Morgan County judge makes gag order permanent in murder case against former officer

DECATUR, Ala (WHNT) — A Morgan County judge made a gag order permanent on Friday in the murder case against a former Decatur officer.

Former Decatur Police Officer Mac Bailey Marquette is charged with the on-duty shooting of Stephen Perkins in his driveway on Sept. 29, 2023. A temporary gag order has been in place in the case since March, but prosecutors wanted it to be made permanent.

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Morgan County Circuit Judge Charles Elliott decided to make it permanent one week after a hearing regarding the gag order.

“The Court’s goal is to ensure that the final conclusions reached in this case are done by
a jury, through the presentation of evidence inside of the courtroom without any
outside influence from either public media or private discussions,” Elliott wrote in the order.

That hearing saw 11 top-ranking Decatur Police officers including Chief Todd Pinion testify on whether they had leaked an investigative video that laid out evidence in the Perkins case.

That video was leaked in March and was published on the 1819 News website a few days after the gag order was put in place. Every officer denied leaking or giving public access to the video while being questioned at the hearing by Morgan County District Attorney Scott Anderson, who has argued the video leak could harm Marquette’s right to a fair trial.

In a court filing last week, lawyers for the City of Decatur said the police command staff decided to show all of the department’s officers the video after Marquette was indicted.

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Anderson questioned if the Decatur Police Department had, in any other case, made evidence in the murder case available to be shown to every officer. The officers testified that they could not think of a time when the department chose to share evidence like this in any previous murder case. Pinion said in court that the decision to share the video with the entire department was based on consistent questions about the case and for training purposes.

Officers testified in the hearing that the video was put on a thumb drive and given to shift lieutenants to share with rank-and-file officers.

Marquette’s father and Decatur City Councilman Hunter Pepper also testified they did not release the video.

Multiple officers also testified that they expected Anderson’s office to release the video of the shooting.

The defense in the case had argued the original gag order was too broad and would limit its ability to talk to witnesses and defend Marquette at trial. In his order Friday, Judge Elliot specifically addressed those concerns. He said that the order does not prevent any lawyer on the case from discussing the case with their client or a victim representative. The order also makes it clear what other conversations are not included in the order.

“It further does not prevent internal discussions from taking place among members of the defense attorney(s)’s firm or the District Attorney’s Office, or conversations between the attorneys in the case,” The order says. “Lastly, it does not prevent the attorneys or their staffs from communicating with any witness, potential witness, or any person in an attempt to discover evidence.”

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