Callaway v. State
| Decision Date | 20 December 2016 |
| Docket Number | No. 2376,2376 |
| Parties | CHARICK S. CALLAWAY v. STATE OF MARYLAND |
| Court | Court of Special Appeals of Maryland |
UNREPORTED
Wright, Berger, Shaw Geter, JJ.
Opinion by Wright, J.
*This is an unreported opinion, and it may not be cited in any paper, brief, motion, or other document filed in this Court or any other Maryland Court as either precedent within the rule of stare decisis or as persuasive authority. Md. Rule 1-104.
Appellant, Charick S. Callaway, was convicted by a jury in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City, Maryland, of first degree rape, first degree sexual offense, first degree burglary, armed robbery, and wearing and carrying a dangerous weapon openly with intent to injure. He was sentenced to life imprisonment for first degree rape, a consecutive three years for wearing and carrying a dangerous weapon, a consecutive fifteen years for first degree burglary, a concurrent fifteen years for armed robbery, and a further life sentence, all suspended, for first degree sexual offense. Appellant timely appealed and presents the following questions for our review:
For the following reasons, we shall affirm.
On May 27, 2013, at around 2:45 a.m., the victim left her job working at a bar and lounge near 930 North Charles Street in Baltimore, went to a convenience store/market, then walked home. While she was speaking with her ex-boyfriend on her cellphone, aman came up behind her and held a knife to her neck. The victim identified appellant, in court, as that man.1
After she screamed, appellant took her cellphone and told her to continue to enter her basement apartment. According to the victim, appellant threatened to "slit my neck from ear to ear." The victim gave appellant close to $1,000 and asked him to leave. Instead, appellant forced his penis into her mouth, then forced her, still at knifepoint, into the kitchen.
Realizing that she was about to be raped, the victim convinced appellant to wear a condom, located in a nearby drawer. The appellant then "threw me up against the kitchen wall, pushed me up against the kitchen wall and he raped me."
Afterwards, appellant made the victim take a shower and clean any areas that he touched with bleach. He also had her clean the outside stairway leading into her apartment. Appellant then took the victim outside and started walking down the street. He eventually let her go, returning her phone, but keeping the stolen money. The victim then ran, called her ex-boyfriend, and told him that she had just been raped. The police were contacted and, after her ex-boyfriend and mother arrived at her residence, the victim was transported to Mercy Medical Center for a sexual assault forensic examination.
The presence of seminal fluid and sperm were detected on several swabs taken from the victim's vaginal/cervical areas and external genitalia. After comparison, an expert in DNA analysis opined that appellant was the source of the DNA found on the sperm fraction from the vaginal/cervical swab. His DNA was also present in several other swabs taken from the victim, including, but not limited to, the sperm fraction from the swab of the victim's external genitalia.
Several days later, Sergeant Kerry Snead, of the Sex Offense Unit for the Baltimore City Police, showed the victim a photographic array. The victim identified a photograph of appellant, signed the array, and wrote on the back of the array,
The victim's landlord, Amy Cieto, gave Sergeant Snead video recordings from four surveillance cameras associated with the residence. As the video played for the jury, the victim narrated the events depicted therein. The victim identified appellant in the video, testifying that the video showed him holding the back of her shirt and walking her into her apartment. She also testified that the video showed appellant carrying a knife in his right hand.
The jury was also shown closed circuit television ("CCTV") surveillance taken from the Baltimore City Watch cameras from the same evening. The victim identified herself on that video as well.
Nicolas Antivero, the victim's ex-boyfriend, confirmed that he was on the phone with the victim at around the time of this incident. He heard her say "oh my God, oh my God" right before they were disconnected. Antivero woke up the victim's mother, who also testified at trial, and the two of them drove over to the victim's house, all the while trying to contact the victim on her cellphone. As they got closer, the victim called Antivero, crying and telling him that she had just been robbed and raped. The victim also told her mother the same thing after they arrived, and the victim's mother then contacted the police.
Sergeant Snead, the primary investigator in this case, testified that he first went to the victim's residence and obtained a surveillance video from the landlord. That video depicted the victim and a suspect near the property. Snead used a still image from this video to create a wanted flyer to distribute around the neighborhood and nearby police departments.
After speaking with the victim and walking her route of travel before and after the incident, Sergeant Snead obtained additional surveillance videos. This included, but was not limited to, video from William Snyder, the general manager from the nearby Belvedere Condominiums, formerly the Belvedere Hotel. Sergeant Snead testified, without objection, that this video showed an "individual matching the physical and clothing description as the same description that was put out from the flyer, from that footage from the house[,]" meaning the surveillance video from the victim's landlord. And, according to Snyder, that video depicted appellant walking in an adjacent alley, up to the front door of the Belvedere, through the lobby, and then taking an elevator toappellant's 11th floor rented office. After obtaining the video from the Belvedere, and learning appellant's name and address, Sergeant Snead prepared a photograph array. Snead confirmed that the victim identified appellant in that array as the man who robbed and raped her.
Sergeant Snead further testified that he obtained surveillance video of the scene at the time in question from the City Watch CCTV system. As will be discussed further, although appellant objected at various times to Snead's narration as those videos were played for the jury, certified copies of the recordings were admitted without any contemporaneous objection.
We shall include additional detail in the following discussion.
Appellant first contends that the circuit court erred in admitting testimony from Detective Amy Strand recounting comments appellant made while in a police station holding cell after he had been arrested in this case. Appellant suggests that the statements "were devoid of the context to make them relevant" and that any probative value of the statements was "far outweighed by the potential prejudice and/or confusion they could generate[.]" The State responds that the court properly exercised its discretion. We agree.
At a pretrial motions hearing, Detective Amy Strand testified that, on June 7, 2013, while she was working in the Sex Offense Unit of the Baltimore City PoliceDepartment, she heard a "commotion" coming from a nearby holding cell. After hearing her supervisor call for a paramedic, Detective Strand overheard appellant saying "just let me die, why don't you just let me die." Detective Strand entered the holding cell and saw appellant, handcuffed to a bench for his safety, crying "I shouldn't have done it to that girl, she didn't deserve that," and that "she was a nice girl and she probably wants me dead." Detective Strand testified that, after this, she consoled appellant and tried to calm him down. Paramedics soon arrived and transported appellant away. Detective Strand maintained that she did not go into the holding cell with the intent to interrogate appellant, and she only did so in order to check on his welfare.
Thereafter, the parties discussed whether this statement was either voluntary or the result of custodial interrogation. The circuit court denied the motion to suppress, ruling that, under the totality of the circumstances, there was no interrogation, that Detective Strand responded in an effort to try to calm appellant, and that appellant's statement amounted to a "blurt." The court stated that "I cannot find anything in what Detective Strand said or did to be any type of equivalent of questioning." Also in denying the motion, the court stated:
The defendant at this time may regret the choice of his words or can even argue that his words were not well chosen, but he was upset and this is what he had to say. It's really a question of whether it's admissible hearsay since it's a statement by a party opponent, adverse party. It's up to the State as to whether it's admissible and able to argue what it means, but I don't see any theory upon which the Court could keep this out . . . .
At trial, Detective Strand testified that she was working a midnight shift on June 7, 2013, seated at her desk near two holding cells in the police station, when she heard a"commotion" coming from one of the nearby cells. Strand heard Sergeant Snead on the radio requesting a paramedic, followed closely by another man's voice saying ...
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