A Travis County jury found Daniel Perry not guilty of misdemeanor deadly conduct.

The not-guilty verdict ends the misdemeanor. It does not reopen the murder case, and it does not undo the pardon. KUT reported jurors were barred from hearing about the murder conviction, so the acquittal is a finding about the driving, on the record that jury was allowed to consider. Sentencing is not the next step on a count the jury rejected.

KVUE, KUT and CBS Austin reported Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026, that a Travis County jury found Daniel Perry not guilty of misdemeanor deadly conduct. KVUE reported his attorneys said the jury reached that verdict on a charge from the same night as the 2020 shooting. KUT reported a six-person jury deliberated a little over two hours after a four-day trial and returned not guilty. CBS Austin reported the verdict came Thursday and that an earlier trial on the same misdemeanor ended in a mistrial after jury-selection problems. KUT reported the count was punishable by up to a year in prison. The Austin American-Statesman, in a January 2025 story, described deadly conduct as a Class A misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in a county jail and a fine of up to $4,000. Thursday's verdict stories and that earlier Statesman account do not describe the maximum the same way.

KUT reported prosecutors argued Perry "plowed" into demonstrators on Congress Avenue and that texts and memes he had shared before the night suggested he wanted to harm protesters. The station reported Travis County lead attorney Afton Washbourne told jurors his driving was reckless and put people marching down Congress Avenue in danger. "In a fight between a car and a human, the car is going to win," she said, KUT reported. Defense attorney Doug O'Connell told jurors in closing that they might not want "to have him for dinner," and that the driving did not meet the standard for deadly conduct, KUT reported. "They spent more time on text messages and memes because they have no other evidence," O'Connell said, according to KUT. "They want you to convict him based on thought crimes, not evidence." KUT reported attorneys were not allowed to bring up Perry's murder charge during the four-day trial. KVUE reported his lawyers had asked that the misdemeanor be dismissed, arguing prosecutors could not point to specific people who were in danger and that he should not be tried twice for the same conduct.

The murder case is the one the pardon already closed. KVUE reported Perry was convicted in April 2023 of murder in the shooting death of protester Garrett Foster during a downtown Austin demonstration in 2020. CBS Austin reported he was sentenced to 25 years and that Gov. Greg Abbott granted a full pardon in May 2024. KVUE reported the pardon followed a recommendation from what the station called the State Board of Pardon and Paroles. KXAN, in a March 2026 story about the mistrial, reported Abbott said the state's pardon and parole board recommended a full pardon after reviewing the July 2020 incident. The American-Statesman reported in January 2025 that a jury convicted him of murder in April 2023, that he was acquitted of an aggravated-assault count, and that Abbott pardoned him in May 2024. KUT called him a former Army sergeant who was driving for Uber when he drove into a downtown march in July 2020 and got into an altercation with Foster. KVUE reported his attorneys claimed a crowd, including Foster, approached the car and that Foster raised a weapon toward Perry. That is the defense account of the shooting. Thursday's not-guilty verdict is on the driving count.

KXAN reported that on March 22, 2026, Judge Carlos Barrera declared a mistrial in the deadly-conduct case "on the basis of agreed manifest necessity," after a source told the station the panel could not be filled, and that the case was reset for October. KXAN and the American-Statesman have put the protest on July 25, 2020. KVUE, KUT and CBS Austin, in the verdict stories, said July 2020. KXAN reported Foster was an Air Force veteran. KVUE and CBS Austin reported the Travis County Attorney's Office said, "We are grateful for the hard work of our trial team and, while we are disappointed in the outcome, we appreciate the jury's time and respect their decision." None of the Thursday verdict stories named the judge who took the not-guilty verdict. The acquittal is the jury's finding on the misdemeanor. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.