The Akron Legal News

Man accused of murdering his wife wins appeal

ANNIE YAMSON
Special to the Legal News
Published: December 16, 2015

A panel of three judges in the 8th District Court of Appeals recently ruled that there was not enough evidence of prior calculation and design to support the aggravated murder conviction of Antonio Hicks.

The decision reversed the ruling of the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas, where Hicks was found guilty of aggravated murder, murder and felonious assault by a jury.

Hicks’ convictions were merged for sentencing and he was ordered to serve life in prison without parole on the aggravated murder.

Due to the appellate panel’s decision, however, his sentence was also vacated.

Hicks was indicted on Dec. 30, 2013 for the shooting death of his wife, Diana Fields-Edmonds.

Case summary states that the couple had plans to go out on the evening of Dec. 20, 2013 for a date night, but several witnesses testified that their relationship had been strained for quite some time.

According to court documents, Hicks had recently returned home after spending three weeks at his father’s house “enjoying female company.”

Allegedly this was not the first time that the couple had exhibited marital problems. A friend of Fields-Edmonds testified at trial that she saw Fields-Edmonds with a black eye in April 2013, which she attributed to Hicks.

On the evening of Dec. 20, Fields-Edmonds agreed to style a friend’s hair before she went out with her husband.

Janeese Williams testified that she came to the couple’s home and Hicks arrived while she was having her hair styled.

Williams told the jury that she and Fields-Edmonds began talking about the couple’s relationship problems when Hicks, who apparently heard the conversation from upstairs, got agitated and yelled, “I hear that s--- you talking, b----. I don’t have to be here, I can leave if you want me to.”

Williams testified that Hicks sounded angry and continued either yelling or talking to himself for quite some time.

Around 10 or 10:30 p.m. Williams left the home and went to her car but realized that she was blocked in.

While she waited in her car for Hicks or Fields-Edmonds to move their vehicle, Williams said she saw Hicks walk outside, open the door of his white truck, reach for something under the driver’s seat and place the object in his waistband.

Williams did not think the object was a gun at the time but testified that, in hindsight, she believed it was a firearm.

Later that night, Fields-Edmonds and Hicks were spotted at a local game hall playing pool. Fields-Edmonds was last seen alive at Wolf’s Den, a Cleveland bar.

Lisa Scott and Twilla Reynolds testified that they saw Fields-Edmonds leaving the bar with Hicks between 2 and 2:30 a.m. They stated that Fields-Edmonds got into her car and Hicks stood outside of the driver’s side door, talking to her.

Several minutes later, the women saw Fields-Edmonds’ vehicle on the side of the road. They testified that they saw a man walk away from the driver’s side of the car but then turn around and enter the passenger side.

A body was then pushed out of the driver’s side and the vehicle was driven away.

Scott, Reynolds and a passerby all ran to the body, saw gunshot wounds and called 911 at 2:36 a.m.

Hicks’ cellphone records showed that he was in the area at the time of the murder and that he made several phone calls immediately after the murder to his father, his sister, his brother and other unidentified numbers.

Hicks’ father, Adrian McCall, also testified at trial and stated that his son called and said, “Daddy, my gun went off.”

Shortly thereafter, Hicks arrived at McCall’s house in Fields-Edmonds’ vehicle and confessed the murder, stating that he had been drinking, that he and Fields-Edmonds got into a heated argument and that his gun went off.

Hicks gave the murder weapon to his father, who placed it in a plastic bag and later handed it over to police investigators.

Hicks was taken into custody in the morning, when he showed up at his own home.

On appeal to the 8th District court, Hicks challenged the sufficiency of the evidence supporting his aggravated murder conviction.

According to him, the state failed to present evidence that he killed Fields-Edmonds with prior calculation and design, an essential element necessary to prove the offense. The court of appeals agreed.

“The state can prove prior calculation and design from the circumstances surrounding a murder in several ways,” Judge Eileen A. Gallagher wrote on behalf of the court of appeals, “including evidence of a preconceived plan leading up to the murder, evidence of the defendant’s encounter with the victim, including evidence necessary to infer that the defendant had a preconceived notion to kill ... or evidence that the murder was executed in such a manner that circumstantially proved the defendant had a preconceived plan to kill such as where the victim is killed in a cold-blooded, execution-style manner.”

Considering the circumstances surrounding the murder, the appellate panel found that it could not establish beyond a reasonable doubt that Hicks planned the shooting.

The reviewing court called Williams’ testimony that Hicks retrieved a gun from his truck “speculative” and it noted that even though the marriage was strained, simply possessing a weapon was not proof of a plan to kill.

“Although the record reflects that Hicks had threatened to leave Fields-Edmonds again if she continued bringing up the issue of infidelity, there was no evidence that he had threatened her life or had otherwise threatened her with physical harm,” Gallagher wrote.

The state argued that there was evidence of prior calculation and design because Hicks chose to kill Fields-Edmonds in a place where there would be no witnesses, but the appellate panel pointed out that Fields-Edmonds was killed in a fairly busy intersection and that witnesses saw her body being pushed out of her car.

“Common sense dictates that if Hicks had given thought or preparation to choosing the murder site, he would have determined to kill Fields-Edmonds at a time and place where there were no potential witnesses connecting him to the crime and would have conceived of some plan for leaving the scene, disposing of Fields-Edmonds’ body and disposing of the murder weapon besides throwing her body out of her car and into the street, driving off in her car and bringing the car and the gun he used to kill Fields-Edmonds to his father’s house,” Gallagher wrote.

Unable to conclude that Hicks “planned a scheme to implement a calculated decision to kill” Fields-Edmonds, the court of appeals reversed the aggravated murder conviction, vacated the life sentence and remanded the case for resentencing.

Judges Larry Jones and Frank Celebrezze joined Gallagher to reverse the judgment of the Cuyahoga County court.

The case is cited State v. Hicks, 2015-Ohio-4978.

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