Prosecutor says Macon is ‘safer’ with accused killer in jail. His lawyer says he’s innocent
A judge will soon decide whether a Macon man whose murder conviction in a 2008 assault-rifle attack was overturned two years ago should remain behind bars while he awaits a new trial.
At a hearing earlier this week in Bibb County Superior Court, a lawyer for Benjamin L. Finney argued that Finney deserves to have a bond set.
In 2016, Finney, now 45, was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole for his alleged role in the 2008 killing of an east Macon woman.
The victim, Gwendolyn Cole, 55, was mortally wounded by some of the more than 60 bullets fired into her home near Millerfield Road the night of Feb. 4, 2008. Prosecutors have said the shooting stemmed from a feud her son was involved in.
A prosecutor who helped send Finney to prison at Finney’s 2016 trial told jurors at the time that Finney “owned” the drug-dealing streets of east Macon.
In March of 2021, the Georgia Supreme Court ruled that some evidence and testimony presented at Finney’s trial should not have been allowed.
The high court’s ruling stated that “the trial court erred by admitting hearsay from an accomplice, plainly erred by failing to give a jury instruction on the accomplice-corroboration requirement, and erred by admitting evidence of (Finney’s) involvement in two prior shootings.”
The ruling further noted that “the cumulative effect of these errors likely affected the outcome” of Finney’s trial, which was delayed several years, in part, because he was serving a federal sentence on drug and gun possession charges.
At Monday’s bond hearing, Finney’s attorney, Adam W. Deaver, said Finney was not a flight risk and that he could stay with relatives in Macon, wearing an ankle monitor if the court deemed it necessary.
“He is not going anywhere,” Deaver said. “He has maintained from the beginning that he’s innocent.”
Bibb prosecutor Dawn Baskin, who said the case could be ready for retrial in December, told the judge that Macon has “been a little safer” with Finney locked up.
She cited Finney’s “significant criminal history” and called him “an admitted drug dealer” with past ties to a Mexican cartel.
Baskin asked that he not be granted bond.
Cole’s sister testified at this week’s hearing and asked the judge to do likewise, saying that if Finney were to be let out of jail “he will return to his old ways.”
Judge Howard Z. Simms was expected to rule on Finney’s bond motion within a couple of weeks.
Information from Telegraph archives was used in this report.
This story was originally published January 26, 2023 at 12:00 AM.