Published: Mar. 4, 2022 at 11:45 AM CST|Updated: Mar. 5, 2022 at 1:45 PM CST
BULLOCH COUNTY, Ga. (WTOC) - A judge has made a decision in the immunity hearing for Marc Wilson in Statesboro. He’s accused of shooting a teenage girl riding in a truck beside him on the road back in 2020.
His attorneys were asking the judge to throw out the charges on claims of self-defense.
Judge Ronald Thompson denied immunity for Marc Wilson on Friday in the shooting death of Haley Hutcheson. However, he immediately granted a bond hearing to let defense attorneys ask again for bond. Bond was granted, with stipulations.
Judge Thompson set a trial date as well. Jury selection will begin April 18. Throughout the hearing, defense attorneys and prosecutors offered glaringly different interpretations of what happened that night and whether Wilson was justified in firing the shots that killed Haley Hutcheson.
Defense attorney Francys Johnson contends that the people with Hutcheson that night are more responsible for her death than Wilson. He says Wilson fired warning shots in response to the reckless driving of the truck beside him and the aggressive racial taunts that made Wilson fear for his safety and his passenger’s.
“The law in Georgia says there’s no duty to retreat, no duty to pull over on the side of the road, no duty to call police, no duty to pray to God, no duty to do anything but stand your ground and exercise a level of force to include deadly force,” Johnson said.
One of Wilson’s bullets struck Hutcheson through the trucks back window. He says that shows that the truck wasn’t chasing Wilson, but that Wilson kept driving beside them when he didn’t’ have to.
“All you’ve got to do is take your foot off the gas. I’m not talking about slamming on brakes and going the other way. Just take your foot off the gas and let them go and all of this is over,” Assistant District Attorney Barclay Black said.
Johnson urged the courts to take into account racial issues happening around the country during that time for the context of what Wilson could have feared would happen to him.
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