A North Carolina court directs new trial a second time in case focused on self-defense argument

By GARY D. ROBERTSON The Associated Press

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — A North Carolina appeals court has said for a second time that a woman convicted of killing her lover should receive a new trial, declaring that text messages and photos from her cellphone wrongly presented to the jury likely prevented her acquittal on self-defense grounds.

A divided three-judge panel of the intermediate-level Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday that the judge in the 2019 trial of Wendy Dawn Lamb Hicks erred by allowing that evidence from local prosecutors and without instructions to jurors limiting how it should be considered. The jury convicted Hicks of second-degree murder in the 2017 death of Caleb Adams, who was shot twice in the back in Hicks’ bedroom doorway in her Randolph County home. Hicks was sentenced to 15 to 19 years in prison.

The texts and photos, which were printed out for jurors, unfairly prejudiced Hicks by emphasizing evidence such as her sex life, rather than whether she was justified in firing at Adams, Court of Appeals Judge April Wood wrote while also vacating her conviction.

“We conclude there was substantial and persuasive evidence presented at trial demonstrating Defendant acted in self-defense,” Wood said in the majority opinion. “The jurors probably would have acquitted Defendant if the exhibits did not cause them to reach their decision based on passion, namely, a personal revulsion toward Defendant.”

In 2022, Wood wrote the unanimous opinion for another three-judge appeals panel that directed Hicks receive a new trial. Wood wrote that Superior Court Judge Bradford Long had erred by giving unsupported jury instructions about the legal limits for deadly force inside a home.

The state’s Supreme Court reversed that decision and upheld the conviction in September 2023. The primary opinion from the court said that based on evidence, it was proper for the judge to instruct that Hicks could not cite self-defense and the protection of one’s home to justify deadly force if the jury could infer that she was acting as the aggressor — even if she did not instigate the confrontation. But justices told the Court of Appeals it still needed to decide whether Long committed a serious error by admitting the records and photos into evidence.

Writing Tuesday, Wood said that testimony by Hicks and others already demonstrated “numerous sordid details” about her life, including simultaneous affairs and continuing one with Adams after learning he was married, according to Wood’s written opinion. Adams and Hicks’ relationship also was marked by drug use.

Admitting the text message exchanges, which included references to sex acts and violence, probably shifted the focus of the case “to whether she was someone of whom the jurors should approve personally,” Wood wrote. And enlarged, close-up images of Hicks engaging in sexual activity with Adams likely “only served the purpose of shocking and disgusting the jury.”

Court of Appeals Judge Julee Flood joined in Wood’s opinion on Tuesday. Court of Appeals Judge Hunter Murphy, who was also on the 2022 panel, now decided that the murder conviction should be left intact. In a dissenting opinion, Murphy said he couldn’t conclude that the jury “almost certainly” would have reached a different verdict had the evidence been excluded.

The state Supreme Court can choose to hear the case again based on Tuesday’s ruling.

It was among dozens issued on a special filing day and designed for some members of the 15-judge court who won’t return to their seats in 2025. Murphy and Judge Carolyn Thompson both lost in 2024 elections. Some opinions also came from Judge Jefferson Griffin, who remains in a tight race for a state Supreme Court seat with Associate Justice Allison Riggs.