Posted on 04/08/2015 12:59:17 PM PDT by IChing
Last Saturday, April 4th at about 9:30 a.m., 33-year-old North Charleston, S.C. police officer Michael Slager shot 50-year-old Walter Scott near the intersection of Remount and Craig Roads in North Charleston.
Take a good look at this alarming video, then read why I say the officer will not be convicted of murder, but of a lesser included charge of voluntary manslaughter instead.
Slager initially pulled Scott over for a broken taillight, but the incident escalated when Slager tried to take Scott into custody on an outstanding arrest warrant for non-payment of child support. Scott had some additional prior violent criminal history.
Without any analysis, it seems like a very damning video. In addition to the shooting itself, some accuse Slager of lying about the incident, and the video itself shows Slager appearing to move the taser, after the shooting.
I predict that Officer Slager is going down, but not for murder. He is being charged with murder(presumably second-degree), but he’ll be convicted of voluntary manslaughter instead. Why? Mitigating factors, as follows.
It will be pointed out to the jury that at the very beginning of the video, you can actually hear the taser being deployed; that ratchety clicking sound, off-camera and before anything really comes into focus. That means the taser was activated prior to the video frame at :17, where you suddenly can see Scott and Slager in close confrontation for a split-second, fighting over the taser.
In the next second, Scott turns and flees as you see the taser fall to the ground and Slager reach for his gun. Slager opens fire with eight shots as Scott runs away, then falls.
It will be explained that after Scott’s first attempt to flee, from the gas station where he’d been pulled over, he then physically resisted arrest, and that Slager was unable to subdue Scott to get him into custody. Due to the taser failing to stop Scott as he resisted, with Scott trying to wrest the taser away from Slager, assault on a police officer will be argued — therefore, Scott at this point is legitimately deemed by Slager to be violent felon.
The video supports this argument, and the defense will almost certainly argue it. Slager, now, has a somewhat legitimate argument that his own life is in jeopardy if Scott is able to get the taser away from him, possibly turning it on him, incapacitating him, and then accessing his pistol to use against him. So, Slager abandons the taser (it falls to the ground) and reaches for his pistol as a last resort. This immediately causes Scott to flee.
That’s the point at which a reasonable person would expect Slager to desist from using deadly force. However, some will try to argue that Slager had a duty to use any means up to and including deadly force to stop the escape of a violent felon who had just assaulted a police officer and tried to get a weapon (the taser) from the officer as being an imminent threat to others. I’m not saying the defense will necessarily try that shaky angle (Tennessee v. Garner), although they may plant suggestive seeds to that effect.
Slager’s defense team will emphasize the totality of the circumstances, exploit the mitigating factors, and rest in the reasonable doubt as to Slager’s culpability for the murder charge. Murder requires certain key elements (i.e., depraved mind, malice aforethought) which I do not believe can be proven here.
The jury will not fully accept all implications of the defense, yet because of reasonable doubt as to murder they will nonetheless not be able to agree to convict Slager on that charge. Slager’s action in the immediate aftermath (moving the taser, which can be seen as somewhat suspicious unless one deems it mere negligent handling of the scene/evidence) will help the jury rationalize convicting him of voluntary manslaughter, which can carry a prison term up to and equal to murder.
We’ll all know what happened when Lindsey Graham tells us how it happened.
You know what Cuban, a dear friend of mine says you’re a good guy. Okay fine I am not really well enough to try to figure out what you might be saying that you’re not saying. Or what you might mean unless you just say it. It’s really not up to me to try to decipher what you might possibly have in mind when you May or may not mean what you say or write or whatever. Incidentally, My friend that thinks you’re a nice guy was shocked by what you wrote
Or maybe… You’re not as clear or as clever as you think you are. What you wrote was actually heinous. It would make for a God awful scenario
Sure it is stupid to struggle with and then run from a cop! I don’t think it deserves 5 in the back though from 25 feet or so IF, IF, IF this is all there is to this story. Now a what if: say a perp, been tased, following a struggle with a cop, took off screaming and yelling incoherently and charging towards little children, (or adults for that matter), off in the distance I think that deadly force would be warranted. The perp has just proved he is nuts, fighting with an armed cop. Within seconds he is in range of the kids, pulls a knife and kills them. Then everyone would say why didn’t the cop shoot the perp when he had the chance?! That scenario did not happen HERE though. His OWN PD has charged him with murder! They would not if there had been one iota of mitigating circumstances that they saw or have been informed of. They went for murder AS SOON as they saw the video. We will see if a lesser charge ends up being what the cop ends up getting.
