A white ex-police chief pleaded guilty Tuesday to misconduct in office in the 2011 shooting death of an unarmed black man and was sentenced to a year of home detention.
Prosecutors agreed to drop the murder charge against 38-year-old Richard Combs, the former police chief of the small town of Eutawville, in exchange for his guilty plea. Combs stood trial twice on the murder charge, but both cases ended with hung juries. He would have faced 30 years to life if convicted of murder.
