“The evidence clearly shows that if not for your client none of us would be here today,” Brenda Weaver said. Weaver, Appalachian Judicial Circuit chief Superior Court judge, spoke these words to Hunter Nicholas Hill’s attorney, Daniel Duello, before she sentenced Hill to serve life plus 30 years in prison.
In his sentencing statement, Duello argued “they were all together in this,” speaking of Hill and the co-defendants in the December 2018 murder of Justin Wayne McKinney and shooting of Anna Maria Franklin.
Prior to Duello’s statement, Appalachian Judicial Circuit District Attorney B. Alison Sosebee has asked the judge to impose a minimum of two consecutive life sentences.
In her argument, Sosebee said, “but for Hunter Hill, this case would have never happened.”
The arguments and sentence came Thursday, June 30, in Fannin County Superior Court.
Two days earlier, Tuesday, June 28, a Fannin County jury found Hill guilty of all 15 charges returned against him in a grand jury indictment.
Those included:
•Malice Murder,
•Criminal Attempt to Commit Murder,
•Felony Murder,
•Criminal Attempt to Commit Armed Robbery,
•Five counts of Aggravated Assault,
•Aggravated Battery,
•Two counts of Home Invasion in the First Degree,
•Burglary,
•Possession of a Firearm During Commission of a Felony, and,
•Violation of Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO).
Hill’s prison time came from a life sentence on the malice murder conviction, 25 years for Criminal Attempt to Commit a Felony, and five years for Possession of a Firearm During Commission of a Felony.
Hill was sentenced to an additional 90 years to serve concurrently with his life plus 30 years prison time.
No witnesses were called and no family members made impact statements when the sentencing hearing for Hill was held.
Sosebee opened her sentencing request by referring to eight charges Hill has picked up in jail since being arrested for McKinney’s murder and Franklin’s shooting. Those include multiple charges of interference with government property, riot in a penal institution and possession of prohibited items.
She said that during the trial of Stephan Blake Dickey, Hill orchestrated a “sneak attack on another inmate,” beating that inmate to the point he had to be taken to the hospital.
“There has been no remorse, no change in (Hill’s) behavior...it has gotten worse,” Sosebee said.
Duello countered by asking the court to let him deal with Hill’s other charges “in their own time,” and not with his current sentencing.
“Give him the opportunity to turn his life around,” by limiting the amount of consecutive time he must serve, Duello said.
Weaver described the case of Hill and the co-defendants as “one of the most difficult cases I’ve ever had to deal with.
“I felt like I was on a series on TV, not in Fannin County, not in Blue Ridge, Georgia,” the judge said of what she had seen throughout the three-plus years’ legal process.
In sentencing Hill, she concluded, “these people do not go into a house with loaded guns unless they intend to kill somebody.”
She spoke of how Hill showed “no emotional reaction” to see the pictures of his victims and no remorse.
“Nothing about this case is the way life should be,” Weaver said.