Adams v. State Of Md.
Decision Date | 03 September 2010 |
Docket Number | No. 13,13 |
Parties | TRACY WENDELL ADAMS, v. STATE OF MARYLAND |
Court | Court of Special Appeals of Maryland |
HEADNOTE:
CRIMINAL LAW-JURY REVIEW OF EVIDENCE-MARYLAND RULE 4-326
When evidence, which the trial judge, prior to the beginning of deliberations, indicated would be sent to the jury room, is not sent and the jury, after deliberations have started, requests to view that evidence, Maryland Rule 4-326 (b), rather than (c), applies.
Bell, C.J. Harrell Battaglia, Greene, Murphy, Adkins, Eldridge, John C. (Retired, specially assigned), JJ.
Opinion by Bell, C.J.
Tracy Wendell Adams, the petitioner, was charged both with possessing cocaine and distributing it to a Salisbury Police Department police officer, who was working undercover, in Salisbury, Wicomico County. The drug transaction was video recorded, although, because he never went to the passenger side of the undercover vehicle, where the video camera was situated, only the voice, and not the image, of the seller was reflected on the videotape. The petitioner was tried by jury in the Circuit Court for Wicomico County. Officer Drewer, the undercover officer, testified as to the authenticity and the contents of the videotape and, upon his sponsorship, the videotape was admitted into evidence. With regard to the petitioner's involvement in the drug transaction, he testified that the petitioner, whom he identified by description, in court and by photographic array, was the person who sold him the cocaine.
After all the evidence was in, the jury had been instructed and just before it was excused to begin deliberating, a juror inquired, "Judge Truitt, can we take the evidence with us?" The trial judge responded: "I'm going to send it in there." The jury retired to deliberate.
Twenty-four minutes after the jury retired to begin deliberations, "the jury sent a note requesting to see the videotape that had been admitted as [an] [e]xhibit," Adams v. State, 183 Md. App. 188, 201, 960 A.2d 1215, 1222 (2008), prompting the following colloquy:
The petitioner was found guilty and sentenced to twenty years imprisonment. On appeal, the Court of Special Appeals affirmed the judgment of the Circuit Court, concluding that the trial judge did not abuse his discretion because the "trial court articulated anacceptable reason for refusing the jury's request." Adams, 183 Md. App. at 206, 960 A.2d at 1225. The intermediate appellate court elaborated:
Id. at 205, 960 A.2d at 1225. We granted the petitioner's petition for writ of certiorari, Adams v. State, 407 Md. 529, 967 A.2d 182 (2009), to answer the question: whether the trial judge erred in refusing to permit the jury to review the videotape of an alleged drug transaction which had been admitted into evidence. We shall answer that question in the affirmative and, thus, hold that, where, as here, evidence has been admitted and the trial judge has not made a good cause determination as to its appropriateness to be taken into the jury room, the trial judge abuses his or her discretion when he or she thereafter denies the jury the right to review that evidence in the jury room. Accordingly, we shall reverse.
The issue to be resolved in this case is which section of Rule 4-326, "Jury-Review of Evidence-Communications," applies when the jury asks to review an exhibit, which has been admitted into evidence, but has not been, although the court indicated to the jury that it would be, sent to the jury room. The question thus presented is one of Rule construction, the precepts of which are well established:
In re Mark M., 365 Md. 687, 711, 782 A.2d 332, 346 (2001).
Although section (d) certainly is relevant to the question we are called upon to answer and, indeed, was in play in this case, as it prescribes the manner in which jury communications are to be handled, it does not address either what the jury may take to the jury room during deliberations, what it is privileged to review without court permission or when it must seek court permission to review evidence. Section (a) is not implicated by the issue presented in this case; it involves a discrete matter, juror notes, their control and use, that is in no way pertinent to its resolution. Thus, the sections relevant to the issue we are to address are sections (b) and (c).
Section (b) covers what the jury is permitted to have in the jury room when deliberating. With the exception of juror notes, for which there is no condition, the determination of what will accompany the jury when it retires for that purpose is entrusted to the trial judge. Thus, the charging document and, with the exception of depositions, exhibitsadmitted into evidence may be taken into the jury room during deliberations, "[u]nless the court for good cause2 orders otherwise." Depositions require "agreement of all parties and the consent of the court." "[O]nly with the permission of the court," may a jury have "electronically recorded instructions or oral instructions reduced to writing...taken into the jury room."
Section (c) applies to requests by the jury to review evidence to which it does not have access. Such evidence would include "testimony," specifically identified in the Rule, and "other evidence." The latter reference necessarily suggests that it contemplates and refers to evidence that was not admitted into evidence as an exhibit, i.e., evidence that was not allowed to be taken to the jury room pursuant to section (b).
...
To continue reading
Request your trial