Court denies woman’s bid to overturn murder conviction

ATLANTA – The Georgia Supreme Court today upheld the conviction of a Barrow County woman serving life in prison for the May 2005 shooting death of her husband.

A jury convicted Diane Elaine Hogsed in March 2006 on five counts, including possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime and felony murder. A judge subsequently sentenced her to life plus five years in prison.

“The evidence … was sufficient to authorize a rational trier of fact to find (Hogsed) guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of murder and possession of a firearm during a crime,” the court said in its three-page opinion.

During Hogsed’s 2006 trial, prosecutors painted the picture of an unhappy marriage between Hogsed and her husband, Willis “Bill” Hogsed, which ultimately ended with a gunshot to the chest, according to accounts in the Athens Banner-Herald newspaper. Leading up to the trial, Diane Hogsed’s attorney told the newspaper his client waved a gun in front of her husband, but did not intentionally shoot him.

Hogsed was acquitted on a count of voluntary manslaughter.