Arthur v. State
| Decision Date | 13 July 2011 |
| Docket Number | 2010.,No. 90,Sept. Term,90 |
| Citation | 420 Md. 512,24 A.3d 667 |
| Parties | Andre Devon ARTHURv.STATE of Maryland. |
| Court | Maryland Court of Appeals |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Marc A. DeSimone, Jr., Assistant Public Defender (Paul B. DeWolfe, Public Defender, Baltimore, MD), on brief, for Petitioner/Cross–Respondent.Edward J. Kelley, Asst. Atty. Gen. (Douglas F. Gansler, Atty. Gen. of Maryland, Baltimore, MD), on brief, for Respondent/Cross–Petitioner.Argued before BELL, C.J., HARRELL, BATTAGLIA, GREENE, MURPHY, ADKINS and BARBERA, JJ.ADKINS, J.
Fireworks were not the only things erupting on one Fourth of July evening in 2007. An airborne newspaper sparked an altercation between the defendant, Andre Arthur, and Corporal Eric Stanley, resulting in criminal charges against Arthur for failure to obey a lawful order and resisting arrest. At trial, Arthur presented evidence that Corporal Stanley did not have probable cause to arrest him, and thus Arthur had a right to resist. Yet, the trial court refused to instruct the jury on the right to resist an unlawful arrest. A jury convicted Arthur on both counts. On appeal, Arthur attacked the trial court's refusal to issue his instruction, as well as the sufficiency of the evidence supporting his failure to obey a lawful order conviction.
The Court of Special Appeals affirmed the convictions, holding that the evidence was sufficient and that, although Arthur had generated the requested jury instruction, it was adequately covered by other instructions given. Thus, the trial court did not err in refusing Arthur's instruction. Arthur then petitioned this Court, presenting the following issues for our review:
1. Is the evidence sufficient to sustain Mr. Arthur's convictions for failure to obey a lawful order and resisting arrest where the record only shows that he used foul language after being told by a police officer to “lower his voice[,] ... settle down”?
2. Did the trial court err in failing to instruct the jury, upon request, that a person is privileged to resist an unlawful warrantless arrest?
In response, the State filed its own petition, seeking answers to the following questions:
1. Did Arthur fail to preserve his challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence underlying his convictions?
2. Did the trial court correctly conclude that an instruction on the right to resist an unlawful arrest was not generated by the evidence?
We granted both petitions, and for the reasons stated below, we shall reverse the holding of our intermediate appellate court.
A few minutes before midnight on Independence Day 2007, Corporal Eric Stanley of the Frederick Police Department was driving his police vehicle northbound on Market Street when he observed a group of three people, including Arthur, walking together on the sidewalk. According to Stanley, he noticed Arthur “reach[ ] down and pick[ ] up a newspaper that had been left on the sidewalk [.]” As Stanley continued past the group, he “heard the thump of an item hitting [his] patrol vehicle[,]” and when he looked back, he realized that Arthur no longer had the newspaper in his hand. Stanley then stopped and exited his vehicle, saying to Arthur, “[H]ey, let me talk to you.” 1
Stanley later testified that, when he approached Arthur, the latter began yelling obscenities at him, specifically saying, “you get the fuck away from me, leave me the fuck alone[,]” and other words to that effect. Stanley responded by saying Yet Arthur “continued with his verbal ... onslaught[,]” attracting the attention of people standing outside of a restaurant farther up the block.2 Stanley told him “to lower his voice, to settle down, and he continued to refuse.” It was at this point that Stanley told Arthur that he was under arrest, placing his hand on Arthur's shirt. Arthur reacted by “try[ing] to pull from [Stanley] in a yanking, jerking motion[,]” and Stanley “called for another police officer to back [him] up to affect the arrest.” Arthur continued to struggle as three officers attempted to arrest him, leading them to “take him to the ground ... to prevent his fleeing[.]” Once on the ground, Arthur continued “kicking and pulling[,]” causing Stanley to sprain his ankle. Eventually, the officers were able to take Arthur into custody.
