Dixon v. State
| Decision Date | 07 August 2017 |
| Docket Number | No. 148,148 |
| Parties | DANA DIXON v. STATE OF MARYLAND |
| Court | Court of Special Appeals of Maryland |
DANA DIXON
v.
STATE OF MARYLAND
No. 148
COURT OF SPECIAL APPEALS OF MARYLAND
September Term, 2016
August 7, 2017
Circuit Court for Prince George's County
Case No. 150134B
UNREPORTED
Graeff, Kehoe, Rodowsky, Lawrence F. (Senior Judge, Specially Assigned), JJ.
Opinion by Graeff, 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.
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On November 30, 2015, a jury in the Circuit Court for Prince George's County convicted Dana Dixon, appellant, of possession of a regulated firearm after being convicted of a crime of violence, possession of a shotgun after being convicted of a crime of violence, and possession of a regulated firearm by a prohibited person previously convicted of a disqualifying crime. The court sentenced appellant to 15 years, all but 10 years suspended, for the conviction of possession of a regulated firearm after being convicted of a crime of violence. It merged the other two counts for sentencing purposes.
On appeal, appellant presents three questions for this Court's review, which we have rephrased slightly, as follows:
1. Did the circuit court err in denying appellant's motion to dismiss on speedy trial grounds?
2. Was the evidence insufficient to sustain appellant's convictions?
3. Did the circuit court abuse its discretion in allowing an officer to testify about appellant's birthdate, when the officer had no personal knowledge of that fact?
For the reasons set forth below, we shall affirm the judgments of the circuit court.
On November 17, 2014, at approximately 1:00 a.m., Officer Jason Norman, a member of the Prince George's County Police Department, ran a registration check on a Dodge Avenger that he observed travelling on Riggs Road in Hyattsville, Maryland. The check revealed that the vehicle's registration was suspended for an emissions violation, so Officer Norman proceeded to conduct a traffic stop.
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Officer Norman testified that Tyreka Beltre was driving the vehicle, and appellant was sitting in the passenger seat. When Officer Norman approached the vehicle and asked Ms. Beltre for her driver's license, he smelled an odor of marijuana emanating from the vehicle. He asked Ms. Beltre if there was "anything illegal in the vehicle and any marijuana or any other drugs." Ms. Beltre informed Officer Norman that there was a marijuana pipe in the center console.
At that point, Officer Norman removed appellant and Ms. Beltre from the car and conducted a search of the vehicle's interior. He recovered a marijuana pipe from the center console. He also discovered a loaded sawed-off shotgun underneath the driver's seat.
Officer Norman asked appellant and Ms. Beltre who owned the shotgun. Neither person responded, so Officer Norman told another officer to place both of them under arrest. At that point, appellant stated that it was his gun, and Ms. Beltre did not have anything to do with it.
During the encounter, Officer Conor Crowley, also a member of the Prince George's County Police Department, asked appellant "for his information to help speed up the process." Appellant told him that his name was "Dana Dixon," "he had no middle name," and "his birthdate was 5-15-1993," a date that appellant confirmed multiple times. Appellant also gave Officer Crowley his parents' address and a telephone number, which the officer wrote in his statement, along with the other information. Officer Crowley testified that, when he looked up appellant's name, "it didn't come up with a birthdate with that name," and he was never able to "confirm what [appellant's] birthdate was."
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Officer Norman subsequently drafted the charging documents. He testified that, during that process, he had to investigate and gather appellant's "booking information," including his date of birth, which he testified was "5-5-1990."
Officer Norman also had the shotgun test-fired to determine whether it was functional. He personally witnessed the test, and he testified that the shotgun fired properly.1
Additional facts will be discussed, as necessary, in the discussion that follows.
Appellant first argues that the circuit court erred in denying his motion to dismiss, asserting that the prosecution violated his right to a speedy trial. The State disagrees and argues that the circuit court "correctly denied [appellant's] motion to dismiss the case against him for a violation of his constitutional right to a speedy trial." Initially, it contends that the total length of the delay was not of constitutional dimension because it fell below the one year and fourteen day benchmark set forth in Glover v. State, 368 Md. 211, 223 (2002). In any event, the State argues that, even if this case warrants a full speedy trial analysis, appellant's claim fails because the "reasons for the delay were innocuous," he "failed to frequently and forcefully demand a speedy trial," and he "failed to show actual prejudice emanating from the pre-trial delay in his case."
