In late December 2009, a woman named Mae H. told police in Cherokee County, Georgia, that her niece had said that 57-year-old James Ray, a relative, had sexually assaulted her at some point between April and December 2009.
Court records say the 32-year-old niece, known as W.A, was “mentally challenged,” without providing elaboration.
On December 29, 2009, Linda Banik, a forensic interviewer at the Anna Crawford Children’s Center in Woodstock, Georgia, interviewed W.A., who was accompanied by Mae.
Ray was indicted on sexual battery and two counts of aggravated battery on February 4, 2011. Four years later, his case still hadn’t gone to trial, and the indictment was amended to include rape. The trial began more than five years after the original indictment, on March 28, 2016, in Cherokee County Superior Court.
In October 2015, prior to the trial’s start, Ray’s attorney had sought to include evidence that Mae had in the past falsely accused other individuals of sexual misconduct involving family members. The evidence asserted that Mae had coached her daughter, Leona, to bring false allegations of rape and sexual abuse involving Leona and Leona’s daughter.
Judge Jackson Harris excluded the evidence because Mae had died in 2015. Ray’s attorney also sought to introduce evidence that W.A. had been sexually abused by other relatives as a child, and it was this abuse that gave her knowledge of sexual information. Judge Harris also barred the use of this evidence. He did allow the state to use Mae’s interview with the police.
At trial, W.A. testified that Ray had inserted his “boy part” into her “girlie part,” touched her “girlie part” with his tongue and finger, placed a sex toy on her “girlie part,” and touched her breast with his tongue. She testified that Ray never asked whether he could touch her, that she did not want to have sexual relations with him, and that the encounters made her feel dirty.
The jury also watched W.A.’s videotaped interview at the children’s center.
Banik, the forensic interviewer, testified that, “I felt like … she had in fact had sex with Jimmy. There was no doubt in my mind that happened.” W.A., with the help of Mae, had kept a journal, which was introduced at trial. Banik testified that the entries bolstered W.A.’s claims of abuse. “I’m saying they were credible,” Banik said. “They were written in the journal, so she clearly wrote them.”
A doctor testified about an examination he performed on W.A. after she reported the alleged sexual assault. He said he saw no signs of recent trauma or visible injury. According to the doctor’s examination, W.A. still had a partially intact hymen. Prior to his testimony, the state said it did not plan to discuss this finding, and Judge Harris agreed that it was “an inconclusive thing” and “not really evidence.”
The jury convicted Ray of rape and two counts of sexual battery on April 15, 2016, and on July 7, 2016, he was sentenced to life in prison, with a requirement that he serve at least 25 years of that sentence.
Now represented by Scott Poole, Ray moved for a new trial on July 25, 2016. The motion was later amended on April 21, 2017.
The amended motion said that Judge Harris had erred in excluding evidence of W.A.’s past sexual abuse and evidence of Mae’s pattern of falsely accusing others of sexual misconduct.
The amended motion also said that Ray’s trial attorney had been ineffective, not objecting to the state’s introduction of Mae’s interview with the police and not questioning the doctor about the victim’s hymen.
The amended motion also said the trial attorney should have moved to dismiss the case because the five-plus years between the indictment and the trial violated Ray’s right to a speedy trial.
After the trial court affirmed the conviction, the Court of Appeals of Georgia reversed that ruling on March 7, 2018, and remanded the case to Cherokee County to do a more thorough analysis of whether Ray’s right to a speedy trial had been violated. It also said that Judge Harris did not perform a proper review before excluding the evidence related to Mae and her other allegations of abuse.
Ruling in a separate case in 2019, the Georgia Supreme Court tightened up the admissibility guidelines for evidence of prior false allegations in sexual assault cases and instructed the Court of Appeals to reconsider its decision in the Ray case based on that ruling. On April 2, 2020, the Court of Appeals again directed Cherokee County to hold a hearing on the evidence related to Mae and the speedy-trial claim.
On May 5, 2022, Judge Harris vacated Ray’s conviction based on ineffective assistance of counsel and dismissed the case based on the state violating Ray’s right to a speedy trial.
Judge Harris said that the 61 months between the indictment and the trial was “uncommonly long,” and the state was primarily responsible for the delay. He noted that the state changed prosecutors and failed to obtain records from witnesses in a timely fashion. In addition, he said, “During the 61-month delay before the new prosecutor took over, the state led the defense to believe the charges would be dismissed, which actively discouraged the defense from pursuing a speedy trial demand.”
The delay had profound consequences for Ray’s case, because Mae died four years after the indictment but before the trial, the ruling said. “Had trial counsel filed a motion to dismiss the indictment based on denial of the defendant’s Constitutional Right to a Speedy Trial, said motion should have been granted,” the ruling said. “Therefore, trial counsel was ineffective.”
Judge Harris’s ruling did not say that he erred in excluding evidence regarding Mae, but instead deferred judgment on this issue. The ruling said, “The Court cannot find that the probative value of this inquiry would have been substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice, confusion of the issues, or that it would be misleading to the jury.”
The state appealed, and Ray was released from prison on July 7, 2022.
On February 21, 2023, the Court of Appeals of Georgia affirmed Judge Harris’s ruling, dismissing the case for good.
Ray filed a claim for state compensation on December 30, 2025. An administrative judge in the Office of State Administrative Hearings dismissed the claim on February 17, 2026, because Ray had not provided sufficient documentation to support his claim.
– Ken Otterbourg
Posting Date: 08-24-2026
