... but I rather suspect that it's political. We can't allow the unwashed masses to think that it's okay to defend yourself against [mostly peaceful] terrorists pointing guns at you.

[heyjoe]

5 whisky

And yes, convictions come from a jury of your peers... but juries are limited to hearing evidence based on proper criminal procedure. The defense may be barred in many circumstances from stating that they were the only ones charged with altering business records in that jurisdiction in the past 5 years, and that would infer that they were on trial only because a prosecutor investigated the person and found an offense... when it's supposed to be the other way around.

Since Alvin Bragg was elected as the Manhattan Da and took office in january of 2022 he has or is prosecuting, besides Trump, 9 other cases involving falsifying business records, 8 of which also involve felony charges

[44 AMP]

The specifics of a NY case or prosecutor which does not involve firearms, and has no direct relationship to the OP topic should be discussed ELSEWHERE.

(that's a hint, gentlemen )

[5whiskey]

Hint received. I'm not trying to be political and I probably shouldn't have referenced business records cases. We could reference another current high profile prosecution that DOES involve guns. It's probably shockingly rare for someone to be prosecuted for lying about drug use on a 4473. The ultimate point is some prosecutions are, in fact, political in nature. Other prosecutions may be technically "not wrong," but they are grossly unfair. That is the purpose of the pardon system.

[44 AMP]

agreed.

[Swifty Morgan]

Seems unfair to say Perry drove into a crowd of protesters. Makes it sound like he tried to run people down, which is not even close to true. He was barely moving when he turned into the protest, and he stopped without harming anyone. The car was stationary when the shooting took place, and Perry had a legal right to be there. The character with the AK did not have the right to be in the street or to approach and menace him. The protest itself was illegal. You can't just take over a street without a permit, First Amendment notwithstanding.

Was it a great idea for Perry to be there? That's not a simple question, and it's irrelevant unless he broke the law. By showing up and interfering with an illegal protest, he was definitely provoking an organization known to be full of violent idiots, and it was deliberate, but his presence was, itself, a protest, perhaps more valid than the BLM protest, because he didn't break any laws by showing up in his car.

Should you be against someone who protested a protest and then had to defend himself, just because he knew he was likely to be met with violence? If people don't counterprotest because they're afraid their adversaries will commit crimes against them, what's happening is called a "chilling effect." The general rule in America is that we are against chilling free speech.

It's easy to say he shouldn't have been there, but you could say the same thing about the guys who pulled off the Boston Tea Party or the people the Chinese killed in Tianenmen Square. They could have stayed home instead of staging provocations.

People, including journalists with a duty to be honest with the public, are calling Perry a "self-proclaimed racist." That would not nullify his right to self-defense, but on top of that, it's not true. He made sarcastic remarks, saying he was a racist because he was against people acting like monkeys. He was not sincerely calling himself a racist, and he did not call black people monkeys.

People should be disturbed that mainstream journalists with a big audience would lie about him so blatantly.

He didn't try to run people down. He was threatened with a rifle for no reason whatsoever. He was outnumbered. He knew BLM was a violent organization. He had a legal right to be where he was, doing what he was doing. His possible status as a racist is irrelevant, because racists have the right to defend themselves. He did not actually label himself a racist, by any legitimate standard. If he was hoping to provoke aggression, it doesn't matter unless he did something illegal to provoke it. I shouldn't walk through Compton at night with 5 Rolexes on each arm and a Klan hood on my head, but if I do, I'm still allowed to shoot anyone who tries to mug me.

I would have shot that guy, too, if the circumstances led me to believe he was likely to shoot first. Having an AK waved at you is no joke.

As for the notion that it's wrong for an executive to undo the verdict of a jury, wow; all I can say is "O.J. Simpson." A jury of black women set him free, knowing he murdered two people, and they have since admitted they did it in order to get revenge for Rodney King. Juries do stupid, evil things every day.

My dad defended 11 murder suspects and got 10 off. The one who got convicted was black, and he had killed another black man. On the way out of the court, one member of the all-white jury said, "Got rid of two of them at once." Jurors are idiots.

This is supposedly a nation of laws, and the law says a governor can pardon people. If Perry's prosecutor wanted to use the law to make Perry suffer, he can't complain if the law sets him free.

[44 AMP]

People should be disturbed that mainstream journalists with a big audience would lie about him so blatantly.

IF you've watched any mainstream journalists in recent decades, you should have noticed that they lie about nearly everything. The days of ethics in media reporting have long gone, taking thinking people's trust with them.

It is a simple, and deliberate formula, lies (aka inaccurate reporting) generates controversy, which generates interest, which creates ratings which means profit.

When someone tells them a lie, they simply repeat it, believing they are not lying, but simply reporting what someone said. A lie of omission is still a lie.

yes, juries do "stupid" things, some convict or acquit not on the facts, but to "send a message" (what ever the hell that is supposed to mean ) and prosecutors are known to do the same thing with the cases they bring, or don't bring before the courts.

[Swifty Morgan]

I totally thought Rachel Maddow was unbiased. This is shocking.

[Aguila Blanca]

It's not "lies," and it's not inaccurate reporting.

It's alternate facts ...