Dorsey v. State
| Decision Date | 03 June 2020 |
| Docket Number | No. 249,249 |
| Parties | MAURICE P. DORSEY v. STATE OF MARYLAND |
| Court | Court of Special Appeals of Maryland |
Fader, C.J., Graeff, Moylan, Charles E., Jr. (Senior Judge, Specially Assigned), JJ.
*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.
Following a bench trial in the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County, Maurice P. Dorsey, appellant, was convicted of possession of cocaine, negligent manslaughter by automobile, criminally negligent manslaughter by automobile, second-degree assault, failure to stop at the scene of an accident involving death, failure to stop at the scene of an accident involving serious bodily injury, failure to remain at the scene of an accident causing death, failure to remain at the scene of an accident causing serious bodily injury, fleeing and eluding a uniformed police officer in a vehicle, and fleeing and eluding a uniformed police officer by fleeing on foot. He raises two issues on appeal: (1) whether there was sufficient evidence to sustain his convictions, and (2) whether the court erred by admitting into evidence the cocaine that was seized by the police because, he claims, the State failed to establish a proper chain of custody. For the reasons that follow, we shall affirm.
Mr. Dorsey first contends that there was insufficient evidence to sustain his convictions. In analyzing the sufficiency of the evidence admitted at a bench trial to sustain a defendant's convictions, we "review the case on both the law and the evidence," but will not "set aside the judgment ... on the evidence unless clearly erroneous." Maryland Rule 8-131(c). "We review sufficiency of the evidence to determine whether, after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt." White v. State, 217 Md. App. 709, 713 (2014) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).
Here, the State presented evidence that a person driving a black Acura ran a stop sign; fled from the police at a high rate of speed; struck another vehicle, injuring one of theoccupants and killing the other; and then exited the vehicle following the crash and fled from the police on foot. During a search of the Acura, the police recovered two plastic baggies containing a white rock-like substance that ultimately tested positive for cocaine.
In challenging the sufficiency of the evidence, Mr. Dorsey asserts that the State failed to prove that he was the person driving the Acura. However, at trial, three police officers identified Mr. Dorsey as the person that they saw exit the Acura and flee on foot immediately following the crash. Mr. Dorsey's driver's license was subsequently found inside the Acura. Moreover, Mr. Dorsey's girlfriend, who owned the Acura, testified that she had given him permission to use it on the day of the incident. Viewed in a light most favorable to the State, this evidence was sufficient to establish Mr. Dorsey's identity as the perpetrator of the charged offenses beyond a reasonable doubt. Although Mr. Dorsey contends that the officers' identifications were unreliable and that there was no fingerprint or DNA evidence linking him to the Acura, those arguments go to the weight of the evidence, not its sufficiency, and were for the fact-finder to resolve.
Mr. Dorsey also claims that the court abused its discretion in admitting the cocaine that was seized from the Acura because the State failed to establish a proper chain of custody. The standard for "determining whether a proper chain of custody has been established . . . [is] whether there is a 'reasonable probability that no tampering occurred.'" Cooper v. State, 434 Md. 209, 227 (2013) (quoting Breeding v. State, 220 Md. 193, 199 (1959)). "The circumstances surrounding [an item of evidence's] safekeeping in that condition [that is substantially the same as when it was seized] in the interim need only be proven as a reasonable probability[,] and in most instances is established by responsibleparties who can negate a possibility of tampering and thus preclude a likelihood that the thing's condition was changed." Wagner v. State, 160 Md. App. 531, 552 (2005) (quotation omitted). The existence of gaps or weaknesses in the chain of custody generally go to the weight of...
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