Marion Hutchinson and Charles Anthony Barnes have been sentenced after pleading guilty to charges connected to the 2025 shooting that killed 26-year-old Frederick Hampton Jr. in Savannah. Hampton was struck during gunfire in the 1200 block of Rogers Street on Sept. 20, 2025.
Hutchinson, 44, pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter under an open-ended, partially negotiated agreement. His original charges of party to a crime of malice murder, felony murder and gun offenses were reduced. The agreement also dropped an aggravated assault charge and three counts of possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony. He received a seven-year sentence with credit for time served. Jail records showed he had been incarcerated nearly one year and two months, leaving about five years and 10 months on the sentence. If convicted on the original charges, he had faced a possible sentence of two life terms plus 40 years.
Barnes, 45, entered a separate, non-negotiated guilty plea to involuntary manslaughter and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony. Malice murder, felony murder, aggravated assault and other firearm-possession charges were dropped. He was sentenced to six years in confinement and five years of probation, with credit for just over a year already served.
Barnes’ sentence bars him from contacting Hampton’s family and from being around firearms. He is also prohibited from alcohol and drugs, places that serve them, and homes where they are present. The conditions ban him from West Savannah and require him to obtain lawful employment.
At the plea hearing, the prosecutor described a history of conflict involving Hutchinson and Barnes’ family. Barnes’ brother had previously been convicted of aggravated assault for shooting Hutchinson. Ten days before Hampton’s death, Hutchinson had been charged with aggravated assault in a separate incident involving that brother. The prosecutor said Hutchinson and the brother later communicated through a third party and agreed to put their differences aside.
The prosecutor said the state’s evidence would have shown that Hutchinson had been drinking at a Chatham County gathering place known as a shot house and went outside planning to meet friends for pool. According to that account, Barnes approached with a gun and shot Hutchinson in the lower leg. Hutchinson took cover, then fired three shots back. Hampton, who was also outside, was hit during the exchange and died.
The prosecutor said Barnes’ gun jammed and investigators found two unspent casings that had been cleared from it. Hutchinson later met with the prosecutor, his defense attorney and the detective assigned to the case. The prosecutor said the detective believed Hutchinson’s account was truthful based on witness statements, photographs and forensic evidence. Asked whether forensic evidence established which weapon fired the fatal bullet, the prosecutor said the state believed it came from Hutchinson’s gun.
Barnes apologized to Hampton’s family in court but disputed that account. He said he fired once into the ground, did not see Hampton during the shooting and did not believe his bullet struck him. Barnes also claimed Hutchinson reached for a gun first; the prosecution’s account was that Hutchinson was shot first and returned fire.
Hampton’s mother told the court he had been a father and that the family had lost his son in a drowning more than a year before Hampton’s death. She asked the judge to impose the maximum sentence allowed by law, while acknowledging that no sentence could restore her son.
Yolonda Harris
News Now Georgia
