A criminal case long considered closed has been remanded for further action to Indiana County Common Pleas Court, with a State Superior Court ruling that its “convoluted procedural history…features numerous missteps and misunderstandings” of the law by both the defendant’s appointed attorneys and the court in denying a sentencing appeal.
Woodrow Hicks Jr., an Indiana man who is now 54 years old and currently housed at SCI Houtzdale, was convicted in a jury trial in 2014 for a 2012 case in which he attempted to meet a 15-year-old girl for sex. He was found guilty of attempted statutory sexual assault and corruption of minors among other criminal offenses.
Hicks appealed the conviction and was turned down by the Superior Court. He then appealed his sentence of an aggregate 16 months to five years, plus five years of probation and lifetime registration as a sex offender. He is imprisoned now for a probation violation.
In the sentencing appeal, in which Hicks was denied the right to proceed either with counsel or acting on his own, Superior Court ruled that there were eleven mistakes made by either the court or by Hicks’s attorneys, and therefore it vacated part of the denial and ordered Indiana County Court to permit Hicks to file an amended petition concerning his trial-based claims. The case was remanded to the court last month.
