Cook v. State, 61

• Decision Date: 01 September 1977
• Docket Number: No. 61,61
• Citation: 381 A.2d 671,281 Md. 665
• Parties: Bruce Alton COOK v. STATE of Maryland. ,
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

Page 665

281 Md. 665

381 A.2d 671

Bruce Alton COOK v. STATE of Maryland.

No. 61, Sept. Term, 1977.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

Jan. 6, 1978.

George E. Burns, Jr., Asst. Public Defender (Alan H. Murrell, Public Defender, Baltimore, on brief), for appellant.

Arrie W. Davis, Asst. Atty. Gen., Baltimore (Francis B. Burch, Atty. Gen. and Clarence W. Sharp, Asst. Atty. Gen., Baltimore, on brief), for appellee.

Argued before MURPHY, C. J., and SMITH, DIGGES, LEVINE, ELDRIDGE and ORTH, JJ.

LEVINE, Judge.

We consider in this appeal the doctrines of collateral estoppel and res judicata as applied to criminal proceedings. After a non-jury trial in the Circuit Court for Harford County (Close, J.), appellant was convicted of armed robbery with a dangerous and deadly weapon for which he was sentenced to a 14-year term. The Court of Special Appeals upheld the conviction in Cook v. State, 35 Md.App. 430, 371 A.2d 433 (1977). We then granted certiorari and for reasons that follow, we affirm.

On June 18th and 19th, 1974, appellant, along with co-defendants, Roger Wolfe, Roland Bauer and Diane Jorgenson, was tried in the Circuit Court for Baltimore County (Turnbull, J.) for his role in two armed robberies which took place in Essex, Maryland on November 8th and 9th, 1973. Immediately after the jury had been sworn, defense counsel objected to the introduction of various weapons and articles of stolen property that had been obtained by police on November 16, 1973, during a warrantless search of a Baltimore City apartment occupied by co-defendant Roger Wolfe. Having found that the police officers had entered Wolfe's apartment illegally, thereby invalidating the ensuing seizure of the contraband, Judge Turnbull then granted appellant's motion for a mistrial, stating that it would be necessary "to start all over again when a new jury" was impaneled the following month. No further explanation was given for the declaration of the mistrial; nor does the record indicate that appellant was ever retried on the Baltimore County charges.

In April, 1974, some two months before the commencement of appellant's first trial, a Harford County grand jury had indicted appellant on charges stemming from the armed robbery of a Harford County man on November 14, 1973. Appellant's non-jury trial on these latter charges commenced on September 25, 1974. As part of its case-in-chief, the State sought to introduce into evidence two handguns which had been among the items seized by Baltimore City police in the 1973 raid on Wolfe's apartment. Once again appellant moved to suppress this evidence on grounds identical to those asserted in the previous Baltimore County trial. In addition, appellant contended that inasmuch as the matter had been conclusively determined by Judge Turnbull in the earlier prosecution, the State was collaterally estopped and otherwise precluded from relitigating the legality of the search. ¹ Rejecting these contentions, Judge Close denied appellant's motion to suppress and proceeded to find him guilty of robbery with a dangerous and deadly weapon. Appellant thereupon appealed to the Court of Special Appeals which affirmed, holding in part that neither collateral estoppel nor res judicata prevented a second inquiry into the validity of the November 16th search, the legality of which the court then proceeded to uphold. We do not reach the latter issue, however, since our grant of certiorari was limited solely to consideration of the applicability of res judicata and collateral estoppel.

It is beyond question that the closely related doctrines of res judicata and collateral estoppel apply to criminal as well as civil causes. Rouse v. State, 202 Md. 481, 486, 97 A.2d 285, cert. denied, 346 U.S. 865, 74 S.Ct. 104, 98 L.Ed. 376 (1953); State v. Coblentz, 169 Md. 159, 164-66, 180 A. 266 (1935); see also United States v. Oppenheimer, 242 U.S. 85, 87, 37 S.Ct. 68, 61 L.Ed. 161 (1916). See generally Annot., 9 A.L.R.3d 203 (1966). ² Suffice it to say that under the doctrine of res judicata, sometimes known as direct estoppel, a final and valid judgment rendered in one proceeding between two parties operates as a bar in a second proceeding between them on all matters that have been or could have been decided in the original litigation, where the second proceeding involves the same subject matter as the first cause of action. MPC, Inc. v. Kenny, 279 Md. 29, 32, 367 A.2d 486 (1977); Sterling v. Local 438, 207 Md. 132, 140-41, 113 A.2d 389, cert. denied, 350 U.S. 875, 76 S.Ct. 119, 100 L.Ed. 773 (1955). On the other hand, where a prior judgment is relied upon to preclude a second adjudication of some previously determined factual or legal issue in subsequent litigation between the same parties concerning a different cause of action, courts apply the doctrine of collateral estoppel. MPC, Inc. v. Kenny 279 Md. at 32-33, 367 A.2d 486. See also Wash. Sub. San. Comm'n v. TKU Associates, 281 Md. 1, 18-19, 376 A.2d 505 (1977). Under this latter doctrine, once an issue of ultimate fact has been determined by a final and valid judgment, that issue cannot again be litigated between the same parties in any future lawsuit. Ashe v. Swenson, 397 U.S. 436, 443, 90 S.Ct. 1189, 25 L.Ed.2d 469 (1970); Cousins v. State, 277 Md. 383, 398, 354 A.2d 825, cert. denied, 429 U.S. 1027, 97 S.Ct. 652, 50 L.Ed.2d 63 (1976).

