Currie v. State
| Decision Date | 30 June 2021 |
| Docket Number | No. 806, 1168 and 2350, Sept. Term, 2019,806, 1168 and 2350, Sept. Term, 2019 |
| Citation | 254 A.3d 25,251 Md.App. 45 |
| Court | Court of Special Appeals of Maryland |
| Parties | Ann CURRIE, as Personal Representative of the Estate of Lance Currie Williams v. STATE of Maryland |
Argued by: Eden Schiffman (Williams & Connolly, LLP, Washington, D.C., Paul B. De Wolfe, Public Defender, Baltimore, MD), on the brief, for Appellant.
Argued by: Andrew J. Dimiceli (Brian E. Frosh, Atty. Gen., on the brief), Baltimore, MD, for Appellee.
Panel: Graeff, Arthur, Lynne A. Battaglia (Senior Judge, Specially Assigned), JJ.
In 2017, Lance Currie Williams and the State entered into a plea agreement regarding charges of assault and animal abuse. Williams admitted that he committed the alleged offenses, while the State stipulated that, because of a mental disorder, he was not criminally responsible for his conduct. The Circuit Court for Montgomery County accepted the plea, found Williams not criminally responsible, and committed him for institutional inpatient treatment.
After Williams was hospitalized for a year, an administrative law judge recommended his release. The administrative law judge found that Williams did not suffer from a mental disorder that would make him a danger to himself or others after his release. Even though no party asserted that Williams required continued hospitalization, the circuit court remanded the matter for a new hearing.
Several months later, the State asked the circuit court to "vacate the plea agreement." In support of its motion, the State offered a psychiatrist's opinion that Williams was criminally responsible for his conduct. The court granted the motion, rescinded the plea agreement, and permitted the State to reinstate the charges. The court rejected the contention that the second prosecution violated the prohibition against double jeopardy.
Williams entered a conditional guilty plea, reserving his right to challenge the circuit court's rulings. For the reasons explained in this opinion, we conclude that the court lacked any legal justification for setting aside the plea agreement and the corresponding plea. The convictions and sentences shall be reversed.
This appeal comes before this Court after a conditional plea of guilty. The following summary is largely based on proffers made at the sentencing hearing.
As of February 14, 2017, Lance Currie Williams, then 58 years old, resided with his mother, then 86 years old, at her home in Rockville. Williams had moved into the home a few years earlier, when his father died, so that he could renovate the home and help care for his mother.
According to his mother, Williams "started act[ing] erratically" at around midnight. He began "stripp[ing] off all of his clothing," "ranting and raving," "throwing things around the house," and "trashing the common areas of the residence." He became "verbally abusive" and "started threatening" his mother. He "pushed her to the ground" and "st[ood] over her naked, with his penis exposed." He said: " ‘I'm going to make you feel good.’ "
Williams's mother escaped to her bedroom. When she tried to close the door, he "forcefully pushed the door open[,]" causing it to strike her in the face. She managed to close the door and to block it with luggage and other heavy objects. She stayed awake for the entire night to ensure that he would not enter the room. "[F]or several hours," she "could hear him abusing" the family dog. She could "hear[ ] the dog yelp and whine" during that time.
The next day, once she was able to leave the house safely, she sought medical care. She suffered a "large laceration to her forehead," "severe bruising on her face," and "extensive bruising to both of her arms and knees, consistent with being repeatedly struck [or] grabbed with sustained pressure." At a follow-up visit two days later, she reported the assault to her doctors and to the police.
On February 17, 2017, police officers visited the home to check on the dog's welfare. Williams answered the door, but he refused to allow the officers to examine the dog. The officers ordered him to bring the dog to the door. They observed a "large laceration" on "the back of the dog's neck and collar area." Williams claimed that the dog had been "given back to him" with the injury "after he had the dog microchipped." The officers arrested him and took the dog into custody.
The dog underwent emergency surgery. It had suffered a "gaping irregular laceration ... resulting in muscle exposure" on the back of its head; two "nickel-sized lesions," which were apparently caused by "prolonged sustained pressure" to the dog's sides; and a "puncture laceration" surrounded by bruises under its right front leg, which was likely "the result of blunt force trauma[.]" The dog also had "foreign wiring material in its stomach," which the treating veterinarian "did not believe was eaten intentionally by the dog."
