Recognized as a legal expert with over 25 years of experience defending individuals charged in serious criminal cases, Attorney Page Pate frequently speaks with the media about high profile cases that appear in the news. In this case, 11 Alive News interviewed Page regarding the overturn of the felony murder conviction of Tex McIver in Atlanta, Georgia.
Mr. McIver was convicted in the 2016 shooting death of his wife in Fulton County, Georgia. The Supreme Court of Georgia has overturned Mr. McIver’s conviction because the jury was not given the option of convicting Mr. McIver of manslaughter, which is a lesser charge than the felony murder charge that they were originally presented with and did convict him of. This was despite the fact that Mr. McIver’s attorneys requested that the judge instruct the jury that they could consider the lesser charge of manslaughter. Page explained to 11 Alive that “After the trial before the case went to the jury they requested a specific jury instruction be given by the judge saying that if you believe Tex McIver may have been holding his firearm in a lawful manner but in a careless way, you can find him guilty of the lesser crime of involuntary manslaughter and not murder. That carries a much, much less significant sentence.”
Mr. McIver’s conviction for felony murder resulted in a life sentence in prison. Had he been convicted of misdemeanor involuntary manslaughter, he could have received a sentence of one year or less in prison. At this point, it is unclear if the Fulton County District Attorney plans to re-try Mr. McIver for the shooting death of his wife. Page says that given Mr. McIver’s age “and the fact that he is serving a sentence for another charge in the indictment they might decide not to do that. It was a lengthy trial, the jury was obviously having difficulty with this case. It took them days to reach a decision, they had a lot of notes and a lot of questions,” he said. “So this is one of those cases where I could see the DA saying, ‘Look it is just not worth the time and effort to bring this old man back to trial,’ when he is already convicted of a lesser offense.”
