A Solano County Superior Court judge last week sentenced a 38-year-old Vallejo woman to 12 years in state prison for her role in a 2018 fatal robbery in Vallejo.

Appearing in Department 22 on Friday in Fairfield, Jessica Marie McCraven heard Judge John B. Ellis hand down 11 years for a voluntary manslaughter charge, plus one year for a special allegation: using a deadly weapon.

McCraven’s sentence comes after she pleaded no contest on April 4 to the pair of charges and agreed to testify against her co-defendant in the case, Devonte Levan Hicks, 29, also of Vallejo. Ellis dismissed first-degree murder and robbery charges against her.

At her sentencing, McCraven was represented criminal defense attorney Terry Ray. Deputy District Attorney Bill Ainsworth led the prosecution.

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A previously convicted felon, charged with first-degree murder, first-degree robbery, possession of a firearm and ammunition, Hicks, who was found guilty at trial last month, faces sentencing at 1:30 p.m. July 21 in the Justice Building in Vallejo. McCraven’s statements were a major factor in Ainsworth’s prosecution of the case.

A panel of seven men and five women also found that Hicks, who was represented by defense attorney Cate Beekman, did not use a deadly or dangerous weapon during the killing and robbery.

At sentencing, he faces life in prison without the possibility of parole, since the killing occurred during a robbery, the special circumstance.

During her closing argument at trial’s end in early May, Beekman revealed that Hicks used a choke chain to strangle and kill Gerado Suarez-Marin, 24, at a Motel 6. Suarez-Marin was found unresponsive and lying on the floor near one of two beds on Aug. 20, after Hicks sought to buy some marijuana from him at the Enterprise Drive motel.

Beekman told the jury that McCraven was well aware of “the prosecutor’s theory” of the case, hearing it during the preliminary hearing, that she, too, was charged with the murder of Suarez-Marin and faced a life sentence behind bars, if convicted.

Then, one month before the trial, Beekman noted, McCraven changed her story “multiple times,” suggesting she sought to avoid conviction on the serious felony charges.

The attorney attempted to convince jurors that McCraven’s motive to enter a plea deal was entirely selfish, showing another slide with large letters of a Facebook post McCraven made: “Put yourself first because people ain’t s—.”

Beekman also sought to weaken the DA’s case by noting McCraven had two identity theft cases pending against her “and stole from her own mother two weeks before the murder.”

Also, there was no evidence of what specifically happened in the motel room, she asserted, adding that Ainsworth had not proven his case “beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Referring to Hicks, she noted he was 22 at the time of the killing, calling him “intellectually disabled” and a person who used drugs. She called McCraven “a manipulator and a liar,” with assertions that her client’s alleged control of McCraven “was not supported by the evidence.”

In a particularly dramatic moment, Beekman retrieved the choke chain, similar to one used for a dog, from an evidence bag and demonstrated how it worked. Pulled a certain way, she said, it doesn’t release. Suarez-Marin, she said, then “went unconscious” after being choked and Hicks and McCraven left the motel room.

After the killing and robbery, the evidence showed Hicks and McCraven bought clothes, shoes, and smartphones. Hicks had a gun “while they were arguing” at one point, and, thus, McCraven’s testimony was true, Aiinsworth told jurors during his rebuttal statement.

The case was subject to a series of delays in the past seven years, due in part to reduced court operations and state and county public health directives during the first several years of the COVID-19 pandemic. The trial was previously scheduled to begin in September last year.

Court records show Vallejo police officers arrested Hicks on Aug. 22, 2018, in the 1000 block of Admiral Callaghan Lane in Vallejo, and a short time later the same day arrested McCraven in the 900 block of that roadway.

Hicks remains without bail in the Stanton Correctional Facility in Fairfield.