The lawyers for Daniel Perry, who was found guilty of the murder of armed Austin protester Garrett Foster, have filed a motion for a new trial saying evidence was excluded from the trial that could have proved he did not instigate the shooting.
The evidence that was excluded from the trial included a video recording of Foster “in which he admitted that he carried his assault rifle as a means to intimidate who did not share his beliefs,” the motion says. On June 27, 2020, a Door Dash driver was driving past Austin police headquarters downtown when Foster tried to block the street by using his partner’s wheelchair and protesters surrounded the driver’s car, the motion says. It says the driver pulled a handgun and protesters backed away from his car.
Defense lawyers also said in the motion that they were not allowed to show a video recording of Foster conducted by Hiram Garcia, a prosecution witness, on the same day that Foster was killed. Garciawho described himself in the trial as an independent videographer documenting the protests, asked Foster in the video why he was carrying an AK-47 that night. “They don’t let us march in the streets anymore, so I gotta practice … some of our rights,” Foster said in the video.
Criminal justice system seems to be a mess. The only benefit to the nakedly partisan prosecutions by leftwing DAs the last several years is that it's finally opened the eyes of conservatives on this issue.