Bowie v. State
| Decision Date | 01 September 1990 |
| Docket Number | No. 132,132 |
| Citation | 595 A.2d 448,324 Md. 1 |
| Parties | Damon Alejandro-Christopher BOWIE v. STATE of Maryland. , |
| Court | Maryland Court of Appeals |
Michael R. Braudes, Asst. Public Defender (Stephen E. Harris, Public Defender, Arthur A. DeLano, Jr., Asst. Public Defender, all on brief), Baltimore, for appellant.
Richard B. Rosenblatt, Asst. Atty. Gen. (J. Joseph Curran, Jr., Atty. Gen., both on brief), Baltimore, for appellee.
Argued before MURPHY, C.J., and ELDRIDGE, RODOWSKY, McAULIFFE, CHASANOW, KARWACKI and ROBERT M. BELL, JJ.
Damon Alejandro-Christopher Bowie, appellant, was convicted by a jury in the Circuit Court for Prince George's County of two counts each of: first degree murder; attempted murder; assault with intent to murder; malicious shooting; and robbery with a deadly weapon. He was also convicted of related counts of use of a handgun in the commission of a felony or crime of violence. The State having timely given notice of its intention to seek the death penalty and/or imprisonment for life without the possibility of parole, see Maryland Code Ann. art. 27, § 412(b) (1957, 1987 Repl.Vol.1990 Cum.Supp.), appellant elected to be sentenced by the jury. Following a capital sentencing proceeding, the jury determined that a sentence of death should be imposed for each of the first degree murder convictions. Thereafter, the trial court imposed the death sentences and, in addition, sentenced appellant to additional terms of incarceration totaling 120 years.
On this appeal, 1 appellant presented 12 issues, of which we need address only four, 2 namely 1. Did the trial court err in refusing to propound voir dire questions designed to identify jurors who would give more weight to the testimony of police officers than civilians or to State's witnesses and defense witnesses?
2. Did the trial court err in refusing to propound a requested voir dire question relating to the possible racial bias of the prospective jurors?
3. Did the trial court conduct an inadequate jury selection procedure with respect to the views of the prospective jurors on the death penalty?
4. Did the trial court err in its sentencing-phase instructions to the jury? 3
We will reverse and remand to the Circuit Court for Prince George's County for a new trial.
The issues we find dispositive of this appeal do not require a detailed recitation of the facts as developed in the trial below. It is, for our purposes, sufficient to note that appellant and James Edmonds, his accomplice, both armed with handguns, entered Stoney's Restaurant located on Old Branch Avenue in Prince George's County, Maryland and announced a robbery. Another accomplice, Darrell Thomas, acted as a lookout, remaining outside the restaurant on the parking lot. Yet another of appellant's companions, Shaun Harris, who testified on behalf of the State in return for use and derivative use immunity, was a short distance away with Christian Bowie, appellant's sister, in the truck in which appellant was travelling. During the robbery, a bartender was forced into a back room and turned money over to Edmonds. Two other restaurant employees, Kevin Shelley, who was white, and Arnold Batson, who was African-American, were forced to lay face down on the floor. Each was fatally shot in the back of the head. The owner of the restaurant was shot in the arm and an off-duty Prince George's County police officer, Robert McDaniels, was shot in the face. Appellant was identified by McDaniels as the person who shot him in the face and held the gun to the back of Batson's head.
Additional facts will be supplied as they become relevant to the discussion of the issues.
1.
Among the questions that appellant submitted to the trial court for inclusion in its voir dire examination were the following:
1. Many of the State's witnesses will be police officers. Do you believe that a police officer will tell the truth merely because he or she is a police officer?
2. Would any of you be more or less likely to believe a police officer than a civilian witness, solely because he or she is a police officer?
3. Would any of you tend to view the testimony of witnesses called by the Defense with more skepticism than witnesses called by the State, merely because they were called by the Defense?
The court neither asked those questions, nor incorporated their substance into those it did ask, whereupon appellant objected. The objection was overruled. Appellant maintains that that ruling was prejudicial error, necessitating reversal and remand for a new trial.
