Ricky Remon Moss v. State

CourtCourt of Appeals of Georgia
DecidedOctober 20, 2022
DocketA22A0787
StatusPublished

This text of Ricky Remon Moss v. State (Ricky Remon Moss 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
Ricky Remon Moss v. State, (Ga. Ct. App. 2022).

Opinion

FIFTH DIVISION MCFADDEN, P. J., GOBEIL and LAND, JJ.

NOTICE: Motions for reconsideration must be physically received in our clerk’s office within ten days of the date of decision to be deemed timely filed. https://www.gaappeals.us/rules

October 20, 2022

In the Court of Appeals of Georgia A22A0787. MOSS v. THE STATE.

GOBEIL, Judge.

A Cobb County jury found Ricky Remon Moss guilty of rape, aggravated

sexual battery, and false imprisonment based on an incident that took place in 1998.

Moss appeals from his judgment of conviction and the denial of his motion for new

trial, asserting that the trial court erred in: (1) overruling his objection to the State’s

use of its peremptory strikes to affect the racial makeup of his jury under Batson v.

Kentucky, 476 U. S. 79 (106 SCt 1712, 90 LE2d 69) (1986); (2) allowing a witness

to give improper “surrogate” testimony about the results of DNA analysis when the

witness did not have a “substantial personal connection” to the DNA testing at issue;

(3) overruling his hearsay and Confrontation Clause objections to witness testimony

that Moss’s DNA was a match to DNA collected in the victim’s rape kit; and (4) overruling his objection to OCGA § 24-4-413 prior sexual offense evidence when the

State failed to prove that Moss was the perpetrator of the prior offense. For the

reasons set forth below, we affirm the trial court’s denial of Moss’s motion for new

trial.

“On appeal from a criminal conviction, the evidence must be viewed in the

light most favorable to support the verdict, and the defendant no longer enjoys a

presumption of innocence.” Williams v. State, 333 Ga. App. 879, 879 (777 SE2d 711)

(2015) (citation and punctuation omitted).

So viewed, the record shows that the victim, D. B., was 16 years old in

December 1998. She and a friend met a man at a Blockbuster video store. D. B. gave

this man her phone number, and he called her a couple of times in the following

weeks. On December 17, 1998, the man called D. B. and asked her to join him for

lunch. The man picked D. B. up from her home, and the two went to a restaurant.

The man drove D. B. back to her house, and D. B. wanted to go inside. The

man “said something about coming inside” and when D. B. said no, he said “can I at

least get a hug.” As D. B. went to give him a hug, the man slid his hands down her

pants and grabbed her bottom. She pushed away and told him to stop, but he moved

his hand to the front of her pants and inserted his fingers in her vagina.

2 D. B. fought against the man, and escaped the man’s car. She opened the

garage door with a remote and headed towards the garage. The man came up behind

her, put his arms around her, and walked her into the garage. He held her hands

behind her back and bent her over the front of her vehicle that was parked in the

garage. The man pulled her pants down and raped her while she pleaded with him to

stop. Afterwards, he pulled her pants back up and told her he would call her and then

left.

Shortly after the assault, D. B.’s sister arrived home. D. B. told her sister what

happened, and the two went to the police station and then to the hospital. A doctor

conducted a pelvic exam on D. B. and collected evidence for a rape kit. The kit was

turned over to Detective Daniel Rossman with the Cobb County Police Department.

Rossman also spoke to the victim in her exam room, collected her clothing for

evidence, and arranged to interview her the next day.

D. B. gave a description of her attacker: she told the investigators that she

thought his name was “Enricky” or “Anricko,” he was 6’ 4” with a medium build and

dark hair and eyes. She described his hair and facial hair, what he was wearing on the

day of the attack, and the car he drove. She believed he was part black or part

3 Hispanic or mixed race. When he called her phone, the caller ID indicated that he was

calling from Smyrna.

Detective Rossman followed some leads in an attempt to identify the

perpetrator, but was unable to develop a suspect. Three or four months after the

incident, Rossman placed the case in inactive status. The rape kit was not submitted

to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (“GBI”) for testing because the GBI’s policy

at the time was to not test rape kits without a known suspect.

