A jury convicted Ronnie Chinn of the murder of cab driver John Agazie.1 Chinn contends that the State struck four jurors for racially motivated reasons and the prosecutor made an improper closing argument. Because the State provided persuasive race-neutral reasons for striking four African-Americans as jurors and the closing argument did not invite jurors to put themselves in the place of the victim, we affirm. The State indicted Chinn, Marika Wicks, and Robert Prater for malice murder, two counts of felony murder, armed robbery, aggravated assault, hijacking a motor vehicle, and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony. Prater pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit armed robbery and testified on behalf of the State at the joint trial of Chinn and Wicks. The jury convicted both defendants on all seven counts in the indictment. The trial court sentenced Chinn to life imprisonment on the murder count, twenty years concurrent imprisonment on the armed robbery and aggravated assault counts, twenty years consecutive imprisonment on the hijacking count, and five years consecutive imprisonment on the firearm possession count. The felony murder convictions were vacated by operation of law.
1. The evidence presented at trial shows that several people saw Chinn with a .22 pistol at a party earlier that Saturday night. After leaving the party, Chinn, Wicks, and Prater discussed robbing a cab driver to get money. A cab driver saw three young men enter Agazie’s cab at the East Point MARTA station around 1 a.m. on Sunday. Prater and other witnesses testified that he was getting out of the cab when Chinn shot Agazie in the back of the head and then Wicks jumped and fired his gun. The three men pulled the victim from the car and drove off; they found $50 when they searched the cab. Around 3:30 a.m., a police officer arrested Wicks for driving under the influence and observed blood and pieces of flesh in the car, which police found was leased to Agazie. Several days later, police found Agazie’s body in the woods and recovered two bullets from it, including a .22 caliber lead bullet. Based on statements that Chinn’s co-conspirators made to associates after the murder, police issued warrants for the arrest of Chinn, Wicks, and Prater. A FBI fugitive task force arrested Chinn several months later in Gary, Indiana. After reviewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the jury’s determination of guilt, we conclude that a rational trier of fact could have found Chinn guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the crimes of which he was convicted.2
