Officer who killed Walter Scott sentence upheld

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A federal judge has upheld the sentence of a former South Carolina police officer who killed Walter Scott in 2015.

Sentence upheld for Michael Slager

The judge denied a motion in which former North Charleston police officer Michael Slager asked that his 20-year prison sentence for violating Walter Scott’s civil rights be vacated.

Slager, 39, who was sentenced in 2017, argued that his attorneys were ineffective.

In his ruling, US District Judge Richard Gergel wrote in negotiating a plea deal, Slager’s legal team “fell well within the bounds of reasonable professional competence and practice.”

Civil rights violated

Slager’s 2016 state trial ended in a mistrial. He pleaded guilty in May 2017 to violating Walter Scott’s civil rights by acting under the code of law.

In exchange for the 2017 plea, state murder charges, as well as two other federal charges, were dismissed.

The civil rights offense has a maximum penalty of life in prison, though the plea agreement stated that the government would ask the court to apply sentencing guidelines for second-degree murder, which carries up to 25 years in prison.

Slager’s defense at the time argued for a lesser sentence, saying that Slager’s actions were similar to voluntary manslaughter. A probation officer had recommended Slager be sentenced to 10 to 13 years in prison.

Gergel wrote it was Slager, not his legal team, that sealed his fate.

“What sealed petitioner’s fate regarding malice was not the language of his plea agreement or the performance of his defense counsel, but his own willful act of shooting an unarmed man in the back five times as he ran for his life,” Gergel wrote.

“Compounding these horrible facts was petitioner’s inconsistent and obviously false statements about the circumstances of the incident, with which he destroyed his credibility.”

Gergel wrote that Slager, during a sentencing hearing, “attempted to blame the victim,” and now was trying to “blame his defense counsel and the trial judge.”

“But a careful review of this entire tragic episode makes plain that petitioner has no one to blame for his present predicament and sentence but himself,” Gergel wrote. “Petitioner is the architect of his own demise. The court finds that petitioner’s defense counsel ably and zealously represented him, and that petitioner’s claim that he was provided ineffective assistance of counsel is wholly without merit.”