Sentencing tabled in Walker case
By Kat Russell, Reporter
The Paducah Sun
DATE
http://www.paducahsun.com/news/local/sentencing-tabled-in-walker-case/article_5772e624-5b0f-11e7-b9c1-10604b9f0f42.html
MURRAY — Nearly 18 years after her 19-year-old son, Michael Minger, was killed in a dorm fire at Murray State University, Gail Minger stood in Calloway Circuit Court Friday and pleaded with Judge James Jameson to sentence Jerry Walker to the full 10 years laid out in his diversion agreement.
Minger stood before the court and recounted the moment her husband told her "Michael is dead."
"Those words could not be comprehended at the time," she said. "I began to wail like a wounded animal, not believing or understanding what had just happened. Our life as we knew it stopped, a promising life extinguished."
Calling Walker's case "a complicated situation," Jameson reserved ruling on Walker's sentence, taking time to mull the arguments and his options. The judge has 90 days to make his decision.
Walker, 40, a former Paducah Middle School assistant principal, appeared in court for sentencing in a case from 2012, when he pleaded guilty to six counts of tampering with physical evidence.
The charges stem from six letters Walker wrote in 1998 when he was a student at Murray State and suspected in the fire that killed Michael Minger and injured several others. The letters, according to Commonwealth Attorney Mark Blankenship, accused other people of starting the blaze and derailed law enforcement's investigation.
Walker received a 10-year diverted sentence as part of his plea agreement, which stipulated the charges would be dropped after five years as long as Walker adhered to certain conditions and committed no other offenses.
That agreement was violated on April 1 when Walker was convicted in McCracken County and sentenced to three years in prison.
"For nearly 18 years, so many have been affected and suffered from this violent crime while Jerry Walker has carried on his life," Minger said in court Friday.
"Because of Jerry Walker's interjection of himself into this case, his purposeful intent to mislead and misdirect the attention of the investigators, he is guilty of all the charges he faces and the actions he has even repeated ... I ask that this court be as deliberate in your sentencing as Mr. Walker was deliberate in his actions that caused havoc on a murder-arson investigation."
Walker's attorney Richard Null argued for probation, stating the time Walker is serving in McCracken County was adequate punishment.
The defense also accused the commonwealth of maliciously prosecuting Walker, stating the prosecution doesn't really care about tampering charges and only used them as leverage to force Walker to admit to a crime he's already been acquitted of.
Blankenship pushed for the full 10-year sentence to run consecutively to his time in McCracken, stating because of Walker's actions, the commonwealth will never be able to successfully prosecute the MSU case.
The commonwealth attorney also argued Walker is likely to re-offend, as he did in McCracken County, and is in need of correctional treatment.
"He signed a contract that he would do right, and he didn't," Blankenship said. "And there needs to be a consequence for what he's done here."
Minger stood before the court and recounted the moment her husband told her "Michael is dead."
"Those words could not be comprehended at the time," she said. "I began to wail like a wounded animal, not believing or understanding what had just happened. Our life as we knew it stopped, a promising life extinguished."
Calling Walker's case "a complicated situation," Jameson reserved ruling on Walker's sentence, taking time to mull the arguments and his options. The judge has 90 days to make his decision.
Walker, 40, a former Paducah Middle School assistant principal, appeared in court for sentencing in a case from 2012, when he pleaded guilty to six counts of tampering with physical evidence.
The charges stem from six letters Walker wrote in 1998 when he was a student at Murray State and suspected in the fire that killed Michael Minger and injured several others. The letters, according to Commonwealth Attorney Mark Blankenship, accused other people of starting the blaze and derailed law enforcement's investigation.
Walker received a 10-year diverted sentence as part of his plea agreement, which stipulated the charges would be dropped after five years as long as Walker adhered to certain conditions and committed no other offenses.
That agreement was violated on April 1 when Walker was convicted in McCracken County and sentenced to three years in prison.
"For nearly 18 years, so many have been affected and suffered from this violent crime while Jerry Walker has carried on his life," Minger said in court Friday.
"Because of Jerry Walker's interjection of himself into this case, his purposeful intent to mislead and misdirect the attention of the investigators, he is guilty of all the charges he faces and the actions he has even repeated ... I ask that this court be as deliberate in your sentencing as Mr. Walker was deliberate in his actions that caused havoc on a murder-arson investigation."
Walker's attorney Richard Null argued for probation, stating the time Walker is serving in McCracken County was adequate punishment.
The defense also accused the commonwealth of maliciously prosecuting Walker, stating the prosecution doesn't really care about tampering charges and only used them as leverage to force Walker to admit to a crime he's already been acquitted of.
Blankenship pushed for the full 10-year sentence to run consecutively to his time in McCracken, stating because of Walker's actions, the commonwealth will never be able to successfully prosecute the MSU case.
The commonwealth attorney also argued Walker is likely to re-offend, as he did in McCracken County, and is in need of correctional treatment.
"He signed a contract that he would do right, and he didn't," Blankenship said. "And there needs to be a consequence for what he's done here."
