Crosby v. State
| Citation | 784 A.2d 1102,366 Md. 518 |
| Decision Date | 13 November 2001 |
| Docket Number | No. 21,21 |
| Parties | Marlon Maurice CROSBY, v. STATE of Maryland. |
| Court | Court of Appeals of Maryland |
George E. Burns, Jr., Assistant Public Defender (Stephen E. Harris, Public Defender, on brief), Baltimore, for petitioner.
Kathryn Grill Graeff, Assistant Attorney General (J. Joseph Curran, Jr., Attorney General of Maryland, on brief), Baltimore, for respondent.
Argued before BELL, C.J., ELDRIDGE, RAKER, WILNER, CATHELL, HARRELL and BATTAGLIA, JJ.
The decisional issue in this case is whether the trial court erred in admitting testimony regarding the petitioner's refusal to commit his oral statement—which was given to police detectives after he was advised of and waived his Miranda rights—to writing. The petitioner, Marlon Maurice Crosby, contends that his unwillingness to provide a written statement was an invocation of his right to remain silent and that the detective's testimony at trial regarding such refusal was an improper use of that silence against him. We disagree. The petitioner's decision to decline committing his oral statement to writing is not, in this context, an invocation of his right to remain silent, and the testimony at trial concerning the petitioner's refusal did not infringe on his constitutional right to remain silent; thus, we find no error.
I. Background
Micah Phipps, a manager at the K-Mart in Randallstown, Maryland, left the store after his shift at 10:45pm on April 26, 1999. As Mr. Phipps walked toward his car, which was parked in the store parking lot, a man with a bandana across his face and a gun in his hand emerged out of the bushes and walked toward him. Mr. Phipps turned and ran back to the store. He banged on the doors in an attempt to get the attention of the remaining employees inside but was stopped when the man, later identified as the petitioner, Marlon Crosby, approached Phipps, pointed the gun at him, and told Phipps to walk back to his car.
Crosby then forced Phipps to relinquish the keys to his car and climb into the trunk of the vehicle. After driving for approximately fifteen minutes, the car stopped and a second person, later identified as Eugene Robinson, got into the vehicle. During the next hour, the car stopped several times; at one stop, Phipps was told to put his coat over his face and was forced to give Crosby his wallet; at another stop, Crosby asked for the personal identification number for Phipps's bank card and for the K-Mart store keys. Phipps also was asked questions concerning the number of employees that remained in the store, when those employees were expected to go on break, and for the code to the alarm panel for the store.
Approximately one hour later, the car stopped behind the K Mart store and Phipps was told to get out of the trunk, keeping his coat over his face. After one of the men taped Phipps's hands and mouth, Phipps was taken to the store and forced to open the door. Once inside, Crosby dragged Phipps directly to the alarm panel and told him to enter the code.1 Initially, Phipps entered a false code number, which caused the alarm to go off. Crosby hit Phipps on the head and told him to enter the correct code. Once the correct code was entered, Crosby dragged Phipps to the office and told him to open the office door with his keys. At that time, another K-Mart employee shouted, "who is that?" which momentarily distracted Crosby, allowing Phipps to enter the office alone and lock the door behind him. Once inside, Phipps immediately telephoned the police. Crosby and Robinson fled the scene prior to the police arrival.
Despite the bandana across his face, Phipps recognized his assailant as Marlon Crosby, a former employee of K-Mart.2 Crosby was also identified by his accomplice, Eugene Robinson, who testified as a result of a plea agreement with the State.3
Crosby was arrested on May 7, 1999. The subject matter of this appeal involves the post-arrest custodial interview of Crosby conducted by Detectives Rudy and Schrott of the Baltimore County Police Department. Prior to questioning the petitioner about the kidnapping and carjacking of Mr. Phipps, the detectives advised him of his Miranda rights and of the charges for which he was arrested. Crosby signed a written waiver of his rights and agreed to be questioned by the detectives.
Crosby's verbal statement was not inculpatory, but rather, was an alibi for his activities on the night of April 26, 1999. Crosby informed the detectives that he was walking his dog in the late evening on April 26th, and that a friend, known as "Wink",4 picked Crosby up in his vehicle and dropped him off about a mile from his home. Crosby continued walking home, and as he walked passed the K-Mart, which is located within a few blocks of his home, he noticed several police in the area. Crosby stated that he was afraid to be stopped by the police, so he went to the home of another friend, Ian Byrd, to ask for a ride home. Crosby further claimed that Byrd was unable to take him home because Byrd only had a provisional driver's license; therefore, Crosby decided to take "the back way" home to avoid being stopped by police.
