Craig Walker is adamant that he is innocent in the battery charge in the spanking of his niece, despite recently pleading guilty in the case.
Walker said he just didn't want to put his family and mother through any more stress.
"I didn't want my momma going through this trial," he said. "I didn't want to testify about any issues with her grand daughter and my own niece."
Walker's plea was to simple misdemeanor battery in the Sumter County courthouse after being initially charged with first-degree cruelty to children in the September 2006 incident when he was accused of striking his then 15-year-old niece with a switch after she wouldn't clean her room properly.
The plea deal allowed the charge to be dropped to misdemeanor battery and a fine.
The spanking came at the request of Craig's twin sister, the child's mother,
in her Hosanna Circle residence.
Americus police were called to the home by the child and allegedly observed
swell marks on her body but there was no broken skin that came as a result
of the beating. Walker said that one White officer on the scene had decided
to terminate the investigation after the mother said she gave him her
permission to spank the child. But a second officer, Alfonso Ross, a Black
man, called the complaint in to Major Richard McCorkle, his superior. They
decided that Walker had committed child cruelty in the first degree. He was
arrested and later former DA Cecilia Cooper impaneled a grand jury that
indicted Craig Walker.
In the final document that disposed of the case the original charges remain
as "cruelty to children (O.C.G.A.16-5-70) instead of simple misdemeanor
battery.
"They really placed my family in an uncomfortable position," Walker said.
However, the child's mother had tried to persuade officials not to file
charges and she and the child had refused to testify against Walker. It's
not clear how much of their refusal to testify played a role in the charges
being down-graded. But Walker said officials had a weak case.
"They (police) knew I did nothing wrong," Walker said.
Walker, former vice-president with the local National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), attributed the insistence by police
and the District Attorney's Office to file the excessive charges and indict
to his valiant efforts to speak truth to power and even helped remove former
police Chief Michael Yates." He fought against the blatant discrimination of
Blacks in law enforcement, the school system, Sumter Regional Hospital and
wherever injustice raised its ugly head said," Dr John Marshall, past
president of the local NAACP. We are very pleased with the outcome of the
case."