Abbott grants Daniel Perry pardon in murder of Black Lives Matter protester

Abbott has long vowed to pardon Perry, who was sentenced to 25 years in prison last year. After Perry’s conviction, unsealed court records revealed that he regularly shared racist memes and threatening content in private messages and social media posts, including descriptions of killing protesters and minorities.

Perry was convicted of murder in the death of 28-year-old U.S. Air Force veteran Garrett Foster, who was legally armed with an AK-47 rifle, during a 2020 confrontation in downtown Austin at a racial justice demonstration. At the time, his attorneys vowed to appeal.

In a statement, Perry’s attorney, Doug O’Connell, said the board took time to review evidence and interview witnesses “to get to the truth” of the encounter between Foster and Perry that night in Austin in 2020. The decision, he said, corrects “the courtroom travesty” that left his client behind bars for 372 days and resulted in the end of Perry’s military career.

“He is thrilled and elated to be free,” O’Connell wrote. “He wishes that this tragic event never happened and wishes he never had to defend himself against Mr. Foster’s unlawful actions.”

The governor in his declaration criticized Travis County District Attorney José Garza’s handling of the case. He resurfaced allegations that arose during the trial, accusing the prosecutor of directing the lead detective in the case to withhold evidence from the grand jury and accusing him of misconduct and bias.

“Rather than upholding the self-defense rights of citizens,” Abbott wrote, Garza “has prioritized ‘reducing access to guns’ that citizens may use to lawfully defend themselves”

Travis County Judge Clifford Brown reviewed those accusations during the trial phase of the case when defense attorneys filed a motion for a mistrial. He ultimately denied the motion.

Garza strongly condemned the pardon, saying the state board and governor are sending a message that some lives matter and others do not under the law in Texas.

“The Board and the Governor have put their politics over justice and made a mockery of our legal system,” the district attorney said in a statement. “They should be ashamed of themselves.”

Garza, a Democrat, has become the target of conservatives in the state and in his more left-leaning county after the Republican-controlled state legislature passed a law limiting the discretion of elected district attorneys to prosecute certain offenses. The 2023 law signed by the governor allows private citizens to file petitions against district attorneys, specifically those who may refuse to prosecute criminal offenses such as a low-level drug or abortion-related cases.

A Travis County resident recently filed a petition to the court to remove Garza from office for official misconduct and it is under review.

“The petition is meritless and we are confident it will ultimately be dismissed,” Garza said.

The Perry case attracted attention from conservative news personalities who called on Abbott to act, drawing comparisons between Perry’s self-defense claims and Kyle Rittenhouse, the teenager acquitted after fatally shooting two men and wounding a third in Kenosha, Wis., in August 2020 amid unrest after a police shooting.

Perry was driving for a ride-share service in July 2020 when he sped his car onto a street in Austin that was crowded with protesters and got into a confrontation with Foster, who had the rifle strapped to his chest. Prosecutors argued Perry could have driven away. But he fatally shot Foster.

In its statement Thursday, the state Board of Pardons and Paroles said it had reached its decision in the case after conducting a “meticulous review” of police reports, court records and witness statements in the case. Abbott appointed all the members serving on the board composed of legal professionals. The governor urged them to conduct an expedited review of Perry’s case a day after his conviction, and weeks before his sentencing. Then-Fox News host Tucker Carlson pressured him to do so.

The board’s highly unorthodox review, experts said, did not commence until after the criminal case was over. But they did not wait — as is normally the case — for the appellate process to play out.

“After a thorough examination of the amassed information, the parole board reached a decision,” the panel said in a statement. “The Board voted unanimously to recommend a full pardon and restoration of firearm rights.”

The behavior surprised longtime observers.

“The parole board in Texas is not supposed to be a judicial body. They don’t engage in re-litigating the facts of the case. That’s not the board’s job and never has been,” said attorney Gary Cohen, who has represented offenders before the board for four decades. “What the board did and the governor did, is a complete perversion of justice and it has dire and drastic consequences for public confidence and safety.”

Clemency is ordinarily granted in cases where offenders have exhausted their appeals and later petition the board, demonstrating some degree of rehabilitation. In this case, the governor took the unprecedented step of petitioning on Perry’s behalf, Cohen said.

It is not the first time the state board has run into political quagmires.

After his death, the pardon and parole board recommended Abbott pardon George Floyd’s 2004 drug conviction, which involved a police officer later charged with crimes related to falsifying records. The governor did nothing and enough pressure built that the board members eventually rescinded their recommendation.

Foster’s family was devastated by the board’s decision. Sheila Foster initially pursued a lawsuit against Perry in her son’s slaying. But after he was convicted, Foster felt he had been held sufficiently accountable and looked to dismiss it, her attorney Quentin Brogdon said.

“We both hoped the governor of Texas would not follow through on his threats,” he said. “Unfortunately, he has turned the rule of law on its head.”

Foster’s options for reviving her lawsuit are limited but she is exploring them, Brogdon said.

“But today she is simply at a loss for words and extremely disappointed in our system of justice,” her attorney said.

Foster’s girlfriend, Whitney Mitchell, who was with him at the time of his death, said a jury rightly convicted Perry as a murderer and his text messages were proof enough for them that he had planned to kill demonstrators that night.

“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,” Mitchell said in a statement through her attorney. “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.”