Carter v. State

Decision Date14 May 2003
Docket NumberNo. 73,73
PartiesAntwan Leroy CARTER v. STATE of Maryland.
CourtMaryland Court of Appeals

Nancy S. Forster, Deputy Public Defender (Stephen E. Harris, Public Defender, on brief), Baltimore, for Petitioner.

Celia Anderson Davis, Asst. Atty. Gen. (J. Joseph Curran, Jr., Atty. Gen. of MD, on brief), Baltimore, for Respondent.

Argued before BELL, C.J., ELDRIDGE, RAKER, WILNER, CATHELL, HARRELL and BATTAGLIA, JJ. BATTAGLIA, Judge.

In Antwan Leroy Carter's trial on charges of possession of a regulated firearm by one previously convicted of a crime of violence, possession of a regulated firearm by a person under 21 years of age, and unlawful discharge of a firearm within the City of Baltimore, the Circuit Court for Baltimore City admitted evidence that Carter previously had been convicted of robbery with a deadly weapon. Carter had sought to shield the jury from learning the nature of his previous conviction. We granted a petition for a writ of certiorari to determine the appropriate method for a trial judge to minimize potential prejudice in a case where one element of a crime charged requires proving a previous conviction.

I. Background

On August 29, 2000 at around 10:45 p.m., Officer Ronald Marriott of the Baltimore City Police Department was examining the scene of a shooting that had been reported earlier that evening. While conducting this examination in the 900 block of Coppin Court in Baltimore City, he heard gunfire, which he estimated came from approximately 100 yards away. Officer Marriott ran to the area where he believed the gunfire originated and, there, he saw two men running up the sidewalk. One of those men, who turned out to be Antwan Leroy Carter, allegedly was carrying a handgun and shooting "straight up" into the air. Officer Marriott chased Carter, lost sight of him for around ten or fifteen seconds, and eventually spotted him "walking nonchalantly ... like nothing had ever happened." The officer then arrested Carter and did not recover any gun. A gunshot residue test on Carter's hands revealed that gunshot residue was present on his right hand although not on his left.

Carter was charged with possession of a regulated firearm by one who previously was convicted of robbery with a deadly weapon in violation of Maryland Code, Article 27 § 445(d) (1957, 1996 Repl. Vol., 1999 Supp.),1 possession of a regulated firearm by one who is under the age of 21 in violation of Maryland Code, Article 27 § 445(e) (1957, 1996 Repl. Vol., 1999 Supp.),2 and discharge of a firearm within Baltimore City in violation of the Baltimore City Code, Article 19 § 112.3

After requesting a jury trial on November 17, 2000, Carter appeared before the Circuit Court for Baltimore City on November 20, 2000. On November 27, 2000, Carter filed an omnibus motion pursuant to Maryland Rule 4-252,4 requesting in part that "he be tried separately for each offense." Carter was tried on January 25 and 26, 2001, and immediately prior to jury selection, he requested the trial judge to "sanitize the first count," in which proof of his previous conviction for armed robbery with a deadly weapon was an essential element. The following colloquy between Carter's counsel, the judge, and the prosecutor demonstrates two of Carter's suggested alternatives to having the jury consider the evidence of his prior conviction, to include: (1) severing the charges, and (2) bifurcating the elements of the criminal in possession charge:

[DEFENSE COUNSEL]: [W]e were hoping that before you announced to the jury what the charges were that you would consider sanitizing the first count and redacting from it the charge that— convicted of a crime of violence—what we'll be proposing is that the charge of possession need not go to the jury. If they convict him of that, we understand that that is possession of a handgun by someone who's been convicted of a crime of violence. What it does is, obviously, it eliminates the potential prejudice—
THE COURT: I'm hearing you, ... but I truly would have hoped for you to have raised all of these issues before I had the panel. I gave you an opportunity to do that. You are not, I know, new to the bar and these issues are not new to the Court, so go ahead.
[DEFENSE COUNSEL]: And to be quite frank, Judge, I didn't think it would be much to do about it because it seems—it doesn't deprive the State of anything and, better yet, it ensures that this young man gets a fair trial on these charges.
THE COURT: Well, clearly, the count that the State is bringing is a crime, there's no question about that. And if that information came to the jury's attention, I would give ... an instruction, a curative instruction, so that the jury considers that prior conviction only for the purposes that-Let me hear from the State.
[PROSECUTOR]: Your Honor, I'd just point out that at this point we're ready to pick a jury. But also, that's one of the crimes that the Defendant is charged with, and I do believe that the jury, as the trier of fact, has to be able to decide that issue. That issue, there will be evidence presented to the jury to support a conviction on that charge the State's proffering, and that it's rightfully before this jury to decide.

