Michael Shavers shot Ashley Harris, 26, and another man as they sat in a car in a Waffle House parking lot in February 2015.A Chattanooga mother’s quest to get justice for her daughter ended Friday with a plea agreement that puts her would-be killer on 10 years of supervised probation.
“I don’t feel like justice was served,” Donna Harris said after Michael Shavers’ hearing in Hamilton County Criminal Court. “I mean, he planned this out, he plotted to do it, he threatened to do it, all the evidence was there, and he was originally charged with first-degree attempted murder. The police had to chase him down, get him out of a cave. Then [the prosecutors] reduce it to second offense so he can get probation? That isn’t fair.”
Harris was referring to the night Michael Shavers shot her daughter, Ashley Harris, 26, and another man as they sat in a car in a Waffle House parking lot in February 2015. After Ashley Harris ended their roughly year-long relationship a few weeks before, Shavers began sending threatening text and Facebook messages and a few pictures of guns and bullets.
Harris shared those messages with Criminal Court Judge Tom Greenholtz in April after learning that prosecutors wanted to give Shavers 10 years on probation in the case because he testified in a different murder case. Shavers faced 15 to 25 years in prison for each count of the Class A felony in this case. Donna Harris pleaded for the judge to reject the agreement, saying her daughter didn’t feel safe with Shavers out of jail.
Greenholtz didn’t do that, but he delayed the agreement by requesting more information from state probation officers about Shavers’ likelihood to commit another crime. He told everyone to return to court Friday. But while he sympathized with Harris, Greenholtz said Friday he couldn’t overturn the agreement because his hands were tied.