He was granted a new trial in 2005 Columbus killing. Here’s why it won’t happen.

The day he was to be tried a second time for murder in his girlfriend’s 2005 fatal shooting, Antonio Jerome Magee chose instead to plead guilty to voluntary manslaughter.

The plea Monday afternoon followed a morning Muscogee Superior Court session in which prosecutor Mark Anthony had asked Judge William Rumer to postpone Magee’s new trial in the Nov. 16, 2005, homicide of girlfriend Mary Rodgers.

After Anthony said authorities had not been able to find all the witnesses needed to start the trial, Rumer agreed to postpone it until Oct. 21.

But afterward Anthony and defense attorney Jennifer Curry resumed plea negotiations, and soon came to an agreement: Magee would plead guilty to voluntary manslaughter for a sentence of 20 years in prison with 17 to serve.

Convicted of murder and reckless conduct during his first trial in 2008, Magee had been serving a life sentence with possibility of parole. Typically an inmate with that sentence is eligible for parole in 30 years, as measured from the date of his arrest.

Magee was arrested in November 2005, so he would have been eligible for parole by 2035. Under his new sentence, he will get credit for the 14 years he already has served in jail or prison, and he will be eligible for parole almost immediately, Curry said.

She said her client understood that he was convicted in 2008 on evidence that was circumstantial — no one could testify to having witnessed the shooting — and he knew he risked the same verdict if he went to trial again.

Magee was granted a new trial because attorneys handling his post-conviction appeals discovered the transcript from his 2008 trial was irreparably flawed, leaving no record on which the courts could rely in weighing the evidence.

Rumer’s Jan. 13, 2017, ruling granting Magee a new trial said the 2008 court reporter had no state certification, faked doing her job, and filed a incomplete transcript, so Magee was denied due process under the law.

The court reporter was Sharon Dilleshaw, who had failed to renew her certification with the Georgia Board of Court Reporting in January 2008 and was suspended the following April 1, just weeks before Magee’s three-day trial began April 22.

Because Dilleshaw never resolved her 2008 suspension, her certification was revoked in January 2009.

The judge in Magee’s first trial was Robert Johnston III, who was responsible for ensuring Dilleshaw was certified and doing her job. Johnston resigned March 15, 2010, and died March 12, 2011.

The flawed transcript was discovered during Magee’s appeals in 2013. During court hearings in 2015, Rumer worked with prosecutors and defense attorneys to try to correct the record — reviewing backup audiotapes and having a certified court reporter sort through the available transcription — but eventually determined the deficiencies were beyond repair.

The evidence in 2008 showed Rodgers’ father Herbert Rodgers found his daughter slain at Columbus’ E.J. Knight Apartments on Baker Plaza Drive, where she lay in a pool of blood on the floor, shot three times, a pistol nearby. The infant daughter she shared with Magee was found abandoned but unharmed on a bed in an adjacent room.

Rodgers, Magee and their baby had come to Columbus from the Mississippi Gulf Coast to escape Hurricane Katrina. Rodgers’ father came with them, choosing to evacuate to Columbus because he had another daughter who was a soldier stationed at Fort Benning.

Witnesses said Rodgers, 24, later decided to break up with Magee.

Magee was 26 in 2005. Today he is 40 years old, and so far remains in jail.

In sentencing Magee on Monday, Rumer ordered him to have no contact with Rodgers’ family, except for correspondence that was initiated by his daughter. She was 3 months old in 2005, and now is 14.

Because the daughter chose to contact Magee, their communications may continue, Rumer said.

After Magee’s guilty plea, Anthony said he felt the resolution was appropriate, under the circumstances.

“This was going to be a case that was problematic, in terms of retrying,” he said. “We’re dealing with events that occurred 14 years ago, which can always be an issue in terms of the recollection of witnesses and so forth.”

Rodgers’ father, one of the more crucial witnesses, has passed away, and the prosecution now has no valid record of his 2008 testimony because of the flawed transcript, Anthony said.

“So, in light of the problems we would have had in bringing the case to trial again, the state determined that agreeing to this plea was the best course of action,” he said.