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"When reviewing a circuit court's judgment on a motion to dismiss claiming deprivation of the right to a speedy trial, 'we make our own independent constitutional analysis.'" Randall v. State, 223 Md. App. 519, 538 (2015) (quoting Glover, 368 Md. at 220). "'We perform a de novo constitutional appraisal in light of the particular facts of the case at hand; in so doing, we accept a lower court's findings of fact unless clearly erroneous.'" Id. (quoting Glover, 368 at 221).
Speedy trial claims are analyzed pursuant to the four-factor test set forth in Barker v. Wingo, 407 U.S. 514, 530 (1972). Prior to conducting this four-factor analysis, however, a court must determine whether the length of delay is of such constitutional dimension as to trigger the more in-depth analysis. State v. Kanneh, 403 Md. 678, 687-88 (2008); Glover, 368 Md. at 222-23. The length of the delay is measured from the date of the defendant's arrest until the date of the ultimate trial. Epps v. State, 276 Md. 96, 109 (1975); Divver v. State, 356 Md. 379, 388-89 (1999). Although "no specific duration of delay constitutes a per se delay of constitutional dimension . . . we have employed the proposition that a pre-trial delay greater than one year and fourteen days was 'presumptively prejudicial' on several occasions." Glover, 368 Md. at 223.
Once it has been determined that the delay is of constitutional dimension, the court weighs the following four factors of a balancing test to determine if an accused was denied a speedy trial: (1) the length of delay; (2) the reason for the delay; (3) the defendant's assertion of his right; and (4) prejudice to the defendant. Barker, 407 U.S. at 530. "None of the four factors [is] either a necessary or sufficient condition to finding a denial of speedy
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trial rights . . . . Rather they are related factors and must be considered together with such other circumstances as may be relevant." Divver, 356 Md. at 394 (citations and quotations omitted).
Here, the parties agree, and the record confirms, that appellant was arrested on November 17, 2014, and his trial commenced on November 23, 2015. Therefore, the total delay in this case was one year and six days.
Although the Court of Appeals in Glover stated that a delay greater than one year and fourteen days is "presumptively unreasonable," the Court also made clear that "the delay that can be tolerated is dependent, at least to some degree, on the crime for which the defendant has been indicted." 368 Md. at 224. Therefore, "the delay that can be tolerated for an ordinary street crime is considerably less than a serious, complex conspiracy charge." Id. (quoting Barker, 407 U.S. at 531).
In Lloyd v. State, 207 Md. App. 322, 325, 329 (2012), cert. denied, 430 Md. 12 (2013), a case involving a second degree assault, this Court calculated a total delay of eight months and fifteen days between the defendant's arrest and his trial. We noted that this delay was "below the presumptively prejudicial one year and fourteen day mark," but it was two months more than "several cases holding that a six-month delay was not presumptively prejudicial." Id. at 329. We held that "this delay 'might' be construed as presumptively prejudicial and of constitutional dimension," and therefore, we conducted a full speedy trial analysis. Id.; see also Barker, 407 U.S. at 528 ("[A] total [delay] of nine months . . . may be wholly unreasonable under the circumstances."); Doggett v. United
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States, 505 U.S. 647, 652 n.1 (1992) ("Depending on the nature of the charges, the lower courts have generally found postaccusation delay 'presumptively prejudicial' at least as it approaches one year."); State v. Ruben, 127 Md. App. 430, 440 ("[D]elay of nearly 11 months from arrest to trial was of constitutional dimension, albeit barely so."), cert. denied, 356 Md. 496 (1999); Icgoren v. State, 103 Md. App. 407, 423 (delay of eleven months and thirteen days was presumptively of constitutional dimension, "though barely so."), cert. denied, 339 Md. 167 (1995); Carter v. State, 77 Md. App. 462, 466 (1988) ("[U]nder the circumstances of this case a seven-month, twenty-five day delay . . . is presumptively prejudicial. The case [which] involve[ed] credit card misuse, was conceptually and factually uncomplicated.").
The circumstances of this case are relatively simple, i.e., the possession of a shotgun that was discovered during a traffic stop. Moreover, there were multiple police witnesses who heard appellant's admission that he was the owner of the shotgun. And although, as the State notes, the delay in this case does not meet the one year and fourteen day benchmark discussed in Glover, it was only nine days shy of that threshold. Under these circumstances, we conclude that the delay in this case is of constitutional...
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