Armed Clemmons v. State

Court of Appeals of Georgia·Decided November 8, 2021·No. A21A0782·Published

Opinion

FIRST DIVISION

BARNES, P. J.,

GOBEIL and MARKLE, JJ.

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October 28, 2021

In the Court of Appeals of Georgia A21A0782. CLEMMONS v. THE STATE.

BARNES, Presiding Judge.

A Spalding County jury found Armed Cortez Clemmons guilty of aggravated child molestation, two counts of child molestation, and other offenses based on evidence that he arranged sexual encounters between an underage female victim and other men. The trial court thereafter denied his motion for new trial, as amended. On appeal, Clemmons argues that the evidence was insufficient to convict him under the theory that he was a party to the crimes; that certain convictions must be reversed because there were other statutes that prohibited the same aiding-and-abetting conduct; that the trial court committed plain error by improperly commenting on the evidence during an instruction to the jury; and that his trial counsel rendered

ineffective assistance by failing to object to the trial court’s comment on the evidence. We affirm for the reasons set forth below.

1. In reviewing Clemmons’s challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence, we decide only “whether, after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.” (Emphasis in original.) Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319 (III) (B) (99 SCt 2781, 61 LE2d 560) (1979). The jury, not this Court, resolves conflicts in the testimony and weighs the evidence. Platt v. State, 335 Ga. App. 49, 49 (1) (778 SE2d 416) (2015). “As long as there is some competent evidence, even though contradicted, to support each fact necessary to make out the State’s case, the jury’s verdict will be upheld.” (Citation and punctuation omitted.) Robinson v. State, 296 Ga. App. 561, 562 (675 SE2d 298) (2009).

Viewed in this manner, the evidence showed that in early 2016, J. C., a 14-

year-old girl who had a history of running away from home, was told by an acquaintance named Tez that she could make “fast money” if she was willing to “sell [her] body.” Tez explained that J. C. “would be posted” online, men would call her, she would meet the men and have sex with them, and she then would hand over the

money that she got from the men. Tez said that his brother, Clemmons, would pick her up and “it [would] go from there.”

J. C. subsequently met with Clemmons, who arranged for her to prostitute herself through online advertisements. To that end, Clemmons requested that J. C. provide him with photographs of herself, and she complied. Clemmons used the photographs to create a series of advertisements for J. C. on Backpage.com under the section of the website for escorts.1 Clemmons paid for the online advertisements, arranged the sexual encounters between J. C. and the men who responded to the advertisements, set the prices for the sexual acts performed by J. C., and drove J. C. to a Spalding County hotel and other locations for the encounters with the men. Clemmons would wait outside while J. C. met with the men, and he would take the money from J. C. after the sexual encounters. Clemmons would pay to get J. C.’s hair and nails done for her, would give her money and food, and promised to help her get a car. Clemmons also had sexual intercourse with J. C. multiple times at his house in a different county.

1 Backpage.com was a website where users could post classified advertisements, including ads for escorts. See United States v. Whyte, 928 F3d 1317, 1323 (I) (11th Cir. 2019); Jane Doe No. 1 v. Backpage.com, 817 F3d 12, 16 (I) (1st Cir. 2016). Federal law enforcement officers seized the website in April 2018. See Sivonda v. State, 353 Ga. App. 762, 762, n. 1 (839 SE2d 251) (2020).

At trial, J. C. described several specific occasions when she was 14 years old and Clemmons drove her to locations to perform sexual acts with men in exchange for money. On one occasion, Clemmons set up a meeting between J. C. and a man at a hotel in Spalding County. Clemmons drove J. C. there, coached her on what to do, and waited outside while J. C. went inside the hotel room. J. C. performed oral sex on the man at the hotel and had sexual intercourse with him in exchange for $50. Once they were finished, J. C. left the hotel room, got back in the car with Clemmons, and gave him the money. On a different occasion, Clemmons arranged for J. C. to engage in a sexual encounter at a Spalding County house, but J. C. became uneasy when the man there raised an issue about the money, and she fled before the encounter occurred and had Clemmons pick her up. Separately, there was an occasion in which Clemmons drove J. C. to a house where a man performed oral sex on her and had sexual intercourse with her in exchange for $50. After the man paid her, J. C. got back in the car with Clemmons and gave him the money. The last occasion occurred on a night when Clemmons asked J. C. to have sexual intercourse with his friend in exchange for gas money. J. C. initially refused, but Clemmons convinced her to get into his car and go to the friend’s house in Spalding County. J. C. had sexual intercourse with the friend, who paid her, and she gave the money to Clemmons.

The sexual encounters arranged by Clemmons ended in April 2016, when J. C.

was sentenced to serve time in a juvenile detention center after committing a probation violation unrelated to this case. While J. C. was in detention, her father kept her cell phone and noticed that she was constantly receiving text messages and phone calls. Her father checked the text messages and discovered that men were soliciting J. C. to have sex with them and were asking for and sending explicit photographs. J. C.’s father contacted the Griffin Police Department about the text messages, and a police investigation ensued.

During their investigation, law enforcement officers located the advertisements for J. C. on Backpage.com, and, through a series of subpoenas and search warrants, they linked Clemmons to a cell phone number and email address that were used to post the advertisements. The officers also discovered Backpage.com advertisements for another young girl that had similar wording and pricing that were linked to Clemmons’s cell phone number and email address. Additionally, officers executed a search warrant and obtained messages to and from Tez and Clemmons on Facebook Messenger that referred to having “hoes at da room,” a “couple little sluts lined up,” and to “Shawty” being 14.

Clemmons subsequently was indicted for aggravated child molestation, two counts of child molestation, sodomy, trafficking a person for sexual servitude, enticing a child for indecent purposes, pimping a person under the age of 18, and computer pornography. The indictment specifically alleged that with respect to the aggravated child molestation, child molestation, and sodomy counts, Clemmons was a party to the crimes.

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