SEX CASE RETRIAL UNCLEAR.

Byline: KAREN MAESHIRO Staff Writer

LANCASTER -- Prosecutors said they will review the evidence before deciding to retry a Lancaster man whose conviction for impregnating a 12-year-old girl was thrown out on appeal.

The Second District Court of Appeal in June threw out the sexual-abuse conviction of Tyrell Dion Moore, saying a detective improperly continued questioning him when he said he didn't want to talk.

``All they said is, you can't use these statements. We now have to evaluate the case to determine whether we can go forward without these statements,'' prosecutor Kerry White said.

Moore is scheduled to appear Monday in Antelope Valley Superior Court.

``Whenever a case is overturned on appeal, it has to come back to court to determine what will happen to the case,'' White said.

Despite DNA tests showing Moore fathered the girl's baby, the appellate court overturned the conviction because his right to remain silent was violated and there was insufficient evidence without the confession to establish that Moore was guilty of ``continuous sexual abuse.''

``Those statements were critically important to the case. The statements were crucial on a particular point for that offense, continuous sexual abuse,'' White said. ``Those statements were used to establish the time period. We are looking to see if we can establish it some other way. If we can't, we can't go forward.''

Moore, 26, was convicted of continuous sexual abuse of a child and found to have inflicted great bodily injury on the girl, a relative of his girlfriend. He was sentenced in April 2005 to 15 years in prison.

The pregnancy was aborted at 12 weeks in August 2004, the court ruling said. DNA testing established that the defendant was the father, the ruling said.

The DNA evidence supplied overwhelming proof of the sexual misconduct, but the only direct evidence that it occurred over the three-month period needed to fit the legal definition of ``continuous sexual abuse'' came from Moore's confession, the ruling said.

The ruling said a detective had read Moore his Miranda rights, which included the right to remain silent, then asked whether he wanted to talk about what happened.

According to court papers, Moore said, ``I mean, I really ain't got nothing to say, because this, to me, is bulls---.''

But the detective continued asking questions, and Moore eventually admitted that during weekends starting in March 2004, he had sex with the girl on numerous occasions, the ruling said.

When the case got to court, the girl essentially recanted what she had told detectives about having sex with him.

``We conclude that defendant's right to remain silent was violated when he initially told (the detective) that he had nothing to say, and because of this, (defendant's statements) should have been suppressed,'' the ruling said.

The defendant's conviction can be upheld only if the record shows that admission of his statements was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. The error in this case was not harmless, the ruling said.

karen.maeshiro(at)dailynews.com

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