Texas court tosses criminal case against former Gov. Perry

In July of a year ago, a state appeals court dismissed the other charge against Perry, which alleged that he engaged in coercion of a public servant when he threatened to veto state funding for the department as a result of the incident.

Perry was indicted in August of 2014 by a Travis County jury for the twin crimes of threatening to veto a bill and then vetoing a bill.

“The intended recipient of the funds that Perry vetoed, the district attorney’s Public Integrity Unit, had been investigating one of Perry’s favorite projects”, according to NPR.

“Obviously this indictment, as it would anybody, had a negative effect on our candidacy”, said Perry. Perry’s successor Greg Abbott and the Texas legislature needs to look into reforming the legal system to keep politically motivated prosecutors from gaming the system and targeting political opponents. The court’s only Democrat, Judge Larry Meyers, insists the court’s majority bent over backwards to dismiss Perry’s case, and in the process issued a precedent-setting ruling that could have far-reaching consequences on how public officials are held accountable in the state.

Perry, who campaigned for the nomination in 2012 and 2016, faced a first-degree felony charge in state courts that could have brought up to 99 years in prison because of a funding veto he made in 2013 seen as being meant to force a Texas county district attorney to resign. If it is only a veto act that is being prosecuted, then “the prosecution itself violates separation of powers”, the court reasoned Wednesday.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals tossed out the abuse-of-power felony charge, the Associated Press reported. Texans for Public Justice, a left-leaning watchdog group that filed the original criminal complaint that led to the indictment, said Perry was handed a “gift” based on his stature. But his second campaign lasted barely three months, and he dropped out of the race in September. “The evidence will never come to open court and I think that was Perry and his defense team’s motive all along”, McDonald said.

Mr Perry, who has twice run as a Republican presidential candidate, had been fighting the case, which he described as “unconstitutional”.

The dismissal of charges ends the criminal case against Perry.

The trial judge had rejected all previous attempts to dismiss the charges.