Crime & Justice
Man who claimed stand your ground defense in killing of White teen girl convicted of manslaughter
A biracial man who says he was fending off a racist attack on a Georgia highway when he fired a gun into a pickup truck was convicted Wednesday of involuntary manslaughter for fatally shooting a 17-year-old girl in the truck’s back seat.
Marc Wilson has been fighting for his freedom for several years under Georgia’s Stand Your Ground law.
Georgia man Marc Wilson
The 23-year-old Georgia man is accused of shooting and killing 17-year-old Haley Hutcheson after he fired at a truck full of teens in Statesboro, Georgia, in June 2020.
Wilson’s defense claims he shot at the truck in self defense after the teens yelled racial slurs and tried to run him and his white girlfriend off the road. One of his bullets struck and killed Hutcheson, who was sitting in the back seat of the pickup.
After one day of deliberations, a grand jury determined Wilson was not justified in firing the shots in self-defense.
Wilson was convicted of involuntary manslaughter. He was found not guilty on the more serious murder and aggravated assault charges.
Stand Your Ground
The case had been closely watched by experts and activists to see whether a Black man could successfully use the stand your ground defense when using deadly force. Similar self-defense argument led to successful acquittal for George Zimmerman, who killed Trayvon Martin.
Wilson’s lawyers maintain that if Wilson were white, the state’s response might have been starkly different.
“We believe that if Marc Wilson was a white gentlemen that night, accosted by a truckload of angry, belligerent, possibly drunk Black men, and he used a legally possessed firearm to defend himself and his passenger, that he would have been given a medal and not given a prosecution,” Wilson’s attorney Francys Johnson previously told reporters.
No prior criminal record
Despite having no criminal record prior to the shooting, Wilson spent a year and a half in jail awaiting trial after the original judge overseeing the case, Michael Muldrew, denied him bail for posing a “significant threat to the persons in the community” based on the charges against him. Muldrew was recused in February after he met with two of the prosecuting attorneys in private. Only after the new judge, Judge Ronnie Thompson, replaced Muldrew was Wilson granted release on $100,000 bail.
Regardless of Wilson’s lack of criminal history, prosecutors contended Wilson acted criminally the night of the incident because nothing the teens did that night warranted his use of deadly force.
“As we proceed through that evidence… one thing is going to ring true through this whole trial,” Chief Assistant District Attorney Barclay Black said in court last week, according to the Statesboro Herald. “That is no matter what gets thrown around this courtroom, no matter what fingers get pointed at anybody, Haley Hutcheson didn’t do a doggone thing to anybody, except get a bullet in the back of her head.”
Statistics
From 2005 to 2010, the first five years after stand your ground laws were introduced, only 11 percent of cases involving a Black shooter using stand your ground and a white victim were deemed justified, according to a 2020 study by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, compared to 45 percent of cases involving a Black victim and a white shooter.
Stand Your Ground cases
One of the most infamous cases of stand your ground being used successfully was in 2013, when George Zimmerman, who shot and killed Trayvon Martin, a Black 17-year-old who was walking home through Zimmerman’s neighborhood in Sanford, Florida, was acquitted. Zimmerman claimed he felt threatened by Martin, despite initiating the interaction by following him through the neighborhood even though he was told not to by dispatchers.
But a year prior, in May 2012, 31-year-old Black woman Marissa Alexander was prosecuted for aggravated assault with a lethal weapon. She too, used the stand your ground defense, claiming that she fired a warning shot after her husband attacked her and threatened to kill her on August 1, 2010, in Jacksonville, Florida.
But Alexander’s stand your ground defense was denied. She was convicted and received a mandatory minimum sentence of 20 years in prison.
In 2013, Ms. Alexander’s conviction was overturned on appeal and she was released after spending three years in jail.
Marc Wilson’s of Georgia Sentence
Wilson now faces up to 10 years behind bars for the involuntary manslaughter conviction.
He is scheduled for sentencing on Sept. 20.
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Crime & Justice
Ballot boxes in multiple states set on fire
Local authorities said hundreds of ballots were affected.
An investigation is underway after at least two ballot boxes were set on fire Monday morning in Oregon and Washington state.
Local authorities said hundreds of ballots were affected.
