DALTON, Ga. — The Supreme Court of Georgia has ruled against two men who appealed to the court in Whitfield County cases.

Frank Scott Bozzie was convicted of malice murder and other crimes in connection with the death of Richard Morgan in June of 2013.

“Bozzie … argues that the evidence was insufficient to support his malice murder conviction, the trial court made numerous evidentiary errors, he should be granted a new trial due to alleged juror misconduct, he received ineffective assistance of trial counsel and the trial court erred in refusing to secure his attendance for the motion for new trial hearing,” the court’s opinion by Justice Nels S.D. Peterson said. “Because none of these claims is meritorious, we affirm Bozzie’s convictions.”

According to a prior summary prepared by the court’s Office of Public Information, after a live-in girlfriend left Bozzie, the woman contacted Morgan to come get her. The next morning, she went with Morgan and another man to a McDonald’s. As they were in Morgan’s van in the parking lot, Bozzie drove his truck toward them, “ramming” the van. Bozzie then hit one of the men with a baseball bat and punched the woman in the mouth when she refused to get in his truck. Bozzie left and the three went to Morgan’s home.

Morgan was calling 911 from his front yard to report the attack when Bozzie ran over Morgan with his truck, dragging him some 32 feet. Law enforcement officers tried unsuccessfully to get the truck off Morgan and he died of asphyxia.

A Whitfield County jury convicted Bozzie of murder and aggravated assault among other crimes in June of 2014 and he was sentenced to life without parole plus 51 years in prison. 

Lawrence Edward Womac was convicted of the aggravated sexual battery of a 13-year-old girl in 2014.

Womac “appeals his convictions and sentences for aggravated sexual battery, child molestation, cruelty to children in the first degree and false imprisonment. On appeal, Womac argues, among other things, that his life sentence for aggravated sexual battery constitutes cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Georgia Constitution,” Justice Carol W. Hunstein wrote in the court’s opinion. “For the reasons that follow, and finding no additional error, we affirm” the convictions and sentences, finding the “constitutional challenge to be without merit.”

According to a prior summary prepared by the court’s Office of Public Information, Womac invited a 13-year-old girl and her siblings into his room at a Dalton motel to watch television. She told police that Womac had touched her inappropriately in several ways.