Defense counsel explained that allowing evidence of the prior conviction potentially could lead to improper jury considerations:

[DEFENSE COUNSEL]: It would also require them to prove that he's been convicted of a crime of violence, which means they put in the conviction for robbery [with a] deadly weapon. Now we'd go to great lengths to keep that from the jury....

* * *

I guess what I'm saying, Judge, is what do we gain by sending that to the jury. It doesn't fairly and accurately—the central issue, whether he had a firearm. That doesn't—
THE COURT: Well, in my estimation,... that is a question for the jury to determine, whether, in fact, that particular crime has been violated by Mr. Carter or not, and I would—the suggestion I give to you is that I will instruct the jury again not to consider—for any purpose contrary to Mr. Carter's interest. I would fashion an instruction when the time comes.

To prevent the jury from hearing any evidence about that prior conviction, defense counsel then suggested that Carter would admit that he had been convicted of a felony, one element of the criminal in possession charge:

[DEFENSE COUNSEL]: I guess, Judge, what I'm saying is that we—can agree that when we're talking about possession of a handgun it is by someone [who has] been convicted of a felony violation. That is not someone who's under 21 years of age. We know that, but the jury doesn't necessarily want to know that, especially if it's a crime of violence because it's—we're only stating the prejudice—what difference does it make? Is that the issue?
If we agree that he has a crime of violence and if they convict him of the handgun he's guilty of the—
THE COURT: [W]hat you're telling me is that the jury should never know—

[DEFENSE COUNSEL]: That's right.

[THE COURT]:—about it. That's what your argument is, correct?

[DEFENSE COUNSEL]: Yes, ma'am.

[THE COURT]: The request is denied because I am satisfied that all of the charges that Mr. Carter is facing should go before the jury.

Having had this request denied, Carter next presented another method to shield the jury from learning that he had been convicted of robbery with a deadly weapon. He offered to stipulate that he had been convicted of a crime of violence so that the judge, in announcing the allegations, would not describe the nature of that previous crime to the jury:

[DEFENSE COUNSEL]: Well, Your Honor, additionally, I think what the defense would be asking for in the alternative of our stipulation that if he were convicted of possession—be possibly convicted of the possession while being a felon. If the Court were not inclined to proceed in that route, then we would at least ask that the Court simply indicate that he's convicted of a crime of violence without specifically enunciating which crime of violence it was that he was convicted of.
THE COURT: So what you're requesting is that my description indicate that he was—that the allegation was that, is that what you're asking me?
[DEFENSE COUNSEL]: That the allegation is that he was previously convicted of a crime of violence or even, probably more appropriately, of a felony. I mean, I think that that—if the State has an interest in the jury hearing that he's a prior felon and really essentially a prior felon in the commission of a crime of violence.

After the court agreed to announce the charge against Carter as "possession of a firearm after being convicted of a crime of violence" without describing the exact nature of the offense, the State refused to stipulate and continued to seek to introduce documentary evidence that Carter had pled guilty to robbery with a deadly weapon. Carter iterated his willingness to stipulate regarding his previous conviction to "alleviate[ ] the need to put in the gory details, so to speak, what that crime of violence is."

The State rejected Carter's offer to stipulate, and the court allowed the introduction of redacted docket entries, describing the previous conviction as "robbery with a deadly weapon." In making this decision, the court reasoned that, without a description of the previous crime, the jury might "speculate as to what that crime of violence can be" and possibly determine that "it, in fact, could be something maybe even worse than robbery with a deadly weapon."

The judge instructed the jury on how it should consider the evidence of Carter's previous armed robbery conviction, which she explained was a crime of violence:

You have heard evidence that the Defendant has been convicted of a crime. You may consider this evidence in determining the guilt or innocence of the Defendant with respect to the crime charged of possession of a regulated firearm after having been convicted of a crime of
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