Almost 20 years later, in October 2017, the rape kit collected from D. B. was

analyzed by an independent forensic lab located in Salt Lake City, Utah that had

contracted with the GBI, Sorenson Forensics (“Sorenson”). Two items from the kit

were analyzed, vaginal swabs and gauze. Male DNA was identified in both items, and

a male DNA profile was detected and returned to the GBI.

The DNA profile was reviewed by a GBI scientist and forwarded to a database

administrator to be entered into the GBI database and searched against other profiles

in a national database. A match came back in February 2018, identifying Moss as a

match for the DNA from the rape kit. Additional buccal swabs were taken from Moss,

which also matched the DNA from the rape kit. The case was reactivated, and

Detective Clint Monahan of the Cobb County Police Department obtained an arrest

4 warrant for Moss. Moss was indicted for rape, aggravated sexual battery, and false

imprisonment.

A jury found Moss guilty on all charges, and the trial court sentenced him to

two consecutive life sentences plus ten years. He filed a motion for new trial, as

amended, which the trial court denied after a hearing. This appeal followed.

1. Moss first raises a Batson challenge, arguing that the State used its

peremptory jury strikes in a racially discriminatory manner. Moss raised this issue

during the trial, lodging a Batson objection immediately after the jury was selected.

The trial court found that Moss made a prima facie showing of discrimination based

on the State’s use of strikes against non-white persons. The trial court allowed the

State to put forward its race-neutral explanations for striking the jurors, and allowed

Moss to argue discriminatory intent. The trial court placed one of the struck jurors

onto the jury, but otherwise overruled Moss’s objection. After Moss raised this issue

in his motion for new trial, the trial court found that considering the totality of the

circumstances, Moss failed to prove discriminatory purpose in the State’s use of

peremptory strikes.

A Batson challenge involves three steps: (1) the opponent of a peremptory challenge must make a prima facie showing of racial

5 discrimination; (2) the proponent of the strike must then provide a race-neutral explanation for the strike; and (3) the court must decide whether the opponent of the strike has proven the proponent’s discriminatory intent.

Thomas v. State, 309 Ga. 488, 490 (2) (847 SE2d 147) (2020) (citation and

punctuation omitted). “(A) trial court’s finding as to whether the opponent of a strike

has proven discriminatory intent is entitled to great deference and will not be

disturbed unless clearly erroneous.” Id. at 491 (2) (citation and punctuation omitted);

see also Snyder v. Louisiana, 552 U. S. 472, 477 (II) (128 SCt 1203, 170 LE2d 175)

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Related

Batson v. Kentucky
476 U.S. 79 (Supreme Court, 1986)
Snyder v. Louisiana
552 U.S. 472 (Supreme Court, 2008)
Williams v. Illinois
132 S. Ct. 2221 (Supreme Court, 2012)
Ford v. State
423 S.E.2d 245 (Supreme Court of Georgia, 1992)
Demery v. State
700 S.E.2d 373 (Supreme Court of Georgia, 2010)
DISHAROON v. State
727 S.E.2d 465 (Supreme Court of Georgia, 2012)
State v. Kelly
718 S.E.2d 232 (Supreme Court of Georgia, 2011)
Williams v. the State
777 S.E.2d 711 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 2015)
KING v. the STATE.
816 S.E.2d 390 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 2018)
Naji v. State
797 S.E.2d 916 (Supreme Court of Georgia, 2017)
Bullcoming v. New Mexico
180 L. Ed. 2d 610 (Supreme Court, 2011)
Taylor v. State
811 S.E.2d 286 (Supreme Court of Georgia, 2018)
Taylor v. State
814 S.E.2d 353 (Supreme Court of Georgia, 2018)
Moore v. Jones
831 S.E.2d 736 (Supreme Court of Georgia, 2019)
Taylor v. State
303 Ga. 624 (Supreme Court of Georgia, 2018)
Taylor v. State
303 Ga. 225 (Supreme Court of Georgia, 2018)
MOORE v. THE STATE (Two Cases)
306 Ga. 500 (Supreme Court of Georgia, 2019)
Thomas v. State
847 S.E.2d 147 (Supreme Court of Georgia, 2020)

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