Ballot boxes on set on fire
Police responded to a call about a fire in Portland about 3:30 a.m. Monday, the Portland Police Bureau said in a statement. An “incendiary device” was placed inside the box and security personnel extinguished the fire, officials said.
A second ballot box minutes away from the first was set on fire early Monday morning at a bus station in nearby Vancouver, Washington, according to the Vancouver Police Department. When officers arrived, they found a “suspicious device” next to the box, which was smoking and on fire, police said.
The box in Vancouver is in Washington’s 3rd Congressional District, where one of the most competitive races in the country is taking place.
Other locations
Other fires affecting ballots have been recently reported across the country.
Last week, a mailbox outside a Phoenix post office was set on fire, damaging an unknown number of ballots. A 35-year-old man was charged with arson in that incident. The Phoenix Police Department said he told them it was not politically motivated.
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Unheard Voices Magazine is a news reporting platform covered under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.
Crime & Justice
GoFundMe started after pastor’s near-death experience
Glenn Germany was giving a sermon at a Pennsylvania church in May when a man tried to shoot him.
Glenn Germany was giving a sermon at a Pennsylvania church in May when a man tried to shoot him.
The gun jammed and a congregation member and the pastor were able to disarm the suspected shooter. Because of that terrifying incident, Pastor Glenn Germany has started a GoFundMe to make improvements to church security.
Pastor Glenn Germany near-death experience
“After this experience, just about everything changed about mine and my family’s life overnight. I went from already being a busy man with 3 jobs to suddenly having even more on my plate – interviews, investigations, conferences, community repair, increased security measures – but nothing was removed from my plate,” the GoFundMe reads.
Seeking help
Germany is the pastor of Jesus Dwelling Place, a small church in East Pittsburgh located in a low income community. The congregation consists of about 70 people, around 15 children, 10 teenagers and 45 adults.
At the church, Germany wears many hats, from cutting grass, to plumbing, to preaching, to bookkeeping to engineering, even their live-streaming is done from his phone.
In addition to religious services, the church provides its primarily low and fixed-income congregants with housing advice, domestic violence and mental health awareness programs, and seminars on everything from improving health to credit scores.
To keep the church afloat, Germany and his family give more than $1,000 out of pocket every month. And now he is seeking support to keep the church safe.
“Since May 5th 2024, when that young man came into our church, from that day I had to put on a couple more hats. Prior to that day we did make my brother Pastor Gary Germany the Senior Pastor in order to take some things off my plate. But because of that incident my life has now taken on many new challenges in which I now seek support.”
To donate to the church, visit the GoFundMe.
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Crime & Justice
New Jersey detective shot and killed after suspects kicked in front door of her home
Monica Mosley, a revered detective in South New Jersey, was shot and killed during a home invasion at her residence, authorities said.
Monica Mosley, a revered detective in South New Jersey, was shot and killed during a home invasion at her residence, authorities said.
New Jersey detective Monica Mosley killed
Detective Sgt. Monica Mosley, with the Cumberland County Prosecutor’s Office, was fatally shot at her home in Bridgeton on Tuesday night, according to police.
The incident
Bridgeton Police responded to the home around 10:30 p.m. for a report of “several subjects kicking in a front door at a residence,” the Bridgeton Police Department said in a press release.
Mosley, 51, died at the scene, police said.
An individual who had been treated for a gunshot wound at a nearby hospital was detained for questioning in connection with the incident, police said. No additional information on the individual was released.
Law enforcement career
Mosley began her career in 2006 at the Cumberland County Prosecutor’s Office as a paralegal specialist. She then became a county detective in 2009, “where she served our community with honor, dignity and respect before her untimely passing,” Cumberland County Prosecutor Jennifer Webb-McRae said in a statement.
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy expressed he was “outraged and heartbroken by the murder” of Mosley.
“As a detective with the Cumberland County Prosecutor’s Office, Sgt. Mosley served her community with distinction, working every day to ensure the safety and well-being of the people of Cumberland County,” he said in a statement. “This act of violence impacts our entire law enforcement community and all of New Jersey.”
No arrests have been made or charges filed in the case, police said.
Multiple agencies are investigating the deadly shooting, including the State Police Major Crime Bureau, the Cape May County Prosecutor’s Office and the Bridgeton Police Department Criminal Investigation Bureau.
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Unheard Voices Magazine is a news reporting platform covered under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.
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