An Atlanta lawyer faces charges of involuntary manslaughter and reckless conduct in the shooting death of his wife, police said.
Claud Lee McIver, 73, turned himself in at the Fulton County Jail on Wednesday night and will make his first court appearance Thursday.
Nearly three months ago, his wife, Diane McIver, was sitting inside their Ford Expedition SUV when she was shot, according to a police incident report. The September 25 report contained no further details on how the shooting happened, except that it was under investigation and had taken place near Piedmont Park in Atlanta.
McIver, also known as “Tex,” is a prominent Atlanta lawyer. As a partner at the Fisher Phillips firm’s Atlanta office, he specializes in employment law and defended employers in more than 200 union organizing campaigns, according to his biography.
CNN reached out to his defense attorney on Wednesday for comment.
The shooting was an accident, McIver told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in October.
His attorney, Stephen Maples, told the newspaper the couple had pulled off the highway to avoid traffic while heading to their Atlanta home from one of their other properties.
They told the Atlanta paper that McIver had been sleeping in the back seat and saw people milling around the street. He asked his wife in the front seat to get his gun from the center console of their SUV and fell back asleep with the gun on his lap.
“I was suddenly awoken,” he told the Journal-Constitution. “I lurched and the gun fired.”
His wife died hours later at Emory University Hospital from the gunshot wound.
The couple had been married 16 years. Her obituary described their time together as “happy years” spent on golf courses and their cattle ranch. Diane McIver, 63, worked in business for 43 years.