Alabama attorney general pushes for trial of an ex-officer accused of fatally shooting an armed man

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — A former Alabama police officer charged with murder for shooting an armed Black man in the man’s front yard during a dispute with a tow-truck driver shouldn’t be granted immunity before going to trial, the state’s attorney general says.

In a court brief filed late Tuesday, Attorney General Steve Marshall said a lower court was correct in ruling that former Decatur police officer Mac Marquette, 25, failed to show “a clear legal right to prosecutorial immunity” when he fatally shot Stephen Perkins on Sept. 29, 2023.

Shortly before 2 a.m., Marquette and two other officers accompanied the tow truck driver to repossess Perkins’ pickup truck at his home in Decatur. When Perkins emerged from his house pointing a gun at the truck driver, Marquette fired 18 bullets less than two seconds after the officers emerged from a concealed position and identified themselves as law enforcement, according to body camera footage.

The appeals court decision, and the fate of the trial, hinges on Alabama’s “ stand your ground ” law, which grants immunity from prosecution to anyone who uses deadly force as long as they reasonably believe they’re in danger and are somewhere they’re rightfully allowed to be. Alabama allows judges to determine if someone acted in self-defense before a case goes to trial.

After a Morgan County judge denied Marquette immunity in April, the ex-officer’s lawyers asked the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals to overturn the decision. The appeals court said the circuit judge’s decision was a “gross abuse of discretion” because the judge didn’t give enough weight to Marquette’s assertion that he feared for his life after Perkins pointed his gun at the officer before he was shot.

If the appeals court rules against Marquette, he will go to trial in September.

The shooting drew regular protests in the north Alabama city, and the three officers were fired after personnel hearings. Marquette is white.

While the attorney general’s brief didn’t contest that Marquette feared for his life, he argued that witnesses in a pre-trial hearing failed to establish that Marquette was at Perkins’ house on legitimate police duty, and therefore “there remain open questions regarding whether he had a legal right” to be there.

The brief, written by the Assistant Attorney General Kristi Wilkerson, pointed to conflicting testimony from the two officers who were with Marquette when he shot Perkins.

One officer testified that the three officers were at Perkins’ house to investigate a misdemeanor menacing charge since Perkins had previously pulled a gun on the tow truck driver in an attempt to repossess Perkins’ truck earlier that night. The other officer testified that he was unaware of a menacing investigation, saying that he believed they were there to assist in “keeping the peace.”

Alabama law requires a court order for law enforcement to be involved in a vehicle repossession — which the officers didn’t have.

Testimony from a state agent who investigated the shooting, Jamie King, also conflicted with both officers’ accounts of the moments leading up to the shooting. King said that while Marquette may have feared for his life, the three officers were not positioned in an effective way to keep the peace or to investigate menacing since they were intentionally out of Perkins’ view until seconds before the shooting.

Marquette’s attorneys have argued that there is more than one way to conduct police operations.

In light of the ambiguity, Marshall’s office said deference should be given to the trial court’s position, and that a jury “alone is in the best position to determine the trustworthiness of testimony presented to it.”

All parties in the case are prohibited from speaking to the media.

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Riddle is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.