Greg Abbott working to 'swiftly' pardon Army Sergeant convicted of murder in Black Lives Matter riot

[BobbyV]

It doesn't help that he had previous social media posts about killing people and might have sought out the protest.

I was just about to bring those up . . .

 

[OK Corgi Rancher]

But but but but it's all the CA liberals who've moved to TX the last 5-6 years that have turned Austin blue and a liberal chithole.

I'm pretty sure I know better than anyone on OSA how F'ed up CA really is. Spend the first 49 years of my life there and dealing with so much of the BS liberals inflicted on the residents of the state. I'm also on several social forums/groups involved around people moving out of CA to other states. THese groups have 10s of thousands of members and the vast majority of them vote Red. I'd estimate 90+% are conservative. Many of which were moving to TX.

Are there some that move from CA, OR, WA, NY or IL to Texas that vote blue? Sure. But blaming CA or any of these aforementioned states for the ills of TX is obsurd. It's catchy and sounds awesome but Native Texans need to look in their mirrors and get their own houses in order before blaming people moving into TX for the direction their state is slowly creeping.

Good read in this article. Has stats and facts rather than just platitudes. Some here may dismiss the website or what it says and that's fine. If you do then post facts opposing what the article shows.

I found this particular paragraph in the article very interesting.
"....In a 2018 exit poll in the hard-fought U.S. Senate race between Sen. Ted Cruz (who had moved to Texas) and then-Rep. Beto O’Rourke (a Texas native), natives preferred O’Rourke by plus-3 points whereas movers favored Cruz by plus 15. Cruz won the race by 2.6 percent, meaning that if it were up to people who were Texans by birth, Cruz would have lost reelection....."

I've said for years that party is more important than the person. People in TX oftentimes vote for democrats because "he/she was the better candidate" or "he/she is a conservative democrat". Well, that may be. But when the democrat is elected the party owns them, they make the party stronger and they defy the party at their political peril. The party can control election funds, the party can force them into a primary at election time, etc...

The two major parties are not, despite what a lot of people say, the same. They may share some traits like being unable to control spending and a few other things. But in terms of social issues they couldn't be further apart. While democrats will rally around their candidate...see HRC, BHO, Biden, Maxine Waters, etc... All horrible people and disastrous for our country, republicans won't. Basically because they're generally too principled. Republicans are masters at making perfection the mortal enemy of good enough when it comes to political candidates.

 

[mavs]

It doesn't help that he had previous social media posts about killing people and might have sought out the protest.

I've seen nowhere that is documented and proveable.

 

[donner]

I've seen nowhere that is documented and proveable.

from what i've read, the comments were all entered in court filings, though i haven't sifted through them directly.

From one article in the Guardian:
"The 76-page filing that Judge Cliff Brown ordered unsealed on Thursday at the request of state prosecutors contains a trove of public and private social media messages from Perry – a ride-share service driver and US army sergeant – that highlight white supremacy memes while talking about hunting people down and killing them.

In one message posted publicly less than eight weeks before Foster’s killing, Perry declared: “It is official, I am a racist because I do not agree with people acting like animals at the zoo. I was on the side of the [protesters] until they started with the looting and the violence.”

Perry that same day also compared the Black Lives Matter movement to “a zoo full of monkeys that are freaking out flinging their ****”, according to the filings, which were first reported by the Houston Chronicle.

Both remarks came at the height of protests held nationwide in the days after the murder of George Floyd, who was Black, by a white Minneapolis police officer. So did another remark from around that time in which Perry said “he might have to kill a few people” staging a demonstration outside his apartment, according to the court filing as well as prior reports."

This page appears to have links to the court documents.

 

[mavs]

Really doesn't matter if he wrote those or not. Free speech is protected by the First Amendment in this country and it says the comments were not even introduced in the trial so he should not have been convicted because of that crap.

Still does not keep the guy from protecting himself from some half-wit sticking a gun in his face. That guy could not have known what was put on social media and should have expected someone to blow him away for jamming a gun in his face.

Governor needs to grant the pardon!

 

[donner]

Really doesn't matter if he wrote those or not. Free speech is protected by the First Amendment in this country. Still does not keep the guy from protecting himself from some half-wit sticking a gun in his face. That guy could not have known what was put on social media and should have expected someone to blow him away for jamming a gun in his face.

While free speech is protected from government suppression, the comments might have given support to the prosecution's argument that Perry sought out the confrontation. The government couldn't stop him from saying it, but nothing keeps the government from introducing the comments into evidence. And as a counter to a self defense claim, comments like that could certainly help introduce the idea that Perry might have sought out the confrontation.

I am not saying the comments alone convicted him, merely that his public comments might have played into the larger narrative.

I didn't follow the case, nor am i arguing any side. I simply said his comments didn't help his cause.

 

[Aries]

While free speech is protected from government suppression, the comments might have given support to the prosecution's argument that Perry sought out the confrontation. The government couldn't stop him from saying it, but nothing keeps the government from introducing the comments into evidence. And as a counter to a self defense claim, comments like that could certainly help introduce the idea that Perry might have sought out the confrontation.

I am not saying the comments alone convicted him, merely that his public comments might have played into the larger narrative.

I didn't follow the case, nor am i arguing any side. I simply said his comments didn't help his cause.

Yes, just like "anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law." He has the freedom to say it, that doesn't prevent it from being used as evidence. Like donner, I don't have a position on this case, just responding to the argument of "freedom of speech" as a defense.

I don't know if his statements were introduced as evidence in the trial or not, but if they were not and his attorney is any good the jury probably didn't know about them.

 

[2busy]

I'm sure it has been said, the governor can only ask the parole board for them to pardon. He can then sign it once it hits his desk. He doesn't have the authority to bypass the parole board.

 

[mavs]

Really doesn't matter if he wrote those or not. Free speech is protected by the First Amendment in this country. Still does not keep the guy from protecting himself from some half-wit sticking a gun in his face. That guy could not have known what was put on social media and should have expected someone to blow him away for jamming a gun in his face.

 

[donner]

Really doesn't matter if he wrote those or not. Free speech is protected by the First Amendment in this country. Still does not keep the guy from protecting himself from some half-wit sticking a gun in his face. That guy could not have known what was put on social media and should have expected someone to blow him away for jamming a gun in his face.

yeah... that isn't really how the first amendment works (as several people here have stated). The government isn't prosecuting him for what he said.

And again, his comments were only one part of the trial (and from what i saw, not all of them were even entered into evidence during the trial). In a case like this, showing that someone *might* have sought out the confrontation can directly challenge a self-defense claim from what i read. And Perry's past comments *could* help support that challenge. Again, i'm not a lawyer nor was i following this case. But his comments are not protected by the first amendment as it relates to using them in court against Perry.