Earp v. State

• Citation: 76 Md.App. 433,545 A.2d 698
• Decision Date: 01 September 1987
• Docket Number: No. 1571,1571
• Parties: Randall Paul EARP v. STATE of Maryland. ,
• Court: Court of Special Appeals of Maryland

Page 433

76 Md.App. 433

545 A.2d 698

Randall Paul EARP v. STATE of Maryland.

No. 1571, Sept. Term, 1987.

Court of Special Appeals of Maryland.

Aug. 8, 1988.

John L. Kopolow, Asst. Public Defender (Alan H. Murrell, Public Defender on the brief), Baltimore, for appellant.

Mary Ellen Barbera, Asst. Atty. Gen. (J. Joseph Curran, Jr., Atty. Gen., Baltimore, Andrew L. Sonner, State's Atty. for Montgomery County and John McCarthy, Asst. State's

Atty. for Montgomery County on the brief, Rockville), for appellee.

Submitted before BISHOP, GARRITY and ROBERT M. BELL, JJ.

ROBERT M. BELL, Judge.

Randall Paul Earp, appellant, was convicted at a bench trial in the Circuit Court for Montgomery County of attempted second degree murder and assault with intent to maim. ¹ Having been sentenced to concurrent terms of imprisonment of 25 years and 9 years respectively, he has appealed from the judgments entered on those conviction raising two issues:

1. Did the trial judge err in finding Appellant guilty of attempted murder in the second degree on the basis of an intent to inflict, at most, grievous bodily harm upon the victim?

2. Did the trial judge err in denying Appellant's motion to exclude the testimony of State witnesses to whom the prosecutor had shown the videotaped deposition of the victim?

There is merit in the first issue, but not in the second. Accordingly, we will reverse appellant's conviction for attempted second degree murder and affirm his conviction for assault with intent to maim. We will address the issues in reverse order.

On October 31, 1985, more than one hundred people were in attendance at a Halloween party. The partygoers ran outside when they learned someone had been run over in the middle of Randolph Road. Michael Dwayne Lawrence one of the partygoers testified ² that when he went outside he saw forty or fifty people, some using shovels and sticks, engaged in fights, while others were attacking a gold-colored Ford truck with sticks and pipes, trying to get at the driver. Lawrence ran up to the driver and asked whether his truck had struck the man in the street. The driver abruptly shifted into reverse and backed into a car. When he admitted striking the man, Lawrence grabbed the driver and pinned him against the truck while the police, who were 30 feet away, approached.

At this time, appellant grabbed Lawrence by the shoulder, turned him around and attempted to hit the driver saying, "Let me have a piece of him." Lawrence responded that only the police officer was "going to get something from him." Appellant rejoined, "Well, I'll take a piece of you." After Lawrence had turned away from appellant, he felt a punch in his back and, looking over his shoulder, saw a knife handle protruding from it. He then felt the knife being pulled down and saw it being withdrawn. After the knife had been withdrawn, appellant again lunged at Lawrence, but only managed to strike Lawrence's thumb with the knife, because, as Lawrence testified, he was able to block most of the "[a]bout ten to fifteen slices" appellant attempted. Appellant fled as the police approached.

I.

Appellant asseverates that the trial judge erred in denying his motion in limine to exclude the testimony of those State's witnesses to whom the prosecutor had shown the victim's videotaped deposition. ³ Appellant argues that the trial court's denial of his motion comports with neither Md Rule 2-416(i) nor 4-321. Subsection (i) of Rule 2-416, which is made applicable to criminal causes by Rule 4-2 61(e), provides in part:

The attorney for the party taking the deposition ... shall take custody of the videotape ... and be responsible for its safeguarding, permit its viewing or hearing by a party or the deponent, and provide a copy of the videotape or its audio portion ..., upon the request and at the cost of a party or the deponent.

Appellant interprets the rule as merely granting authority to a party to show a videotaped deposition only to the opposing party or to the deponent. Hence, appellant contends, "counsel for either party has no right to permit a witness other than a party or the deponent to view the videotape." We disagree.

Md. Rule 2-416(i) does not explicitly address the issue of viewing exclusivity. We think, however, that what it does address is not only relevant to the issue, but provides the key to its resolution. While the rule designates the attorney for the party taking the deposition as the custodian of the videotape, it expressly permits viewing or hearing by a party or the deponent. The rule further directs the custodian to provide a copy of the videotape or its audio portion, upon request and at the cost of the party or the deponent. It would seem logically to follow and, therefore, we hold that the determination whether the testimony of witnesses who have viewed copies of a videotaped deposition has been rehearsed, thereby creating artificial harmony, is a matter of credibility, subject to attack on cross-examination.

