Judge Ronald K. “Ronnie” Thompson, recently assigned to handle the case, has slated a new Bulloch County Superior Court hearing for March 2-4 on William Marcus “Marc” Wilson’s motion for immunity from prosecution for killing Haley Hutcheson, 17, in 2020 with a shot Wilson fired. 

Wilson, now 23, from Sharpsburg but with Statesboro connections, faces one charge of felony murder and five charges of aggravated assault and a charge of possessing a firearm while committing a felony.

Hutcheson, a Claxton High School student, was riding in a Chevy Silverado pickup on Veterans’ Memorial Parkway – Statesboro’s bypass – with four other teenagers from Claxton around 1 a.m.  Sunday, June 14, 2020, when Wilson fired multiple shots from a handgun in the direction of the truck. Even Wilson’s defense attorneys, in court filings, have stated that he fired the shots, but they note that he was in legal possession of the gun – identified in the indictment as a Taurus 9mm handgun – and assert that the first shots he fired were "warning shots." According to previous testimony from police, the shot that killed Hutcheson struck her in the back of her head as she sat between two other teens in the back seat, and a bullet hole was found in the back glass of the truck. 

Immunity motion 

On Aug. 5, 2021, two of Johnson’s defense attorneys, lead attorney Francys Johnson and his law partner Mawuli Davis, filed a motion to have Wilson granted immunity from prosecution on the basis of a “stand his or her ground” claim. The attorneys assert that he acted in defense of himself and another person, his then-girlfriend Emma Rigdon, who was riding with him in his Ford Focus sedan as he drove along the bypass that night, returning from Taco Bell. 

In their August 2021 brief in support of the motion for immunity, Wilson’s attorneys asserted that teenagers in the pickup truck “drank significant amounts of alcohol,” initially mistook Rigdon for another young woman they had encountered that evening and then subjected Wilson, who is biracial, and Rigdon, who is  white, to aggression that involved attempting to run them off the road, throwing  objects and shouting racist remarks, purportedly calling Wilson a “n… ” and stating, “Your lives don’t matter.” 

The attorneys asserted Wilson had fired “warning shots” and shouted “back off” before the truck again sped towards him and Rigdon, and when something hit the car, Wilson thought he had been shot at. Police in previous hearings reported finding beer cans along the bypass in the area where the incident was said to have occurred. 

The other teenagers in the truck took Hutcheson to nearby East Georgia Regional Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead a short time later. Wilson’s attorneys have stated that he did not know if any of his shots had actually hit the pickup when he drove on to a friend’s house. 

He then went to his parents’ home in Sharpsburg, but returned to Statesboro on June 17, 2020 and surrendered at the Bulloch County Sheriff’s Office to face charges in the arrest warrant filed by Statesboro police. Denied bond by Superior Court Judge Michael T. Muldrew, Wilson remains at the Bulloch County Jail. 

Previous attempt 

Muldrew presided in the case until the first attempted immunity hearing, which began Sept. 22, 2021. On the second morning of the hearing, courtroom controversy erupted over the handling of a notebook. In the weeks leading up the hearing, Wilson’s defense had subpoenaed the teenagers’ school records from the Evans County Board of Education, and prosecutors had filed a motion to quash this, citing the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act and objections of parents, including Hutcheson’s parents. 

The defense had given a copy of the school records, which they had received, to the prosecutors, who offered to supply it for a review by the judge in his chambers. But on the morning of Sept. 23, when Muldrew’s judicial assistant was asked to return a notebook thought to contain these records to the prosecutors, he gave it to the defense attorneys by mistake, according to court filings. In fact, that notebook did not contain school records, but emails between Wilson, in jail, and members of his family. 

When Johnson told Muldrew he wanted to give the notebook to the clerk of court to preserve the chain of custody, Muldrew ordered Johnson to give it to him instead. When Johnson refused, Muldrew had a deputy seize the notebook and escort Johnson from the courtroom.  

First judge recused 

While Johnson was held in custody in the Judicial Annex for several hours on a contempt of court allegation, other attorneys on Wilson’s defense team filed a motion to have Muldrew removed from the case. 

After hearing from both sides, Senior Judge Michael L. Karpf on Feb. 4 ordered Muldrew recused. Karpf stated in his written order that a series of actions and statements, taken together, created “the appearance of bias” but that he had not found actual bias on Muldrew’s part against Wilson or his attorneys. 

Thompson, sworn in Jan. 18 as the newly added fourth Superior Court judge of the Ogeechee Judicial Circuit, was then assigned to the case by the clerk of court’s random process, as the next judge on the list. 

He initially slated a status hearing with attorneys for this Friday but has since issued a rule nisi, or “show cause,” order slating the immunity hearing for 9 a.m. March 2, 3 and 4 at the Bulloch County Judicial Annex. Formally, the order instructs the state to “show” at this time why the motion for immunity should not be granted, or otherwise it could be. 

As with the first immunity hearing, this is not a jury proceeding, and the question would be decided by the judge.