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this is what can happen

A 29-year-old former Goodwill store worker was sentenced in a Travis County court Tuesday to 10 years of probation for a Sixth Street attack last year on Nikolas Evans, 21, who later died of his injuries.

Earlier in the day, Eric Skeeter had pleaded guilty to recklessly causing Evans' death by punching him.

The sentence came under a plea bargain with prosecutors that was approved by state District Judge Charlie Baird.

Skeeter has been in jail since his arrest in July, more than three months after the attack.

Because of his criminal record, Skeeter could have faced up to life in prison. Prosecutors said they offered the probation sentence in exchange for the guilty plea.

Police have said that Evans was leaving a bar with a friend about 2 a.m. March 27 when they got into an argument with several men at East Sixth and Neches streets.

After that argument, police have said, another group approached Evans and his friend, and one of the men in that group hit both of them. Evans hit his head on the ground after he was punched, according to investigators. He died nine days later.

Prosecutor Buddy Meyer said prosecutors offered the plea agreement because they feared they would not be able to prove Skeeter's guilt at trial.

Police and Evans' mother last summer made public pleas for witnesses through the news media, but Meyer said many of the witnesses to Evans being punched could not be found, including a man and two women who were with Skeeter.

Police had found one witness who saw Skeeter standing over Evans during the altercation but nobody who could identify Skeeter as the one who threw the punch, Meyer said.

"We felt that it was important to hold (Skeeter) accountable for the death," by securing his conviction with the guilty plea, Meyer said.

Defense attorney Patrick McNelis said probation was an appropriate punishment.

"Of course, Eric took responsibility for it," he said. "But we are talking about a one-punch case on Sixth Street. It's not like some savage murder."

The case received national attention when Evans' mother successfully petitioned a Travis County court for permission to collect her son's sperm in the days after his death.

Marissa Evans said she wanted to have a grandchild through a surrogate mother, which she has not yet done.

Marissa Evans has described her son as a good kid, an aspiring filmmaker with a quick wit who had been accepted into film school at UCLA.

McNelis described Skeeter as a "really nice guy" who hopes to get his life back on track.

He said Skeeter grew up in Virginia and came to Texas after he joined the Army and was stationed at Fort Hood.

McNelis said that after a relationship there went bad, Skeeter broke into his ex-girlfriend's house and stole some CDs. He was convicted of burglary and sentenced to probation in about 2001, McNelis said.

"He was essentially kicked out of the military, and his life started spiraling," McNelis said.

Skeeter returned to Virginia to live with his parents, and he was arrested there for driving while intoxicated, McNelis said.

Because of that arrest, Skeeter was brought back to Texas, where his probation on the burglary charge was revoked and he was sentenced to five years in prison. He served 2½ years before being paroled in August 2006.

He was living in Austin and working at Goodwill when he ran into Evans on Sixth Street after the bars closed last summer, McNelis said.

Skeeter remains in jail while a Texas parole officer evaluates whether he should be returned to prison or continue on parole, McNelis said.