Appellant further argues Md.Rule 2-416(i) and Md.Rule 4-321, "Exclusion of Witnesses," have a related purpose: to prevent prospective witnesses from being taught or prompted by the testimony of another. Interpreting Rule 2-416(i) as he espouses harmonizes that rule with Rule 4-321. Proceeding from this premise, appellant asserts that "the prosecutor below, by exposing his witnesses to the actual testimony of his keywitness, actively and directly violated a sequestration rule."

We are not aware of any rule of procedure which precludes one witness from hearing the testimony of another, even at trial, in the absence of a sequestration order. See Md. Rule 4-321(b) and (c). As there was no sequestration order in the case sub judice in effect prior to trial, we hold that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in allowing the witnesses who had viewed the videotape to testify. ⁴ See McCray v. State, 305 Md. 126, 134, 501 A.2d 856 (1985), wherein the Court observed that, "it is clear that the rule contemplates an order of sequestration before any sanction for a violation of the rule may be applied."

II.

The appellant challenges the propriety of his conviction of attempted second degree murder. He argues that the trial judge found that he harbored only an intent to do grievous bodily harm, rather than the specific intent to kill. The State argues, on the other hand, that the trial court did not expressly find the absence of a specific intent to kill. Because the trial judge acquitted the appellant of attempted first degree murder, the State concedes that "an inference may be drawn from the court's ruling and explanatory comments that the court had decided the State had failed in its burden of proving that the appellant harbored the specific intent to kill." The State postulates, however, that "an equally rational inference is that the acquittal was based upon the State's failure to prove the premeditation and deliberation requisite to a finding of attempted first degree murder."

An indispensable element of attempted murder, be it first or second degree, ⁵ and the separate crime of assault with intent to murder, see State v. Holmes, 310 Md. 260, 272, 528 A.2d 1279 (1987), is the intent to murder. Id. See also State v. Jenkins, 307 Md. 501, 515, 515 A.2d 465 (1986), Glenn v. State, 68 Md.App. 379, 388, 511 A.2d 1110, cert. denied, 307 Md. 599, 516 A.2d 569 (1986). And, although by application of the aggravating factors prescribed in Maryland Code Ann. art. 27, §§ 407-410, an accused may be convicted of murder upon proof of an intent other than the specific intent to kill, Glenn, 68 Md.App. at 388, 511 A.2d 1110, when the victim does not die, a necessary ingredient of the intent to murder is a specific intent to kill. Id., 68 Md.App. at 388-89, 389-90, 511 A.2d 1110. This is so because:

Of the four basic types of murder, specific-intent-to-kill murder is the only one wherein there is a conscious and purposeful design to accomplish the death of the victim. None of the others contains, as a necessary element, any intent that the victim die. A depraved-heart murder is a mere general intent crime--the general intent to do the reckless, life-endangering act with wanton disregard of the human consequences. A felony-murder has no necessary specific intent that harm should come to a victim, let alone that the victim should die. There is merely a general intent to perpetrate a felony. Some felonies, of course, include lesser specific intents, but not an intent that death result. With respect to both depraved-heart murder and felony-murder, the death of the victim is not only unintended but sometimes not even reasonably foreseen.

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In the case of intent-to-do-grievous-bodily-harm murder, on the other hand, the failure of that intent to establish ipso facto--by automatic operation of law--the intent to murder is not so immediately apparent. This is so because there is, in these cases, an actual harm specifically intended for the assault victim. Thus, this form of murder is a specific-intent crime rather than a mere general-intent crime. The critical distinction that needs to be made, however, is between the results specifically intended, not between the presence or absence of a specific intent. Although there is the purpose or design that the victim should suffer serious physical harm, there is no necessary purpose or design that the victim should die. (Emphasis in original)

Id. Thus, attempted murder is committed only when the perpetrator intended to commit murder. In other words, "one can intend only that type of murder which if done, would be intentional. It is a truism that one cannot intend the unintended." Glenn, 68 Md.App. at 397, 511 A.2d 1110.

A conviction for attempted second degree murder may not be sustained upon proof that the accused intended only to commit grievous bodily harm; a conviction for attempted second degree murder may only be sustained if the perpetrator is found to...