When William Marcus “Marc” Wilson was found guilty last month of felony involuntary manslaughter for the fatal shooting of a teenager in 2020, it left many of his supporters perplexed. After all, at no point during the two-year lead-up to the young Black man’s criminal trial in Statesboro, Georgia, did Wilson face involuntary manslaughter.
But the crafty invocation of a Georgia judicial rule, combined with a judge’s refusal to provide the jury with more-nuanced options during deliberation, has meant that Wilson, 23, now faces the possibility of serious jail time. All for a charge, his defense attorneys argue, he shouldn’t be facing in the first place. He is scheduled to be sentenced in court Sept. 20.
His fate rests in the hands of a judge, whose discretion could mean the difference between his immediate release from prison and up to a decade behind bars.
In the June 2020 incident for which he’s been charged, Wilson said he was harassed, called racial epithets, and nearly run off the road by three male teens. Fearing for his life and that of his then-girlfriend, Wilson fired his legally-owned handgun at the encroaching pickup truck. But one of the three shots he fired struck and killed 17-year-old Haley Hutcheson, a girl he didn’t know was also sitting in the vehicle. He was charged with felony murder and aggravated assault just a few days after the shooting.
“We believe that this is an issue of error,” Francys Johnson, Wilson’s lead attorney, told VICE News about Wilson’s charge of felony involuntary manslaughter. “But that error is reversible. And we will take that out at the appropriate time, again, through a higher court.”
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During the trial last month, Georgia state prosecutors asked Judge Ronnie Thompson to consider introducing lesser charges.
In Georgia, lesser additional charges can be requested well into the start of a trial, giving a jury more options to consider during deliberation. While this rule is typically used by defense attorneys hoping to get a reprieve for a client facing harsh penalties, Wilson’s legal team and supporters actually believe the state used the rule to secure a conviction when it looked likely that Wilson would be exonerated.
“Prosecutors had the full discretion as to what to charge Marc Wilson with and were in the driver’s seat in terms of negotiating a possible resolution to this case,” Johnson said. “They never wanted to negotiate for anything less than murder.”
Had prosecutors not asked for lesser charges, Wilson would be free. The jury concluded he was not guilty of murder or aggravated assault, siding with his version of events that he never intended to harm anyone that night. However, the jury found themselves having to consider the entirely new charge, one they ultimately decided Wilson should be held responsible for.
But Wilson’s supporters also say that the jury wasn’t given a full spectrum of possible lesser included charges to consider during deliberation.
There are two two kinds of involuntary manslaughter charges in Georgia: felony involuntary manslaughter and misdemeanor involuntary manslaughter. Felony involuntary manslaughter, punishable by up to 10 years, means an individual committed an unjustifiable reckless act that resulted in the unintentional death of someone. Misdemeanor involuntary manslaughter, punishable up to a year in prison, means the individual committed a lawful act in an unlawful manner which resulted in the unintentional death of a person.
When the jury was read the charges, Thompson only read jurors the felony version of the charge. Wilson’s legal team believes this was done in error, and that the verdict form could have been improved significantly before being read to the jury.
Tiffany Roberts, an attorney and policy director for the Southern Center for Human Rights, said that by not reading the jurors the grounds of misdemeanor involuntary manslaughter, jurors had fewer options to convict on charges more directly related to Wilson’s alleged crimes.
“In finding Marc not guilty of felony aggravated assault and murder, they were finding that he was justified in the force that he used,” Roberts told VICE News. “So if the jury already decided that the force was justified in two other felony charges by turning in a not guilty verdict, how then is there an unlawful act that justifies the jury only being read charges on felony involuntary manslaughter?”
“It seems more plausible that he lawfully defended himself, and that a jury could find that he defended himself in a way that was executed in an unlawful manner,” Roberts continued.
Considering he’d likely be credited for the more than year he spent awaiting trial in jail, a guilty verdict on misdemeanor manslaughter still would have meant Wilson’s immediate release last month. Instead, that option was never presented to jurors.
Before this, Wilson had spent a year and a half in jail awaiting trial because Judge Michael Muldrew, who was previously assigned to the case, deemed him a danger to the community, despite having no criminal record.
That same judge had Johnson, Wilson’s attorney, arrested last September. Muldrew had accused the attorney of being in contempt of court for saying that the judge had mishandled of evidence that was supposed to contain the school records of the teens in the pickup truck, but instead had private communications between Wilson and his family during his stay in jail.
The defense was vindicated in both situations by an appellate court in February, after the court reversed Muldrew’s decision and removed him from the case for the appearance of bias. Shortly afterward, Wilson was also released on bond.
Johnson told VICE News he and his colleagues are ready to turn to an appellate court once Wilson is sentenced.
“The political pressure has been on from day one to lynch Marc Wilson for the death of Haley Hutcheson,” Johnson said. “We’re going to continue to fight for this young man at each stage, but the sentencing stage is the most important.”
There is also still a chance that Wilson will be granted his release Sept. 20. A provision of Georgia law allows any judge to impose a misdemeanor sentence for a felony with a maximum term of 10 years or less.
Wilson’s supporters are hopeful Thompson will rule in favor of a less punitive sentence.
“The best case scenario is the judge will sentence this case as a misdemeanor case, give Marc credit for time served and that he can move on with his life,” she said.