The State recognizes that "Langley v. State, 281 Md. 337 (1977), suggests that inquiry on this subject would have been appropriate under the circumstances such as those present here...." Nevertheless, it resists reversal on three bases: (1) by failing to proffer the centrality of police testimony in the case at the time of voir dire, appellant failed, in effect, to preserve the trial court's refusal to propound the questions as an appellate issue; (2) appellant's failure to testify resulted in there being no "diametrically opposed" versions of events; therefore, no issue concerning the veracity of police testimony was presented and, consequently, appellant was not prejudiced; and (3) if error, it was harmless. Accordingly, the State maintains, appellant is not entitled to reversal on this ground.
In addition to McDaniels, who was a fact witness, the State's witness list indicated that it would, and the record reflects that it did, call other police officers to testify in their official capacity. In particular, the State called Prince George's County police officers and members of the Federal Bureau of Investigation to testify concerning various aspects of the investigation resulting in appellant's arrest. In addition to police personnel, the State also called the victims, all but one of whom--McDaniels--had no official position, and one of appellant's companions, Shaun Harris. Appellant did not testify, electing instead to call only two witnesses. One witness was the custodian of the records for the Prince George's Hospital Center, who testified concerning McDaniels' intoxication, providing his blood alcohol level. The other was a police officer, who testified concerning the make-up of the lineup in which appellant appeared. The critical issue in the case was appellant's criminal agency. Not surprisingly, therefore, appellant sought, through cross-examination, to discredit the State's witnesses and, thereby, establish the proverbial reasonable doubt.
While related, the three questions appellant requested were aimed at identifying two categories of venirepersons: (1) those who would believe police officers, simply because they were police officers, and (2) those who would prefer the testimony of State's witnesses over defense witnesses. In the first category, a further dichotomy is possible, between those who would simply believe police officers by virtue of the position without regard to testimony from anyone else and those who would believe the police officers in comparison to civilian witnesses.
We deem Langley to be dispositive. There, the trial judge refused to propound, on voir dire, the following question proposed by the accused:
Is there anyone here who would give more credit to the testimony of a police officer over that of a civilian, merely because of his status as a police officer?
281 Md. at 338, 378 A.2d at 1338. We reversed affirmance of the accused's conviction by the Court of Special Appeals, holding:
[I]n a case such as this, where a principal part of the State's evidence is testimony of a police officer diametrically opposed to that of a defendant, it is prejudicial error to fail to propound a question such as that requested in this case.
Langley, 281 Md. at 349, 378 A.2d at 1344. We reasoned that, although the determination of what inquiry should be made of venirepersons concerning their eligibility to serve as jurors "is committed largely to the sound discretion of the trial court in each case,"
[P]arties to an action triable before a jury have a right to have questions propounded to prospective jurors on their voir dire, which are directed to a specific cause for disqualification, and failure to allow such questions is an abuse of discretion constituting reversible error. (Emphasis in original)
Casey v. Roman Catholic Arch., 217 Md. 595, 605, 143 A.2d 627, 631 (1958). We proceeded to make clear that the question requested fell within the subjects of inquiry aimed at excluding venirepersons not eligible for service as jurors. We said:
A juror who states on voir dire that he would give more credit to the testimony of police officers than to other persons has prejudged an issue of credibility in the case. Regardless of his efforts to be impartial, a part of his method for resolving controverted issues will be to give greater weight to the version of the prosecution, largely because of the official status of the witness. The argument by the State that police officers are entitled to greater credibility because they have less interest in the outcome of the case is not sufficient to overcome such an objection.
281 Md. at 348, 378 A.2d at 1343.
The State's argument is that a proffer was required to establish both that police testimony would be important to the State's case and that the testimony would be contradicted by "diametrically opposed" testimony. 4 It relies on language in Langley indicating that the scope of the voir dire into juror eligibility is largely discretionary with the trial court. See Langley, 281 Md. at 341, 378 A.2d at 1340. Other than that reference, the State cites no authority for the proposition. We are not persuaded. Even a cursory review of the Langley opinion reveals that the Court did not require a proffer as now urged by the State; indeed, the point was never addressed. 5
Nor are we satisfied that the Langley holding applies only when a defendant...
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