Charges dropped after Columbus man spends 35 years in prison

Thirty-five years after he was convicted and sentenced to life in prison for rape, aggravated sodomy and burglary, Paul Jerome Tyner is a free man.

The Georgia Court of Appeals overturned his convictions Nov. 20, 2015, ruling Tyner deserved a new trial because the late Judge John Land had erred in denying Tyner’s request to have an attorney resume his defense after trying to represent himself.

That sent the case back to Muscogee County Superior Court, where it was assigned to Judge William Rumer, who eventually reduced Tyner’s bonds from $375,000 to $60,000, so after decades of incarceration, Tyner finally was able to leave jail.

Tyner’s case came before Rumer again Friday morning, when prosecutors informed the judge they had decided to dead-docket the charges.

Now Tyner no longer faces prosecution for what authorities charged was a series of violent sexual assaults against Columbus women whose homes he broke into over eight months in 1980 and 1981.

Initially charged in a 25-count indictment, a jury convicted him Sept. 23, 1981, on two counts each of rape, aggravated sodomy and burglary. While lamenting the U.S. Supreme Court had “made a mistake” by eliminating the death penalty for rape, Land gave Tyner two life sentences after a two-day trial.

It was during the trial’s conclusion that Land made crucial errors by denying Tyner the assistance of counsel, the appeals court decided.

Land erred first by letting Tyner represent himself in closing arguments — without adequate warning of the possible consequences — and second by refusing to let Tyner defer to his court-appointed attorney when he proved incapable of his own defense.

When Tyner brought up matters that were not in evidence, he drew multiple objections from then-Assistant District Attorney Doug Pullen. Judge Land sustained Pullen’s objections and repeatedly warned Tyner to stick to the trial evidence.

Tyner finally gave up: “I keep making these mistakes,” he told Land. “Is it OK that the lawyer just go on and argue, because I don’t quite understand where you are coming from. It would be all right with me if the lawyer would just take over here, because I keep making these mistakes.”

Replied Land: “I can’t let you toy with the court; you get up and say you want to make the argument and then say you want your lawyer to make the argument. … Any mistakes you make, the court will correct them. I just must keep cautioning you that the argument must be confined to evidence introduced during the trial and logical deductions. You can’t go into other evidence and testimony and so forth that might or might not have been admissible, because the jury didn’t hear it.”

He ordered Tyner to proceed as court-appointed defense attorney Richard Zimmerman sat by. Tyner did, and another series of objections and court admonitions ensued before the arguments ended. He was found guilty and sentenced the same day.

In the decades to follow, Tyner’s case got lost in the judicial system, though he repeatedly sought legal counsel for an appeal and tried to appeal on his own.

Tyner appealed for a new trial on Oct. 19, 1981, and Land denied the motion July 2, 1982. On Oct. 21, 1982, Tyner asked for an attorney to represent him on appeal. Land refused that request on Oct. 27, 1982.

Finally in 2013, the Georgia Innocence Project took an interest in Tyner’s case and brought it to the attention of the local public defender’s office.

Attorney Bentley Adams III moved Oct. 29, 2013, for an “out of time” appeal for Tyner, which Rumer granted in Feb. 13, 2014. Though Rumer denied Tyner’s motion for a new trial the following Oct. 22, attorneys with the Georgia Public Defenders Standards Council appealed that to the state Court of Appeals.

The appeals court in 2015 ruled Land should have held a hearing to determine whether Tyner fully understood the ramifications of representing himself, and should not have summarily denied Tyner’s request that his attorney take over again.

Citing the 2009 precedent Wilkerson v. State, the appeals court wrote:

“The right to counsel … does not evaporate following a valid waiver, and a defendant may make a post-waiver request for counsel if, for example, he is overwhelmed by the trial process. Whether to grant or deny a defendant’s post-waiver request for counsel is within the broad discretion of the trial court.”

Though that decision was within Land’s discretion, the judge had no practical reason for denying Tyner’s request, other than to prevent his “toying with the court,” the judges wrote: “We conclude that, under the circumstances, the trial court’s insistence that Tyner continue pro se (as his own attorney) was unjustified, given that closing argument, receiving the verdict, and sentencing are critical stages of the trial.”

Tyner more recently has been represented by Columbus attorney Stacey Jackson, who said Friday that retrying the case would have been difficult for both the prosecution and defense.

Jackson said some physical evidence could have been tested for DNA — a method not available in 1981 — but it since has been lost or destroyed. “That was going to be one of our issues,” he said.

Beyond that, some witnesses have died since Tyner’s trial, and though prosecutors could have used trial transcripts to introduce that testimony, the defense could not have subjected it to cross-examination.

The memories of witnesses still available undoubtedly have faded over the years, Jackson said. “These are obviously logistical issues that could hamper both sides,” he said.

District Attorney Julia Slater was not available for comment Friday.

Though Tyner was convicted of six charges, his initial 25-count indictment was much more extensive:

• Counts 1-3 charged that on Aug. 26, 1980, Tyner with a pistol broke into a woman’s home, raped her and robbed her of $5.
• Counts 4-6 charged that on Sept. 8, 1980, he with a pistol broke into another woman’s home, raped her and robbed her of a $100 gold necklace with a diamond pendant.
• Counts 7-10 charged that on Sept. 13, 1980, he with a pistol broke into a third woman’s home, raped her and robbed her of a yellow-gold diamond ring worth $450.
• Counts 11-13 charged that on Sept. 20, 1980, Tyner with a pistol broke into a fourth woman’s home, raped her and robbed her of a gold wedding ring worth $250.
• Counts 14 and 15 charged that on Sept. 23, 1980, he broke into a fifth woman’s home and raped her.
• Counts 16-19 charged that on March 28, 1981, Tyner with a pistol robbed a man of $13, and that same day broke into a sixth woman’s home, raped her and robbed her of $20 cash and a white-gold diamond ring worth $500.
• Counts 20-25 charged that on July 25, 1981, Tyner broke into a seventh woman’s home, raped her; and that same day broke into an eighth woman’s residence and raped her.

The latter two incidents were the counts on which Tyner was prosecuted, convicted and sentenced in 1981.

Born in 1957, Tyner was 24 years old when Land sentenced him to life in prison. Today he is 59.

This story was originally published December 9, 2016 at 3:52 PM with the headline "Charges dropped after Columbus man spends 35 years in prison."