As the jury was deliberating the fate of Derek Chauvin in the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, another former police officer was attempting to have his sentence reduced for killing another unarmed Black man. Federal Judge Richard Gergel upheld a 20-year prison sentence on Monday, April 19, 2021, for former police officer Michael Slager in the killing of Walter Scott.
Scott was shot and killed after he ran from Slager during a traffic stop in South Carolina. Slager pleaded guilty to a federal civil rights charge for shooting Scott in the back five times on April 4, 2015. The officer pulled over the 50-year-old Black motorist for a broken brake light when their confrontation was captured on a bystander’s cellphone video that later spread worldwide on social media. The recorded encounter showed the two men tumbling on the ground after Slager hit Scott with a Taser. An investigation found Scott got back up and was shot from a distance of about 15 feet as he ran away from the officer.
Slager initially lied and said Scott charged him after stealing his Taser, but the video proved otherwise. The officer had appealed his sentence, saying his lawyer never told him about a plea offer from prosecutors that could have cut years off his eventual prison term for shooting Scott five times in the back.
According to The Associated Press, Gergel wrote in his ruling Monday that he believed Slager’s lawyer Andy Savage, who said in 2017 court papers that he told his client about every plea offer. Slager testified during a hearing last week that he didn’t know about the initial deal from prosecutors.
“At sentencing, Petitioner attempted to blame the victim. Now, he attempts 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 in his ruling.
Gergel also pointed out that the video itself was damaging and further wrote in his ruling, “Attorneys are advocates, not magicians, and they could not make this damning evidence disappear.”
Slager has been in prison since 2017.
