Lone black juror talks verdict upset in Walter Scott shooting
Juror Dorsey Montgomery said he thought officer Michael Slager should be convicted of involuntary manslaughter in the fatal shooting of Walter Scott.
The leader of the jury that couldn’t reach a verdict in the trial of Michael Slager, the South Carolina police officer who shot Walter Scott, is now speaking out about the jury upset.
Jury foreman Dorsey Montgomery, the only black man on the jury, said that he thought Slager should be convicted of involuntary manslaughter after he reviewed the evidence.
“Initially, it was going to be murder,” he said on NBC’s “Today” Thursday. “But after we looked at the evidence, and read the laws and looked at the things that were presented to us by the judge, he had to come to find out that he didn’t do anything malicious.”
The jurors deliberated for 22 hours before a mistrial was declined. A juror said on Friday that he couldn’t “in good conscience” convict Slager, but Montgomery admitted that there were other jurors who were undecided when the mistrial was called.
“I believe that we could have deliberated just a little bit more to see if we could sway that particular juror and get those who were undecided to make a decision,” Montgomery said.