Upon his arrest, Williams was charged in the District Court of Maryland for Montgomery County with first-degree assault, attempt to commit a sexual offense, aggravated animal cruelty, and related offenses. The district court denied bond.1
When Williams arrived at the detention center, a therapist observed that he "was not oriented to date": Williams said that "it was 1964 and that he was in WWII." The therapist noted that Williams was "responding to internal stimuli" and that he "was repetitive and incoherent at times." Two days later, another therapist tried to examine Williams, but he refused to cooperate. He "made a comment[,] ‘They have been doing this for centuries’ and rambled incoherently."
A psychiatrist was able to examine Williams on the following day. The psychiatrist described him as "cooperative, oriented to time, coherent and non-bizarre" during the examination. The psychiatrist noted, however, that he "spoke about some conspiracy by his family to contest" the will of a family member. Williams "said it was all a ploy by his machines to take over his property." He denied any history of mental illness and disclosed that he regularly used marijuana before his arrest. The psychiatrist identified three possible diagnoses: "Unspecified Schizophrenia," "Delirium," and "Substance Induced Psychosis."
The district court ordered the Department of Health2 to examine Williams to evaluate his competency to stand trial. A licensed psychologist, Julie L. Smith, Psy.D., submitted a report on behalf of the Department on February 25, 2017. Dr. Smith concluded that Williams was, at that time, unable to understand the nature or object of the criminal proceedings or to assist in his defense, and therefore was incompetent to stand trial.
Dr. Smith reported that, during her evaluation of Williams, "his mood was labile, vacillating from happy to crying." He made "grandiose statements" and "expressed paranoid delusions ... and other persecutory beliefs." When asked about his arrest, Williams said that he was "not concerned about the case" and spoke about "genealogy" and other "unrelated topics." He went on to provide "a delusional account of what happened" before his arrest. Specifically, he said that he tried to remove "transmitters" that someone had implanted in the dog. Dr. Smith's initial diagnosis was "Unspecified Bipolar Disorder."3
Despite Dr. Smith's report, the district court deemed Williams competent and allowed the case to proceed toward trial. On April 6, 2017, a grand jury issued an indictment charging Williams with attempted second-degree rape, two counts of animal cruelty, and three counts of aggravated animal cruelty. Thereafter, his case was transferred to the Circuit Court for Montgomery County.
The circuit court directed the Department of Health to undertake another competency evaluation. Consequently, Dr. Smith submitted an updated report on June 5, 2017. She reported that, during the second examination, Williams showed "some paranoia but much less" than she had observed previously. Dr. Smith assessed Williams's "insight and judgment" as "improved but still limited." Although her diagnosis was unchanged, she opined that, at the time, Williams was competent to stand trial.
Through counsel, Williams entered a plea of not guilty and not criminally responsible. Under Maryland law, a "defendant is not criminally responsible for criminal conduct if, at the time of that conduct, the defendant, because of a mental disorder ... , lacks substantial capacity to: (1) appreciate the criminality of that conduct; or (2) conform that conduct to the requirements of law." Md. Code , § 3-109(a) of the Criminal Procedure Article.
The circuit court ordered the Department of Health to examine Williams to evaluate his criminal responsibility at the time of the alleged offenses. In response, Dr. Smith reviewed police reports and correctional facility records and examined Williams a third time. In a report dated September 16, 2017, Dr. Smith opined that Williams was not criminally responsible for his conduct.4
In her report, Dr. Smith wrote that Williams "stated that he has limited recollection" of the incident for which he was charged. He "consistently reported his belief that someone had been in his house" beforehand, "changing the settings on the thermostat[,]" rearranging objects in his bedroom, and "tampering with the television, the radio and the clock[.]"
Dr. Smith noted that Williams had used "marijuana on and off for over forty years[,]" to manage chronic pain and insomnia. Williams said that his marijuana use had never caused any negative reactions. On the day of the incident, he was smoking marijuana from a batch that he had been using for the previous month. He believed that someone may have "tampered with the marijuana, perhaps lacing it" with another substance.
When asked about the injuries to the dog, Williams expressed his belief that someone had "drugged the...
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