McClain v. State

• Decision Date: 09 September 1980
• Docket Number: No. 94,94
• Citation: 419 A.2d 369,288 Md. 456
• Parties: James McCLAIN v. STATE of Maryland.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

Page 456

288 Md. 456

419 A.2d 369

James McCLAIN v. STATE of Maryland.

No. 94.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

Sept. 9, 1980.

Patricia A. Logan, Asst. Public Defender, Baltimore, (Alan H. Murrell, Public Defender, Baltimore, on the brief), for appellant.

Ray E. Stokes, Asst. Atty. Gen., Baltimore (Stephen H. Sachs, Atty. Gen., Baltimore, on the brief), for appellee.

Argued before MURPHY, C. J., and SMITH, DIGGES, ELDRIDGE, COLE, DAVIDSON and RODOWSKY, JJ.

SMITH, Judge.

We are presented with two questions in this case: (1) Whether appellant James McClain preserved for appellate review the issue of whether statements obtained from him in violation of Maryland District Rule 709 a were not admissible in evidence, as we ultimately held in Johnson v. State, 282 Md. 314, 384 A.2d 709 (1978), and if so (2) whether Johnson is applicable to a case tried before our decision there but reached for appellate review after that decision. We answer both questions in the affirmative. Hence, we shall reverse the unreported decision of the Court of Special Appeals in McClain v. State, No. 867, September Term, 1978.

For purposes of our decision here it is not necessary to go into all of the lurid details of the alleged crime. Suffice it to say that McClain was convicted of murder in the first degree by a Baltimore City jury. The victim was a ten-month old baby allegedly thrown down the trash chute of a high-rise residential building. He was arrested at 2:43 P.M. on September 11, 1976, and completed the giving of an inculpatory statement at 2:55 P.M. on September 12.

Former Maryland District Rule 709a read:

A defendant shall be taken before a conveniently available judicial officer without unnecessary delay and in no event later than the earlier of (1) twenty-four hours after arrest or (2) the first session of court after the defendant's arrest upon a warrant, or, where an arrest has been made without a warrant, the first session of court after the charging of the defendant. Such charging shall take place promptly after arrest.

It was this rule which was applicable to McClain's case. ¹ In Johnson Judge Levine said for the Court:

In our opinion the protection of the right of an accused to prompt production before a judicial officer following arrest will be most effectively accomplished by a per se exclusionary rule. Not only is such a rule calculated to deter unlawful detentions and to preserve the integrity of the criminal justice system, but it is likely to assure more certain and even-handed application of the prompt presentment requirement and will provide to trial courts, the bar and law enforcement officials greater guidance as to the permissible limits of custodial interrogation prior to an initial appearance. Commonwealth v. Davenport, (471 Pa. 278,) 370 A.2d (301,) 306 ((1977)). (Id. at 328, 384 A.2d at 717.)

We therefore hold that any statement, voluntary or otherwise, obtained from an arrestee during a period of unnecessary delay in producing him before a judicial officer, thereby violating M.D.R. 723 a, is subject to exclusion when offered into evidence against the defendant as part of the prosecution's case-in-chief. A statement is automatically excludible if, at the time it was obtained from the defendant, he had not been produced before a commissioner for his initial appearance within the earlier of 24 hours after arrest or the first session of court following arrest, irrespective of the reason for the delay. (Id. at 328-29, 384 A.2d at 717.)

The State concedes that there was not compliance with MDR 709 a. It contends, however, that the objection to the admissibility of the statement was not based upon a ground similar to that before the Court in Johnson. Hence, it claims the point is waived. It further contends that in any event the rule enunciated in Johnson should be applicable only to cases tried subsequent to April 6, 1978, the date of our decision in Johnson.

I

McClain's attorney said in his argument on the motion to suppress the statements:

In this case the defendant was not given the opportunity to obtain counsel, either court appointed or privately retained or by virtue of the fact that the officer held the defendant without charging the defendant and the defendant did not have an opportunity to be taken before the Commissioner. If charged immediately, he should have been taken before the Commissioner for the purpose of normally advising him of his rights and then the Commissioner would be able to make a determination that the defendant either should have or should not have counsel at that time, depending on the results as to what the Commissioner decided. The defendant did not have this opportunity. The defendant was arrested and after he refused to give a statement and saying he had no knowledge of what happened, he was held overnight and was not given the opportunity to go before the Commissioner or not given the opportunity to have private counsel, obviously the defendant couldn't have private counsel, he has a public defender representing him at trial . . . I think at that point the officer's obligation was either to charge the defendant or to release the defendant and not start all over again the following day and try to pry or force to bring on him psychologically to do away with his will to resist. It is conceivable that the officer, by going back the next day and asking him again and asking him the questions on the explanation of rights, that he was trying to get the defendant to tell him what he wanted him to tell him. From the facts in this case, the defendant should have been taken before the Commissioner on the eleventh of September and he should have had the opportunity to avail himself of either private attorney or a court appointed attorney. . . .

