People v. Hicks CA1/2

BACKGROUND

In November 2018, the Solano County District Attorney filed an indictment charging Hicks with three counts regarding the September 21, 2017 death of Demorio Williams. Count one alleged that

1 Hicks, along with co-defendants Nickolas Howland and Steven Sanderson, murdered Demorio Williams. (Pen. Code, § 187, subd. (a).1) Attached to the murder count were several gang-related firearm use allegations (§§ 12022.53, subds. (b), (c), (d) & (e)(1), 186.22, subd. (b)(1)). Count two charged all three men with engaging in street terrorism on the day of the alleged murder (§ 186.22, subd. (a)), and count three charged Hicks with possession of a firearm by a felon on that day (§29800, subd. (a)(1)). In a fourth count, Hicks was also charged with possession of a firearm by a felon four months later, on January 14, 2018, the date he was arrested. Howland and Sanderson, Hicks’s alleged co-participants in the Williams murder, also were charged with the January 13, 2018 gang-related murder of another victim (Coy Lacy, Jr.), which they allegedly committed together with a fourth defendant, Desean Johnson, another alleged gang member. A fifth co-defendant, Damaria Haskins, was charged…