MONTGOMERY, Ala. (WHNT) — Attorneys for former Decatur Police Officer Mac Marquette have filed a response to the state in his third attempt to get his murder charge thrown out.
Marquette is arguing he acted in self-defense the night he killed Stephen Perkins during a botched repossesion of Perkins’s truck.
Two lower courts, the Morgan County Circuit Court and the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals, have already rejected the self-defense claim. Those courts have said a jury should decide if Marquette’s killing of Perkins was justified.
In August, Marquette asked the state’s high court to consider his self-defense claim. The Alabama Attorney General’s Office filed a response to that appeal on October 8. In it, the AG argued again that questions about Marquette’s role that night, if he was acting in a law enforcement capacity, would be best resolved in front of a jury.
What has emerged as a central issue in this self-defense appeal, and really the whole case, is whether Marquette and other officers were acting in a law enforcement capacity that night.
The state of Alabama has argued that the officers’ presence during a truck repossession was unusual, specifically that officers fanned out around Perkins’s home and hid, rather than announcing their presence.
But in today’s filing, the defense pushes back on that claim, arguing the courts’ concerns about Marquette’s tactics ignore this question — Was it reasonable for an on-duty police officer operating under the law to use deadly physical force on a person who unlawfully aimed a gun at him?
The defense stated that Marquette was at the scene that night, exercising discretionary authority lawfully. They also say Marquette was forced to make a split-second decision, his actions were reasonable under the law.
They also bring up a new state law, the ‘back the blue’ law, which expanded legal protections for officers and says an officer is justified in making any use of physical force, if it’s within discretionary authority.
The defense told the Supreme Court that it’s not trying to say the ‘back the blue’ law should be applied here because the law is not retroactive. But the defense wants to show how that new law matches what Marquette has already been arguing regarding officer discretion and use of force.
It continues to ask for oral argument in the case as well.
Marquette’s murder trial is currently set for January 26, 2026.
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