A Los Angeles judge rejected Brian Hickerson’s attempt to reduce and clear two felony domestic violence convictions involving Hayden Panettiere three days before the actress died.
Judge Olivia Rosales denied the motions on Aug. 13 after prosecutors opposed them, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office confirmed to Page Six. Hickerson sought to have the felony convictions reduced to misdemeanors and expunged.
Hickerson pleaded no contest in April 2021 to two felony counts of injuring a spouse, cohabitant, girlfriend or child’s parent. The plea followed an eight-count criminal case involving multiple incidents with Panettiere between May 2019 and January 2020. Their on-and-off relationship began in 2018.
The latest ruling came Aug. 13 in that years-old Los Angeles criminal case. Panettiere died Aug. 16 at age 36 in Greenville, South Carolina; the Greenville County Coroner’s Office said an autopsy found no trauma that contributed to her death, while the official cause and manner remain under investigation.
Hickerson Said He Had Completed His Probation Requirements
Hickerson’s petition stated that he had completed the requirements of his probation, according to the Daily Mail’s account of the filing. Prosecutors nevertheless opposed both of his requests during the Aug. 13 hearing. Rosales denied the effort to reduce the felony convictions to misdemeanors as well as the request to expunge them.
It was not Hickerson’s first attempt to change the status of the convictions. Page Six reported that he made similar requests in July 2025 and was denied then as well.
Hickerson’s 2021 sentence included 45 days in county jail and four years of formal probation. He was also ordered to complete 52 domestic violence classes, pay $500 in restitution and comply with a five-year protective order.
The Convictions Came From an Eight-Count Criminal Case
Hickerson’s 2021 plea resolved a case that had originally included eight counts stemming from incidents involving Panettiere between May 2019 and January 2020.
The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office confirmed at the time that Hickerson pleaded no contest to two felony counts of injuring a spouse, cohabitant, girlfriend or child’s parent.
Panettiere had spoken publicly about the alleged abuse while the criminal proceedings were still unfolding. In 2020, after Hickerson was arrested and charged, she said she was coming forward because she hoped her experience could help other people in abusive relationships seek support.
She said she had found the courage to regain her voice and her life with the help of a support system around her. Panettiere continued discussing the relationship years after Hickerson’s conviction, eventually making it a significant part of her 2026 memoir, This Is Me: A Reckoning.
Panettiere Compared Leaving the Relationship to Pulling Out an Entangled Weed
Panettiere addressed the abuse in her memoir and during a May interview with Us Weekly. “Getting an abusive person out of your life is like trying to rip a weed out that is so entangled into your life,” she said.
Panettiere explained that she had struggled for a long time to fully end the cycle. She said abusive people could repeatedly find ways back into someone’s life even when that person considered herself strong-willed.
She also described the experience of writing about the abuse as “brutal,” “traumatic” and emotional. Panettiere said she had kept much of what happened to herself at the time because she felt humiliated and did not want to emotionally burden the people closest to her.
During a May appearance on On Purpose with Jay Shetty, Panettiere read from a journal entry she had written while trying to understand the relationship. “I realized that I was more afraid of being alone than being abused,” she said. Reading the entry aloud, she said, helped her finally put into words something she had struggled to explain for years.
Hickerson Later Acknowledged Abusive Conduct
Hickerson publicly discussed Panettiere’s memoir shortly before its May release. In a May interview with TMZ, he recalled an incident from their relationship in which he had been drinking, held a phone and threatened Panettiere with it.
Hickerson said he had asked Panettiere to leave that episode out of the memoir, but she included it. He acknowledged how difficult it was to read an account of his own behavior but did not deny what Panettiere had written. “I did it. I did it,” Hickerson said.
Hickerson also told TMZ that he believed the memoir could be useful to people capable of becoming abusive because it showed the consequences of that behavior from the perspective of the person who experienced it.
He described his own life during the relationship as a dark period involving alcohol and drugs and said confronting Panettiere’s account was painful.
Panettiere’s Autopsy Is Completed
Panettiere was found unresponsive at a residence where she had been temporarily staying in Greenville on Aug. 16. First responders found her in cardiac arrest and attempted advanced cardiac life support before she was pronounced dead at 2:32 p.m.
The Greenville County Coroner’s Office completed an autopsy on Aug. 17 and said no signs of trauma were discovered that would have contributed to her death.
Police have also said their preliminary investigation found no signs of foul play or suspicious circumstances. The coroner has not yet determined Panettiere’s official cause or manner of death.