William Marcus “Marc” Wilson at a hearing on Jan. 25, 2022. | Source: Bulloch County Courtroom
The legal team for a Black man convicted this week of involuntary manslaughter in Georgia is using no uncertain terms to describe what they claim is a miscarriage of justice on numerous levels in a murder trial that centered on race.
William Marcus “Marc” Wilson was on Wednesday acquitted of the most serious charges more than two years after he killed a 17-year-old white girl in a purported self-defense shooting with a legally owned gun stemming from an encounter on a Statesboro road that was alleged to have been motivated by anti-Black racism.
An appeal has already been planned as lawyers turn their attention to Wilson’s pending sentencing hearing later this month.
In a press conference on Thursday, his lawyers and other advocates said the trial’s judge never instructed the jury — made up of 11 white people and one African American — to consider a misdemeanor manslaughter charge. That absence was indicative of what defense attorney Francys Johnson said he recognized from the outset of the case as being “a legal lynching.”
Johnson emphasized that Wilson was acquitted and found not guilty on every single charge he was facing, including one count of felony murder and one count of aggravated assault in the death of Haley Hutcheson.
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