Rayner v. State

706 S.E.2d 205, 2011 Fulton County D. Rep. 366, 307 Ga. App. 861, 2011 Ga. App. LEXIS 96
CourtCourt of Appeals of Georgia
DecidedFebruary 15, 2011
DocketA10A2356
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 706 S.E.2d 205 (Rayner v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Georgia primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Rayner v. State, 706 S.E.2d 205, 2011 Fulton County D. Rep. 366, 307 Ga. App. 861, 2011 Ga. App. LEXIS 96 (Ga. Ct. App. 2011).

Opinion

706 S.E.2d 205 (2011)

RAYNER
v.
The STATE.

No. A10A2356.

Court of Appeals of Georgia.

February 15, 2011.

*207 Billy L. Spruell, Marietta, for appellant.

Penny Alane Penn, District Attorney, Sandra A. Partridge, Assistant District Attorney, for appellee.

MIKELL, Judge.

After a jury trial, Richard Allen Rayner was convicted of child molestation, criminal attempt to commit rape, and false imprisonment and sentenced to ten years to serve and ten years on probation. On appeal, Rayner asserts several enumerations of error. He argues that the trial court erred when it conveyed its opinion to the jury and charged the jury incorrectly about the law regarding prior difficulties between the parties. Rayner also contends that the trial court impermissibly restricted his expert witness's testimony and his cross-examination of the victim and other witnesses. Finding no error, we affirm.

On appeal from a criminal conviction, the evidence must be viewed in the light most favorable to the verdict, and the defendant no longer enjoys the presumption of innocence; moreover, an appellate court does not weigh the evidence or determine witness credibility but only determines whether the evidence is sufficient under the standard of Jackson v. Virginia.[1] Conflicts in the testimony of the witnesses, including the State's witnesses, are a matter of credibility for the jury to resolve. 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. The testimony of a single witness is generally sufficient to establish a fact.[2]

So viewed, the evidence shows that fourteen-year-old C.P. testified that when she was nine years old, she told her mother that Rayner, her uncle,[3] had been touching her in inappropriate places for approximately a year. C.P. explained that she and her cousin, Aaron, Rayner's son, were very close and that she often visited their home. C.P. testified that when Aaron was not around, Rayner would lure her into bedrooms and touch her breasts and vagina with his hand, tongue, and penis.

When asked about specific encounters, C.P. testified that the first act occurred when Rayner touched her breast on the outside of her clothes while they were watching a movie in Aaron's bedroom. She left the room and when she returned, Rayner had left. On another occasion, Rayner took her into another room, raised her shirt and licked her breasts, and told her not to tell anyone. C.P. testified that she told Rayner to stop but he did not; that the encounter lasted for approximately 30 seconds; and that she used a towel to wipe herself off afterward. C.P. recalled four or five encounters were Rayner touched her vagina on the outside and inside of her underwear. On two other occasions, C.P. recalled that Rayner picked her up and took her to a bedroom, and locked the door and had her sit on the bed. He then pulled her clothes down and his penis out and touched her vagina with his penis while straddling her with his legs and holding her arms down. C.P. testified that the touching only occurred when she was at the Rayner home alone with Rayner and Aaron and that she thought that if she told, Rayner would do something to her.

C.P. recalled that on the day that she told her mother about the encounters with Rayner, she had been in the weight room of Rayner's home with Aaron. Aaron left the room, and Rayner picked her up and put her back down and then went upstairs. C.P. testified that she began to cry and asked to talk to her mom, Charlene Pruitt, and then told her what had been happening. C.P. and Charlene left the Rayner home immediately. C.P. testified that soon thereafter, she and her mother met with the family at her grandmother's house, that Rayner denied touching C.P., and that C.P. affirmed that he had. *208 One of her mother's sisters, Stephanie, asked C.P. if her mother's boyfriend had been touching her, and she replied that he had not. C.P. recalled that her mother and aunt Jenni were both crying, and she felt like they all believed Rayner. C.P. testified that she never wavered in her story although she knew that recanting would have made her mom and her aunt happy.

Charlene testified that she, her mom, and her two sisters, Stephanie and Jenni, were very close and were frequently together on the weekends and vacationed together. Additionally, she often left C.P. with Rayner and Aaron at their home when she went out with her sisters. Charlene further testified that C.P. loved Rayner like a father; that no argument or problem with Rayner preceded C.P.'s outcry of abuse; that on the day that C.P. talked to her,[4] she had gone downstairs to chastise her for listening to inappropriate music and reprimanded her for "dirty dancing"; that C.P. replied, "[w]hy is [sic] that I always get in trouble, and he never does," referring to Rayner; and that she asked C.P. what she meant and C.P. said, "[b]ecause he touches me"; and that when she continued to question C.P., she told her that Rayner made her do handstands and would touch her private area and that he had touched his private part to her vagina. Charlene recalled that she left the Rayner home immediately and that she and C.P. discussed the abuse over the next couple of days and that C.P. would cry each time.

Charlene testified that she met with her family about the incident and that no one was in support of her going to the police, including C.P. On cross-examination, Charlene testified that she did not take C.P. to the doctor because C.P. told her that Rayner had not penetrated her. Charlene also acknowledged that the family had vacationed together at a beach house two months after C.P.'s outcry, although C.P. was never left alone with Rayner.

Randall Calvin Pruitt, C.P.'s father, testified that he heard about the incident from a friend, then questioned C.P., who told him that Rayner touched her private parts. Randall called Charlene, and they reported the incident to the police. Detective Thomas Moore of the Forsyth County Sheriff's Office testified that Charlene reported the incident to the police in November 2005, which was more than a year after its occurrence; that he set up an interview for C.P. at a children's advocacy center; and that he heard the details of the allegations as C.P. was being interviewed. Rayner testified and denied that he had ever had any sexual contact with C.P. but he acknowledged that there were times when he was alone with her.

1. In his first two enumerations of error, Rayner argues that the trial court conveyed its opinion to the jury when it charged the law regarding prior difficulties between the parties.

The trial court charged as follows:

Evidence of prior difficulties between the defendant and the alleged victim has been admitted for the sole purpose of illustrating, if it does so illustrate, the state of feeling between the defendant and the alleged victim and the bent of mind and course of conduct on the part of the defendant.[5] Whether this evidence illustrates such matters is a matter solely for you, the jury, to determine, but you are not to consider such evidence for any other purpose.

Rayner argues that the charge intimates an opinion that there was indeed evidence of prior difficulties, when there was none, and that it telegraphed to the jury that the court agreed with the state's theory of the case.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
706 S.E.2d 205, 2011 Fulton County D. Rep. 366, 307 Ga. App. 861, 2011 Ga. App. LEXIS 96, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/rayner-v-state-gactapp-2011.