Immediately following the announcement of the guilty verdict, social media rather exploded with outrage at a guilty verdict so insanely inconsistent with Perry’s narrative of shooting in self-defense only after facing the muzzle of Foster’s rifle.

The problem with this outrage, however, is that it presumes as an indisputable fact that Foster initiated the deadly force confrontation by pointing his rifle at Perry.

That “fact,” however, is not indisputable. Indeed, that fact was aggressively disputed by the prosecution, which argued to the jury that Foster never pointed his rifle at Perry, and so Perry’s claimed legal grounds for shooting Foster in self-defense simply doesn’t exist.

In support of this narrative of guilt the prosecution presented the testimony of multiple witnesses who told the jury that Foster never pointed his rifle at Perry. The confrontation itself was captured on poor quality video, from which screen captures were secured, and neither video nor stills ever show Foster pointing his gun at Perry.

[Well, I don’t know quite what to think of a pardon effort at this point. Branca rightly notes that the complaint from the detective about the DA “tampering” with him as a witness is a bit irrelevant in a grand-jury proceeding. He also has more to say about that detective’s testimony in favor of self-defense, which turns out to be less relevant as some people believe it to be — at least in Branca’s estimation. I’d suggest a very thorough reading of his analysis before reaching any conclusions on the case. — Ed]