MUSCLE SHOALS – Former Muscle Shoals Police Officer Greg Scoggins has been convicted on one of three misdemeanor counts for hunting on TVA land near 2nd Street in Muscle Shoals. He was convicted of hunting without permission on private land, but found not guilty of reckless endangerment and hunting with the aid of a motor vehicle, the Police Department squad car.
The incident occurred on December 23 2012, on the The TVA Reservation between Woodward Avenue and Wilson Dam Road.
The former Muscle Shoals police officer’s trial was heard by County Judge Chad Coker. Scoggins with his two Attorneys, Billy Underwood and Johnnie Franks, said earlier that they plan to take this case to federal court; saying that the crime occurred on federal land, therefore it should be a federal case.
The first officer to take the stand against his former college was Sergeant Cedric Morris, who has been an officer for 21 years, identified photos of
Billy Underwood
the deer and testified that the carcass was in the back of a red Dodge truck belonging to a Mr. Kacy Lyles. Morris also identified a handwritten letter presented to him by Franklin County Assistant District Attorney Doug Evans, saying the letter was written by Scoggins confessing to killing the deer on the TVA reservation land. Evans tried the case because Colbert County D.A. Bryce Graham recused himself from the case.
Muscle Shoals Police Chief Robert Evans also took the stand against Scoggins. Attorney Underwood, as he was finishing up his cross examination, asked what some people in the courtroom thought a bit unusual, “What about the Turtles?”
There is no word yet from Underwood whether they will appeal the single misdemeanor conviction.
Judge Coker fined Scoggins $1000 plus court costs.
