MOBILE, Ala. — A Mobile Circuit judge has denied accused cop killer Marco Perez’s request for pretrial immunity and dismissal of his capital murder indictment.
Perez is accused of killing Mobile Police Officer Sean Tuder in January 2019. According to court documents filed in February, his attorneys argued Tuder never identified himself as a police officer and that Perez believed he was being attacked, acting lawfully under Alabama’s Stand Your Ground law. Prosecutors say the law does not apply because Perez was a convicted felon barred from owning a gun and the weapon used was stolen.
In an order issued Monday, the judge wrote that Perez did not meet his burden of proving entitlement to pretrial immunity by a preponderance of the evidence, was not legally presumed justified in using deadly force, and had a common-law duty to retreat. The request for a pretrial declaration of immunity and the implied request to dismiss the capital murder indictment were denied.
Perez, who was 19 at the time, was also denied youthful offender status in 2019.