A DeKalb County man will be freed from incarceration after spending more than a dozen years behind bars for a murder that prosecutors now say he did not commit.
During a brief hearing Thursday, Superior Court Judge Dan Coursey, with the backing of prosecutors, dismissed all charges against David Peralta.
“David is very relieved this is all over,” Tully Blalock, one of Peralta’s lawyers, said. “Part of the tragedy of this is that it’s taken a very long time to get David out. But we’re pleased that the state decided to drop the charges. The evidence shows he did not commit the crime.”
Peralta was convicted of the 2001 murder of 22-year-old Rebecca Moore of Norcross. Prosecutors said he fired shots into a Cadillac she was riding in as the car turned into a gas station on Pleasantdale Road. Peralta, then a member of the Latin Kings gang, killed Moore because she had disrespected him and was threatening to expose their sexual relationship to Peralta’s fiancée, prosecutors said.
Years after Peralta’s trial, however, federal agents investigating gang activity came across evidence that Peralta, who always maintained his innocence, may not have been Moore’s killer. Instead, agents learned, four members of the Sur-13 gang were involved and Daniel “Vago” Cortez fired the two shots that struck and killed Moore. (Cortez was fatally shot at a Roswell park two months after Moore’s murder.)
The U.S. Attorney’s Office provided this new information to Peralta’s lawyers and arranged interviews of the witnesses with Peralta’s legal team. Peralta’s lawyers, working free of charge from the firm King & Spalding, then filed a motion for a new trial.
During an August 2011 court hearing, Peralta’s lawyers cited the new testimony and noted that the car in which Cortez was riding in the night of Moore’s murder was a dark-green, four-door Daewoo, which closely resembled the description of the killer’s car by witnesses to the shooting.
But Michael Carson, who then headed DeKalb’s gang unit, told Coursey his office had obtained a conviction against the real killer — Peralta. Carlson noted Peralta fled Atlanta when he knew police were looking for him.
In April, more than 20 months after the hearing, Coursey granted Peralta a new trial.
On Thursday, in an order prepared by DeKalb prosecutors, Coursey noted that the state has now re-interviewed the five surviving victims of Moore’s shooting and none place Peralta at the crime scene. Prosecutors have also interviewed two men who confirmed they were in the car with Cortez when he shot and killed Moore.
“Because the state no longer believes (Peralta) committed this murder and feels it no longer has evidence to successfully try (Peralta) and prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, we will not proceed with the prosecution of this case,” the order says. It also notes that prosecutors have discussed this with Moore’s family, “and although they are disappointed with the result, they are in agreement.”
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