Thanks for that information. I only had time to look at the Wiki version of the case. Interesting point on the changing definition of felonies over time (less violent things are now called felonies whereas before they weren’t).
However, that is concerning. I can read my state’s laws on the subject, look at recent lawful shootings, and I still may have it wrong based on a Supreme Court decision.
Because I'm talking about you, not the law. I unextended why YOU are taking the positions you are, against the law.
Because I'm talking about you, not the law. I understand why YOU are taking the positions you are, against the law.
They aren't happy with an 'I told ya so", and thats all this one will be. This schmuck is kaput.
” but then I find out that his pilot was just killed by an ME-109 and his wife was killed in a bombing in London - and the two countries are at war in which the place his just released his bombs on is the aggressor.”
I can help you out on some of this.
Nobody involved had just been killed or even shot at by an ME-109, the cops wife is I believe pregnant so I’ll take that to mean she’s still alive, I don’t know if she was in London or not, and there are no warring countries involved.
Good lord that was the most tortured excuse I’ve seen on FR about this yet and there have been some doozies lol.
3. He was a former Coast Guard officer. The AP reports that Scott was with the Coast Guard two years before receiving an honorable discharge.
Read more at http://rare.us/story/5-facts-about-walter-scott-man-killed-in-s-c-police-shooting/#SrCW3MTbFkZZbeyi.99
Where did you get your info?
So deaf people who do not hear police commands should be killed immediately?
That’s exactly the outcome you are advocating here...
This is how people get in trouble interpreting the bible. Some very strong dogmas are built on scriptures taken out of context.
The plot thickens...
Alleged by whom?
Of course, as facts were released it became pretty obvious what happened.
Same thing will probably happen here. And we will all merge into the same belief on what happened. Those of us that actually understand the evidence and the varying degrees of veracity, that is. :-)
I argued voluntary, not involuntary.
The man that shot the video knew that the guy had good cause to flee, that is why he recorded it.
I’m speaking academically. I don’t know who recorded it.
Actually, ALL of my comments are speaking academically. It’s how I approach this sort of thing. It’s not about the individual case for me - yet. It’s about the legal principles and evidence.
The police watched the video and charged him with murder and his lawyer deserted him, and you want to keep rambling.
As I said in an earlier post, this case is still in the academic area for me. The reason is this: There is not enough evidence being shown to us for us to really have a clear picture of what happened. But it will almost certainly be forthcoming in the months ahead.
And so far, I still see this as in the vein of the Boston Massacre. Doesn’t mean he’s innocent or guilty, but I see him as innocent until a preponderance of evidence makes it clear.
I just don’t believe in a rush to judgement - regarding ANYONE.
Where I am coming from:
I was coming home from work one day and some guy was driving wildly trying to pass me on a two lane road with lots of traffic. He did a crazy maneuver to get around me and I watched him do that with car after car. This was a beautiful summer afternoon commute in Seattle suburbs.
So, after about five miles of this (and it was SERIOUSLY crazy) he got on the open road and went around a corner where I could not see him. As I went around the corner he had slid off the road and into the ditch, almost hitting a woman jogger.
My thoughts were, “that poor guy. I wonder if his wife just left him or he lost his job.” But the rest of the people (those of us he passed and not stopped to subdue him) helping me hold him down were filled with anger and bitterness about what he did.
I thought what he was doing was very inappropriate and, lets be honest, someone could have been killed. But it was obvious to me that this was a “special day” for this guy. I was interested in the mitigating circumstances.
Not that that justifies his actions, and if he had hit the jogger and she had been my wife I’d feel very differently. But he didn’t.
I just approach this stuff differently. I want to see the whole story before I start condemning characters in the story. That day will come, however.
Yes, When I read the “involuntary” opinion I thought, yeah, that makes more sense. But then I said to myself, “I dunno, it looks pretty ‘voluntary’”.
See my posts a couple up from this one.
I see us all as fearfully and wonderfully made by God. I just don’t like the “rush to judgement” that I see so many times here. I expect it at DU, but we’re more thoughtful about stuff here.
I suspect in the end I’ll feel like the rest of the folks here, but I need more evidence before I make up my mind on this. It’s why I use the Boston Massacre example.
We truly don’t know what we don’t know, and until we do, we need to be careful about clamoring for someone’s head.
What you wrote was actually heinous.
But it was not an essay. There is only enough information in it for someone that really wants to know what I meant to ask questions, not cast in concrete what I “Obviously had to mean”.
Generally, I think cops should be given more leeway in discharging their weapon against alleged perps. That says it better.
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