Outside Judge Is Named for Police Shooting Case

Officer Michael T. Slager

NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. — In a departure from the way most cases are handled, the chief justice of the Supreme Court of South Carolina on Tuesday appointed a judge from outside North Charleston to oversee the case against the former police officer, Michael T. Slager, who has been charged with murder in the shooting of Walter L. Scott, an unarmed man who fled after being pulled over for a traffic stop on April 4.

Chief Justice Jean Hoefer Toal ordered Judge Clifton B. Newman of South Carolina Circuit Court on Tuesday to preside over all legal matters in the case and to retain jurisdiction “regardless of where he may be assigned to hold court.” Judge Newman, a former prosecutor based in Kingstree, about 75 miles north of Charleston, is one of only five African-American Circuit Court judges in the state.

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