Gorman v. State
| Decision Date | 26 April 2006 |
| Docket Number | No. 1282, September Term, 2004.,1282, September Term, 2004. |
| Citation | 897 A.2d 242,168 Md. App. 412 |
| Parties | Christopher GORMAN v. STATE of Maryland. |
| Court | Court of Special Appeals of Maryland |
Brian M. Saccenti (Nancy S. Forster, Public Defender, on the brief), Baltimore, for Appellant.
Edward J. Kelley (J. Joseph Curran, Jr., Atty. Gen., on the brief), Baltimore, for Appellee.
Panel: SALMON, ADKINS and SHARER, JJ.
Christopher Gorman was arrested and charged with numerous narcotic and firearm possession offenses. Before trial, he moved to suppress the physical evidence seized in his apartment, claiming that it was obtained pursuant to a warrantless entry that violated the Fourth Amendment. The Circuit Court for Baltimore City denied his motion on the grounds that the warrantless entry was justified by exigent circumstances. A jury convicted Gorman of four firearm possession charges, and he was sentenced to ten years in prison.
In this appeal, Gorman contends that the suppression court erred when it denied his motion to suppress. He claims that there were no exigent circumstances, and that even if there were, warrantless entries to arrest for marijuana possession are presumptively unreasonable because that crime is a "minor offense." We disagree, and will affirm the judgment because we conclude that the warrantless entry was reasonable under the circumstances.
On July 9, 2002, at about 10:00 p.m., Sergeant Steven Nalewajkl, a twenty-one year veteran with the Baltimore City Police Department, was called to investigate a shooting in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Baltimore City.1 Upon arrival at the scene, Sgt. Nalewajkl observed that Christopher Gorman had suffered a gunshot wound. He also encountered Gorman's girlfriend, Leslie Nicole Harmon, who was pregnant and not wearing any shoes. Because he wished to question Harmon about the shooting, Sgt. Nalewajkl, accompanied by Detective Clarence Grear, escorted the woman in an unmarked police cruiser to her apartment to retrieve her shoes. Harmon shared this apartment, located about five blocks from the scene of the shooting, at 932 East Patapsco Avenue, with Gorman and his brother, Curtis Painter.
When they arrived at the apartment house, Sgt. Nalewajkl accompanied Harmon to the second floor apartment, explaining that he did so because "possible witnesses to shootings disappear on you." Harmon attempted to open the door to the apartment, but it was locked. She "jingled the handle," and then knocked on the door. From inside the apartment, a man asked her to identify herself, and after a "minute or two," Painter answered the door. Painter appeared to Sgt. Nalewajkl to be very nervous:
Sgt. Nalewajkl also "smelled the odor of burnt marijuana emanating from the apartment."2 His observation of Painter and the smell of marijuana caused his "intent" to change while at the apartment door:
And when I asked him what he was so nervous about, he said he had two bags of weed.
Nalewajkl then entered the apartment and placed Painter under arrest:
Nalewajkl clarified the sequence of events:
[S]he just knocked on the door, and I stepped into the apartment with her and immediately smelled the odor of burnt marijuana on the inside. I'm inside — I'm right at the doorway where they opened the door, and he opens the door, I could smell the burnt marijuana. I could see him extremely nervous.
...
So, then, I asked him why he was nervous. He said he had two bags of weed, so instantaneously he was under arrest.
Harmon testified that she walked into the apartment and immediately entered her bedroom, which was three feet to the right of the doorway. She never told Nalewajkl to enter the apartment, but could hear him questioning Painter while she was in the bedroom. She first noticed that Nalewajkl had come inside when she emerged from the bedroom with her shoes. Painter similarly testified that Nalewajkl simply followed Harmon into the apartment and began questioning him, and that neither he, nor Harmon, ever invited Nalewajkl in.
Upon entering the apartment, Sgt. Nalewajkl placed Painter under arrest. He called Detective Grear, who was still sitting in the cruiser, to come place handcuffs on Painter. He then "secured the apartment for any persons that might be in the apartment" because he "was going to get a search warrant." When asked what he meant by "secure the apartment," Nalewajkl explained:
...
And the fact that if you don't secure the apartment, evidence could be destroyed.
As the sergeant went through the apartment, he noticed a chair in an open closet. The back of the chair was facing outwards. Because it was "unusual to have a chair in the closet," and because he "believed [a] person may have been standing on the chair to secret himself in the closet," Sgt. Nalewajkl went to investigate. He observed that inside the closet "there was an attic that was open and there was the butt of a handgun on the ledge of the closet." He then "secured the rest of the house."
A search warrant was obtained, pursuant to which police seized cocaine, various firearms, walkie-talkie radios, digital scales, and assorted drug paraphernalia. As a result of the seizure of these goods, most of which were found in the closet, Gorman was named in two separate indictments, totaling 26 counts for various narcotic and firearm possession offenses.
Gorman moved to suppress the weapons, drugs, and other items that were seized in his apartment, arguing that because Nalewajkl never had legal authority to enter the apartment in the first place, their discovery was the fruit of the poisonous tree. The circuit court conducted a hearing on the motion, at which defense counsel indicated that the "only focus of this hearing is going to be whether or not [the police] had the initial right to go into the apartment."
The court denied Gorman's motion. It reasoned that the entry into the apartment was justified by exigent circumstances, explaining:
Having reviewed the authorities and considered all of the arguments and the evidence in particular, . . . it is my belief that under the Maryland law that exists at this time, when the officer was at the door and testified that he smelled the odor of burning marijuana and had someone before him who appeared as though he may have been smoking marijuana, that he had, at that point, probable cause, and that the fact that it was a substance that could be so easily disposed of, that, in addition to the probable cause, there was exigency which allowed him to both make an arrest and then do a brief search of the immediate area for officer's safety and for contraband, and that led to him looking into the closet and seeing the butt of the weapon, which later led to the State's using that as probable cause to obtain a search and seizure warrant which was later executed.
So, on the basis of that, the Court is going to deny the motion.
The two cases against Gorman were tried together. Gorman was convicted of four counts of possessing regulated firearms after having been convicted of a prior felony that disqualified him from possession of firearms. See former Md.Code, Art. 27 § 445(d)(1)(ii) (recodified as Md. Code, Pub. Safety § 5-133(b) (2003)). He was sentenced to ten years in prison.
Gorman's sole question on appeal is whether the suppression court erred in denying his motion to suppress on grounds that there were exigent circumstances. He argues that the court erred because (1) the State did not meet its burden of showing that Sgt. Nalewajkl's entry was to protect against the destruction of evidence, and (2) a warrantless entry can never be justified by exigent circumstances where the underlying offense is marijuana possession, because that crime is a "minor offense." For the reasons explained in detail below, we conclude that the suppression court properly denied the motion.
Our review of the circuit court's denial of a motion to suppress evidence is confined to the record of the suppression hearing. See Faulkner v. State, 156 Md. App. 615, 640, 847 A.2d 1216, cert. denied, 382 Md. 685, 856 A.2d 721 (2004). We "consider the evidence in the light most favorable to the prevailing party," here, the State. Id. We also "accept the suppression court's first-level factual findings unless clearly erroneous, and give due regard to the court's opportunity to assess the credibility of witnesses." Id. We exercise plenary review of the suppression court's conclusions of law, and "make our own constitutional appraisal as to whether an action taken was proper, by reviewing the law and applying it to the facts of the case." Id.
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