In this case, neither collateral estoppel nor res judicata comes into play unless the prior suppression ruling, relied upon as a bar to reconsideration of the search and seizure issue in the Harford County prosecution, was either itself a final judgment or was rendered in the course of a proceeding which culminated in the rendition of a final judgment. In short, under the final adjudication rule, res judicata and collateral estoppel do not apply absent some prior final determination of law or fact. Surrey Inn, Inc. v. Jennings, 215 Md. 446, 454-55, 138 A.2d 658 (1958); accord, Smith v. Gray Concrete Pipe Co., 267 Md. 149, 156-57, 297 A.2d 721 (1972). And see, Restatement (Second) of Judgments § 68, comment k at 16 (Tent. Draft No. 4, 1977). This requirement of finality is based upon the common sense proposition that conclusive effect should only be accorded a judgment which is "firm and stable . . . , the last word of the rendering court." Restatement (Second) of Judgments § 41, comment a at 2 (Tent. Draft No. 1, 1973). This rationale is particularly compelling in criminal cases, where application of res judicata or collateral estoppel may have the effect of barring prosecution of the defendant altogether.

Finality is a concept which does not lend itself to concise delineation. Although this Court has never attempted a precise definition of the finality rule, as it relates to the doctrines of res judicata and collateral estoppel, we have indicated that the standard employed in such cases resembles that used to assess the finality of judgments for purposes of appellate review. See Surrey Inn, Inc. v. Jennings, 215 Md. at 455, 138 A.2d 658; Restatement (Second) of Judgments § 41, comment b at 2-3 (Tent. Draft No. 1, 1973). In our recent decision in United States Fire Ins. Co. v. Schwartz, 280 Md. 518, 374 A.2d 896 (1977), we stated that, as a general proposition, a judgment is final, and hence appealable, when it finally settles some disputed right or interest of the parties:

"Otherwise stated, the judgment must be so final as to determine and conclude rights involved, or deny the appellant means of further prosecuting or defending his rights and interests in the subject matter of the proceeding." Id. at 521, 374 A.2d at 899.

Accord, Warren v. State, 281 Md. 179, 183, 377 A.2d 1169 (1977).

Given these basic principles, we think it plain that the question of the admissibility of the weapons seized in the raid on Wolfe's Baltimore City apartment was not finally adjudicated at appellant's initial trial. As a preliminary matter, we address appellant's contention that the suppression order itself was a final adjudication. We need not dwell at length on this point, for it is widely agreed that exclusionary orders resemble mere evidentiary rulings, interlocutory in nature and hence are intrinsically non-final. McGrath v. Gold, 36 N.Y.2d 406, 369 N.Y.S.2d 62, 65, 330 N.E.2d 35, 38 (1975) (suppression order interlocutory in nature and therefore not binding on state in subsequent prosecution of same defendant in different county). See Lohss and Sprenkle v. State, 272 Md. 113, 117, 321 A.2d 534 (1974). See also Di Bella v. United States, 369 U.S. 121, 131-32, 82 S.Ct. 654, 7 L.Ed.2d 614 (1962); Cogen v. United States, 278 U.S. 221, 227, 49 S.Ct. 118, 73 L.Ed. 275 (1929).

In our view, a ruling at trial that excludes illegally acquired evidence cannot be examined out of context. Such a ruling is typically only one of many made during the course of a trial and does not become final until the proceeding as a whole is concluded. Thus, whether or not a suppression ruling will ultimately preclude relitigation of the legality of the search and seizure at a subsequent proceeding depends on whether the prior proceeding, taken as a whole, can be said to have concluded in the rendition of a final judgment.

Here, appellant's Baltimore County trial ended in the declaration of a mistrial which he himself had sought. Such a mistrial is patently not a final determination. The granting of appellant's motion for mistrial was tantamount to a holding that there had been no trial at all. United States v. Kwitek, 433 F.2d 18, 19 (7th Cir. 1970); Newark Shopping Center v. Morris Skilken & Co., 5 Ohio App.2d 241, 214 N.E.2d 674, 674-75 (1964). Once a mistrial has been declared, all questions of fact remain to be decided and may be litigated until a final valid determination has been reached. Howard v. State, 561 P.2d 125, 133-34 (Okl.Cr.App.1977).

Quite clearly, then, a mistrial does not necessarily conclude the rights and interests of the parties, nor does it deny...