Posted by MikeT23 on 4/14/2015 10:59:00 AM (view original):
"Did you see the video?" will be the prosecution's argument. "Well, yeah, but did you see the video?"
Truthfully, the first time I saw it, I was "Holy ****. That officer is guilty as ****." But, if you step back, read the law and take into account any other number of circumstances, it's not that cut and dry. As I said, what happened isn't nearly as important as what you can prove in the court. And proving that Slager intended to kill, or do great bodily harm, to Scott in the line of duty is going to be tough.
#SPIKETHEFOOTBALL #GAMEOVER #MIKET-WINS
Defense lawyers in South Carolina are prepared to offer controversial new evidence in the deadly police officer shooting of a reportedly unarmed black man.
Cell phone video from April shows now former officer Michael Slager shooting Walter Scott during a traffic stop in North Charleston, but Slager's attorney says new evidence shows there is more to the confrontation, reports CBS News correspondent Jeff Pegues.
The 33-year-old's defense team now says it will present evidence at Slager's bond hearing Thursday that includes never-before-seen stills from the cell phone video that are said to show Scott on top of Slager.
"You need to go back to the incident scene and you need to see where the original stop was and you need to see where the final events took place," Slager's attorney, Andy Savage, said.
Savage suggested he may not have been completely unarmed the entire time. "Maybe he was found without any weapon on him at the time that he died," Savage said.
Slager's defense team believes his Taser was fired six times and that both the officer and Scott were each hit twice, suggesting there was more of a struggle than prosecutors have revealed.
In addition, the former officer's attorneys allege that Scott's DNA was on the Taser and that there was blood on Slager's clothing and abrasions on his knee, and that he had an injured finger.
Savage said the new information should cast doubt on prosecutor's version of events.
"Time will tell and I think that you will be able to judge his actions not by just what he said but what the independent evidence is," Savage said.
Savage's defense team believes the new evidence could lead to the North Charleston officer's pre-trial release from jail, and Savage said he may use the evidence during trial to seek a lesser charge.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/michael-slager-attorneys-offer-new-evidence-walter-scott-shooting
9/8/2015 10:13 PM (edited)