RALEIGH, N.C. — A North Carolina appeals court docket has mentioned for a second time {that a} girl convicted of killing her lover ought to obtain a brand new trial, declaring that textual content messages and images from her cellphone wrongly offered to the jury doubtless prevented her acquittal on self-defense grounds.
A divided three-judge panel of the intermediate-level Court of Appeals dominated Tuesday that the decide within the 2019 trial of Wendy Dawn Lamb Hicks erred by permitting that proof from native prosecutors and with out directions to jurors limiting the way it must be thought-about. The jury convicted Hicks of second-degree homicide within the 2017 dying of Caleb Adams, who was shot twice within the again in Hicks’ bed room doorway in her Randolph County residence. Hicks was sentenced to fifteen to 19 years in jail.
The texts and images, which have been printed out for jurors, unfairly prejudiced Hicks by emphasizing proof resembling her intercourse life, reasonably than whether or not she was justified in firing at Adams, Court of Appeals Judge April Wood wrote whereas additionally vacating her conviction.
“We conclude there was substantial and persuasive proof offered at trial demonstrating Defendant acted in self-defense,” Wood mentioned within the majority opinion. “The jurors most likely would have acquitted Defendant if the displays didn’t trigger them to achieve their resolution based mostly on ardour, particularly, a private revulsion towards Defendant.”
In 2022, Wood wrote the unanimous opinion for one more three-judge appeals panel that directed Hicks obtain a brand new trial. Wood wrote that Superior Court Judge Bradford Long had erred by giving unsupported jury directions in regards to the authorized limits for lethal power inside a house.
The state’s Supreme Court reversed that call and upheld the conviction in September 2023. The main opinion from the court docket mentioned that based mostly on proof, it was correct for the decide to instruct that Hicks couldn’t cite self-defense and the safety of 1’s residence to justify lethal power if the jury may infer that she was performing because the aggressor. But justices advised the Court of Appeals it nonetheless wanted to determine whether or not Long dedicated a severe error by admitting the information and images into proof.
Writing Tuesday, Wood mentioned that testimony by Hicks and others already demonstrated “quite a few sordid particulars” about her life, together with simultaneous affairs and persevering with one with Adams after studying he was married, in line with Wood’s written opinion. Adams and Hicks’ relationship additionally was marked by drug use.
Admitting the textual content message exchanges, which included references to intercourse acts and violence, most likely shifted the main target of the case “as to if she was somebody of whom the jurors ought to approve personally,” Wood wrote. And enlarged, close-up photographs of Hicks participating in sexual exercise with Adams doubtless “solely served the aim of stunning and disgusting the jury.”
Court of Appeals Judge Julee Flood joined in Wood’s opinion on Tuesday. Court of Appeals Judge Hunter Murphy, who was additionally on the 2022 panel, now determined that the homicide conviction must be left intact. In a dissenting opinion, Murphy mentioned he could not conclude that the jury “nearly actually” would have reached a distinct verdict had the proof been excluded.
The state Supreme Court can select to listen to the case once more based mostly on Tuesday’s ruling.
It was amongst dozens issued on a particular submitting day and designed for some members of the 15-judge court docket who will not return to their seats in 2025. Murphy and Judge Carolyn Thompson each misplaced in 2024 elections. Some opinions additionally got here from Judge Jefferson Griffin, who stays in a good race for a state Supreme Court seat with Associate Justice Allison Riggs.
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