COLUMBIA, SC – A judge on Monday upheld a 20-year prison sentence for former police officer Michael Slager in the murder of Walter Scott, a black man who ran from a traffic hall in South Carolina, and rejected Slager’s allegations that his lawyer did a poor job.
Butcher appealed his sentence, saying his lawyer never told him of a plea deal from prosecutors that could have cut his final prison sentence for shooting Scott five times in the back.
But federal judge Richard Gergel wrote in his ruling Monday that he believes Slager’s lawyer Andy Savage, who said in court documents in 2017 that he told his client about every plea deal. Slager testified during a trial last week that he did not know about the initial indictment of prosecutors.
Slager’s sentence of 20 years was one of the longest in recent memories of a police officer for a murder on duty.
Slager pleaded guilty to a federal charge for shooting Scott, who was unarmed, on April 4, 2015, five times in the back. Slager pulled off the 50-year-old Black motorist for a broken brake light when their confrontation was recorded on a bystander’s cellphone video that later spread worldwide on social media.
In the encounter, the two could be seen tumbling to the ground after Slager shot Scott with a Taser. According to authorities, Scott found that Scott had risen again and he had been shot from a distance of about 15 feet when he ran away from the officer.
The shooting itself was captured on video, something Slager did not know when he initially told investigators that Scott charged him after he stole his Taser.
‘With the sentencing, the petitioner tried to blame the victim. Now he is trying to blame his defender and the trial judge. But a careful review of this whole tragic episode makes it clear that if no one is to blame for his current plight, except for himself, ‘Gergel wrote.
Savage is one of South Carolina’s most capable attorneys, and at the time he also represented a black member of the church whose life was spared in a racist massacre that killed nine people in 2015 in a church in Charleston, two months after Butcher’s arrest.
Butcher’s new lawyers have not questioned his guilt, but only a sentence that, according to federal prison records, will keep him behind bars until 2033.
While Slager pleaded guilty to a civil rights violation, the length of his sentence depends on how federal judge David Norton interpreted the shooting. If the voluntary manslaughter was committed in the heat of passion, sentencing guidelines meant Slager might have faced just seven years.
But Norton ruled that the shooting amounted to second-degree murder, as Slager fired a total of nine shots and lied about Scott stealing his Taser.
Savage said in court documents as part of Slager’s appeal that he did not tell the former officer about the possible plea deal offered eight months earlier, due to a conversation he had during a private meeting with Norton about public funding. for Butcher’s defense, where the judge said. this is not a murder case. ‘
Savage believed Norton would rule that it was a manslaughter case where the top end of the sentence was eight years in prison, nearly four years less than the bottom of the prosecutor’s offer. He recommended that Slager plead guilty without the agreement.
Savage never asked Norton for clarity. In court documents in Slager’s appeal, Norton said he was discussing Slager’s state hearing on charges of murder that had already taken place and ended in a flawed trial.
Savage testified during the trial last week that his promises in earlier court documents that he shared all plea agreements with Slager in court documents filed before the final plea were true.
Butcher’s murder charge was dismissed as part of the federal plea agreement. He could have been sentenced to life in prison if convicted on the charge, and his lawyers said Slager wants to spend his prison sentence in federal custody where he feels he will be safer than in state jail.
Gergel praised Savage and his lawyers in his ruling for being “zealous advocates” and said their work, which led to a four-day sentencing hearing that cost nearly $ 100,000 in taxpayers’ money, was a minimum acceptable standard of surpassed performance and showed elements of originality. and creativity in the face of a terrifying set of facts. ‘
Eventually, even a great lawyer could not shoot Slager’s video nine times on the back of a running man and then lie about it, Gergel said.
“Attorneys are lawyers, not magicians, and they could not make this damning evidence disappear,” Gergel wrote.