The detectives, wanting to verify Crosby's account of the night's events, asked whether he would be willing to accompany them to Byrd's address, but Crosby refused. The detectives suspended the interview of Crosby and immediately went to Byrd's address to determine whether Byrd could corroborate Crosby's story. To the contrary, Byrd stated that he had not seen the petitioner on the evening of the 26th of April and could not have given him a ride because he did not receive his provisional driver's license until two days later, on April 28, 1999.
With this information, the detectives returned to headquarters to confront Crosby.5 The detectives asked Crosby whether he would be willing to reduce his verbal account of the night's events to writing, but Crosby was unwilling to make a written statement. The interview was subsequently terminated and Crosby was fingerprinted and processed.
The case went before a jury in the Circuit Court for Baltimore County where the sequence of the post-arrest interview was summarized by testimony from Detective Rudy:
State's Attorney: Following getting that information [from Byrd], what did you do next?
Detective Rudy: We went back to headquarters and confronted Mr. Crosby with this information.
State's Attorney: Listen to my question. Did you ask the defendant whether or not he would be willing to give you a written statement? Simply yes or no. Did you ask him?
Detective Rudy: Yes.
State's Attorney: Did he agree to give you a written statement? Simply yes or no.
Detective Rudy: No.6
The jury found Crosby guilty of carjacking, kidnaping, armed robbery, second degree burglary, and use of a handgun. He was sentenced to concurrent terms of twenty-five years for carjacking and kidnaping; he was also sentenced to fifteen years, to be served consecutively, for armed robbery, ten years (concurrent with the armed robbery sentence) for second degree burglary, and ten years (consecutive) for use of the handgun.
Crosby appealed to the Court of Special Appeals, contending that the trial court erred in failing to adhere to Maryland Rule 4-215(e) pertaining to the discharge of counsel and that the court erred in permitting testimony that Crosby refused to give the police a written statement. In an unreported opinion, the Court of Special Appeals affirmed the judgment of the Circuit Court for Baltimore County. With respect to the evidence that Crosby refused to give the police a written statement, the Court of Special Appeals applied its recent decision in State v. Purvey, 129 Md.App. 1, 740 A.2d 54 (1999), where the factual predicate was almost identical to Crosby's: Purvey waived his Miranda rights, voluntarily gave police officers an oral statement, but refused the officers' requests to reduce his statement to writing—information that was adduced at trial by testimony from both Purvey and the officer. 129 Md.App. at 17,740 A.2d 54. The Purvey Court held that Purvey "did not choose to remain silent; he only refused to reduce to writing his existing statement and waiver of rights .... we now refuse to extend under Miranda ... a refusal to write out one's statement into a full-fledged assertion of one's right to silence." Id. at 18-19, 740 A.2d 54. On similar grounds, the Court of Special Appeals, in the instant case, held that the trial court did not err in permitting Detective Rudy's testimony.
Crosby sought and we granted a writ of certiorari to consider whether the trial court erred in permitting the testimony of Detective Rudy regarding Crosby's refusal to commit his oral statement to writing. See Crosby v. State, 364 Md. 139, 771 A.2d 1069 (2001). The petition also requested consideration of whether a "renewed interrogation" was initiated by the detectives when they asked Crosby for a written statement.7
II. Standard of Review
Subject to supervening constitutional mandates and the established rules of evidence, evidentiary rulings on the scope of witness testimony at trial are largely within the dominion of the trial judge, see Conyers v. State, 354 Md. 132, 161, 729 A.2d 910, 925,
cert. denied, 528 U.S. 910, 120 S.Ct. 258, 145 L.Ed.2d 216 (1999); appellate courts, generally, will not interfere with such rulings unless there has been an abuse of discretion. Oken v. State, 327 Md. 628, 669, 612 A.2d 258, 278 (1992)
cert. denied, 507 U.S. 931, 113 S.Ct. 1312, 122 L.Ed.2d 700 (1993)( that "the scope of examination of witnesses at trial is a matter left largely to the discretion of the trial judge and no error will be recognized unless there is clear abuse of such discretion"). The discretion we afford a trial court, however, is not unlimited; when the issue is whether a constitutional right has been...
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