At trial, Arthur and his companions offered a different version of the night's events. Danielle Brigham, Arthur's girlfriend, testified that, while walking with Arthur down Market Street, she stopped to talk to a friend. When she turned around, “there was a cop that was approaching [Arthur] and he had asked him to put his hands behind his back and [Arthur] asked ... why am I getting arrested?” But the officer “just told him to put his hands behind his back.” When Arthur did so, the officer “put him on the ground and had put him eventually in the back of the car.” Danielle contradicted Stanley's account, saying that there hadn't been any struggle. Arthur's brother, DaSean, also testified that he was walking ahead of Arthur and turned around to see “the officer approaching him and [Arthur] asked ... why am I getting locked up[?]” “[A]t that moment that's when [the officer] grabbed him and just threw him to the ground for no reason[.]”
When Arthur took the stand, he explained that on the night of his arrest, he, his girlfriend, and his brother were returning from the park where they had viewed the Fourth of July fireworks. Arthur said that Stanley approached him, telling him to place his hands behind his back. Arthur then asked the officer if he was under arrest, and “[h]e said no.” So Arthur “continued to walk [,]” believing that he “didn't really have to continue to talk to him” because he was not under arrest. Stanley then “took [Arthur] by the shirt [and] slammed [him] up against the wall[.]” Arthur maintained that as he was talking to Stanley, he wasn't He also claimed that he sustained some injuries from the encounter with the police officers, receiving a cut on his hand because one of the officers smashed the handcuffs onto his finger instead of his wrist. Other injuries included:
a knee injury. [One of the officers] placed his knee into my neck. I had to get a head scan at the hospital for a, um, I believe it was a pinched nerve in my neck. I had shoulder injuries. I had about four or five cuts on my body from them just, you know, hitting me. One guy hit [me] with the baton like at least I would say four times, four or five times he hit me with the baton, and I was on my backside. While I was laying on my stomach.
Arthur did admit, however, that, before Stanley approached him, he had picked up the newspaper, and was tossing it across the street to one of his buddies who lived on that side of the street. He explained that he was not throwing the paper at any vehicles, but was simply “playing catch.” He also admitted that he had been “drinking a little bit[.]”
At the close of the State's case, Arthur's counsel unsuccessfully moved for a judgment of acquittal, arguing that he had a right to resist the arrest:
Apparently the officer says that he was under arrest ... concurrently with him grabbing him and saying you're under arrest. Based on that, Your Honor, he was never told why he was under arrest, what he had done. I'm also having problems that it kind of conflicts with what was in the report. But just based on the testimony you're under arrest, I mean I think he had a right to resist.
Arthur then renewed his motion at the close of all evidence, arguing that the The court denied the motion for the second time.
As the trial was drawing to a close, the court notified both parties that it would instruct the jury according to the Maryland Criminal Pattern Jury Instruction for resisting a warrantless arrest.3 Defense counsel asked the court to also instruct the jury that a person has the right to resist an unlawful arrest,4 but the court was not receptive to this request:
The court rejected counsel's request because the modification was not in the pattern instruction,5 and because it believed the defendant had not...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Molina v. State
...239, 196 A.3d 480 (2018), cert. denied , 462 Md. 576, 201 A.3d 1238 (2019). Some evidence is "a fairly low hurdle." Arthur v. State , 420 Md. 512, 526, 24 A.3d 667 (2011). "It calls for no more than what it says—‘some,’ as that word is understood in common, everyday usage. It need not rise ......
-
Porter v. State
...court's determination to give, or refuse to give, a requested jury instruction is reviewed for abuse of discretion. Arthur v. State , 420 Md. 512, 525, 24 A.3d 667 (2011). And, in reviewing a trial court's decision to grant, or deny, a requested instruction, we consider “(1) whether the req......
-
United States v. Aparicio-Soria
...against the walls and hitting each other,” continued “fighting” and “struggl[ing]” “the whole way” to police car). • Arthur v. State, 420 Md. 512, 24 A.3d 667, 670 (2011) (defendant “struggle[d] as three officers attempted to arrest him,” “continued kicking and pulling,” caused officer to s......
-
Montague v. State
...exacting one and calls for "no more than what it says—‘some,’ as that word is understood in common, everyday usage." Arthur v. State , 420 Md. 512, 525, 24 A.3d 667 (2011). The evidence presented "need not rise to the level of ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ or ‘clear and convincing’ or preponder......