. . . I say as an alternative they should have released him, he was not either charged or released, but was held incommunicado by the police without being in any kind of official status in the system. He was held in limbo, if you will; he had no way of getting an attorney to get him before a judge. If he had private counsel to get him before a court, what private counsel would have done was to file a habeas corpus and try to interpose himself. The fact is that the defendant was not charged. I respectfully suggest that the Statement made by the Defendant should be ruled inadmissible in evidence. . . .

The Court of Special Appeals said:

The record discloses that at the suppression hearing and at the trial on the merits of the case, appellant's objection to the admissibility of the inculpatory statement was based on the fact that the statement was not voluntary in the traditional sense. Although appellant, on the motion to suppress argued, among other things, about the delay in charging and presenting him before a judicial officer, this argument was in the context of the voluntariness of the statement rather than the per se exclusionary rule which was never mentioned. Because appellant stated the specific ground for his objection to the admissibility of the statement, both at the hearing on the motion to suppress and at the trial on the merits of the case, he is bound by the ground stated and is deemed to have waived other grounds not mentioned. Von Lusch v. State, 279 Md. 255, 262-63 (, 368 A.2d 468) (1977).

Accordingly, we conclude that the issue of the State's violation of Maryland Rule 723a is not properly before this court.

We disagree. The argument was directed at voluntariness but it included that a statement was obtained while McClain was held in violation of MDR 709 a. It may well be, as suggested from the bench at argument in this case by one of the judges in the majority in Johnson, that bench and bar prior to our decision in Johnson had been of the view that the fact an individual was held in violation of the rule was simply one of the factors to be taken into consideration in weighing the voluntariness of the statement. It certainly was not incumbent upon trial counsel to object on the ground that on April 6, 1978, we would decide Johnson as it was decided. We hold that the issue was raised.

II

We discussed the matter of retroactivity of court decisions in Wiggins v. State, 275 Md. 689, 701-07, 344 A.2d 80 (1975), and most recently in State v. Hicks, 285 Md. 310, 336-38, 403 A.2d 356 (1979). As we pointed out in Wiggins, the genesis of the modern retroactivity doctrine in criminal litigation is Linkletter v. Walker, 381 U.S. 618, 85 S.Ct. 1731, 14 L.Ed.2d 601 (1965), in which Mr. Justice Clark said for the Court:

(T)he accepted rule today is that in appropriate cases the Court may in the interest of justice make the rule prospective. (Id. at 628, 85 S.Ct. at 1737.)

(T)he Constitution neither prohibits nor requires retrospective effect. As Justice Cardozo said (in Great N. Ry. v. Sunburst Co., 287 U.S. 358, 364, 53 S.Ct. 145, 148, 77 L.Ed. 360 (1932)), "We think the federal constitution has no voice upon the subject." (Id. at 629, 85 S.Ct. at 1737.)

As we noted in Hicks the Supreme Court has mandated the retroactive application of cases:

(W)here the rule involved affects the integrity of the fact-finding process, or where it is a non-procedural rule that would render a trial constitutionally impermissible (e. g., a new double jeopardy ruling), or where it renders a certain type of punishment impermissible . . . . (Id. 285 Md. at 336, 403 A.2d at 370.)

We went on to say in Hicks:

Where retroactivity is not mandated under the above criteria, a balancing test involving three prongs is employed to determine whether the new ruling should be applied prospectively only. Those three considerations are: (1) the purpose of the new ruling; (2) the reliance placed upon the old ruling; and (3) the effect on the administration of justice of a retrospective application of the new ruling. Stovall v. Denno, 388 U.S. 293, 296-297, 87 S.Ct. 1967, 1969-1970, 18 L.Ed.2d 1199 (1967); Linkletter v. Walker, 381 U.S. 618, 636, 85...