A Denver jury will continue deliberating today whether Brian Kenneth Hicks is guilty of ordering two men to kill a woman who would have testified against him in another shooting case.
During closing arguments Thursday, a defense attorney for Hicks told jurors that Hicks was too smart to have a state witness killed just days before a trial was to begin.
“Would not a young man have enough common sense to know that if a witness in his case gets executed that he is the first one they would blame?” attorney Wil Smith said. “Have you seen any evidence that Brian Hicks is that stupid? Why would he trade an attempted murder case for a murder case?”
Crack cocaine was found on Clark’s body the night she was killed, and Smith argued that she might have been targeted by other drug dealers and gang members instead of Hicks.
But prosecutors told jurors that intercepted jail conversations and testimony show that Hicks, who was in prison at the time, is responsible for ordering the Dec. 6, 2006, murder of Kalonniann Clark.
She was gunned down by two masked men outside her home just days before she was going to testify that Hicks had shot at her outside a nightclub the year before.
Felisa Cardona: 303-954-1219 or fcardona@denverpost.com
