This forum is hosted for free by Boardhost. Create your own free forum!
1 of 1- Goose
- Cogito ergo sum
Offline 
- Registered: 1/29/2015
- Posts: 13,427
Mistrial for South Carolina Officer Who Shot Walter Scott
Mistrial for South Carolina Officer Who Shot Walter Scott
CHARLESTON, S.C. — The trial of Michael T. Slager, the police officer whose videotaped killing of an unarmed black man staggered a nation already embroiled in a debate about police misconduct and racial bias in law enforcement, ended in a mistrial on Monday.
Judge Clifton B. Newman’s decision to halt the proceedings came three days after jurors signaled that they were within one vote of returning a guilty verdict against Mr. Slager, who could have been convicted of murder or voluntary manslaughter in the fatal shooting of Walter L. Scott. But on Monday, in a final note to Judge Newman, jurors said that “despite the best efforts of all members, we are unable to come to a unanimous decision.”
The outcome was disappointingly familiar to critics of police practices and conduct, and demonstrated the steep hurdles associated with prosecuting a police officer for a shooting while on duty. Although other cases involving claims of police misconduct have ended in mistrials and acquittals, few resonated as widely as this case in North Charleston, where Mr. Slager fired eight shots as Mr. Scott ran away.
“The fight isn’t over, that was Round 1,” said L. Chris Stewart, a lawyer for Mr. Scott’s family. “We all saw what he did. We all saw what happened.”
In a statement, Gov. Nikki R. Haley said: “Justice is not always immediate, but we must all have faith that it will be served — I certainly do.”
Prosecutors said they would seek a new trial for Mr. Slager, who was fired after the shooting, and the Scott family expressed confidence that he would ultimately be convicted. Mr. Slager’s lawyer, Andrew J. Savage III, did not comment as he left the courtroom, where jurors had heard testimony for about four weeks.
No piece of evidence was more central than a cellphone video, which a passer-by, Feidin Santana, recorded as he walked to work on April 4, 2015.
The video began only after Mr. Scott fled on foot from a traffic stop for a broken taillight, but it was shocking and vivid. In the recording, the men engage in a struggle, and then, as Mr. Scott runs away, Mr. Slager raises his Glock handgun and fires. Mr. Scott falls to the ground. He was at least 17 feet away when Mr. Slager began to shoot.
It was a sequence that jurors saw over and over, and the sound of the gunshots repeatedly pierced the courtroom.
On Monday, the existence of the video, and its inability to lead to a conviction, fueled much of the furor and frustration about the trial’s resolution, incomplete as it was.
“It saddens me, but I am not shocked,” said Howard Friedman, a civil rights lawyer and the former president of the National Police Accountability Project. “The fact that out of 12 people you would find one person so prejudiced in favor of police is saddening, not shocking, because I know that kind of prejudice in favor of police is out there.”
In Missouri, where an August 2014 police killing in Ferguson spurred both peaceful protests and unrest, State Senator Maria Chappelle-Nadal said the outcome in Charleston had left her “hopeless.”
“When you have the video that shows that Walter Scott is running away and still you have a mistrial?” Ms. Chappelle-Nadal said.
Here in Charleston County, investigators at first believed Mr. Slager when he said he had been attacked. But Mr. Santana’s video, which emerged within days of the shooting and provoked international outrage, made Mr. Slager a pariah to many in law enforcement, an anomaly of policing who strayed far from his duties and oath when he opened fire and, prosecutors contended, tried to stage the scene to make the shooting appear justified.
Last edited by Goose (12/06/2016 7:27 am)
We live in a time in which decent and otherwise sensible people are surrendering too easily to the hectoring of morons or extremists.
- tennyson
- Exchanger
Offline
- Registered: 2/06/2015
- Posts: 6,654
Re: Mistrial for South Carolina Officer Who Shot Walter Scott
There will be two more trials. One as a result of the mistrial and a second which is a separate Federal trial. The wheels of justice sometime work slowly and this is one example.
As an aside, if you have ever sat on a trial (especially criminal involving police), you will have probably encountered people with deep feeling on both sides of the situation. The selection of jurors from a public pool is bound on many occasions to wind up having such people. I was on one at a point where a juror was obviously prejudiced against the police (it was NOT a shooting BYW). In this case we did finally reach agreement. It became clear to me after serving that the jury process is imperfect, but is what we have and still likely better in most cases than what other nations have.
"Do not confuse motion and progress, A rocking horse keeps moving but does not make any progress"