An appellate court has acquitted a man who was previously convicted of criminal wrongdoing in connection with the beating of a mentally disabled man in Cass County in 2003.

James Cory Hicks was found guilty by a Cass County jury of the felony offense of injury to a disabled person by omission in 2004. He and three other men were charged with crimes in connection with the beating of Billy Ray Johnson at a pasture party in Linden, Texas. Hicks, Christopher Colt Amox, Dallas Chadwick Stone and John Wesley Owens were tried and convicted after it was learned they dumped the 42-year-old ...