Foster v. State

• Decision Date: 01 September 1981
• Docket Number: No. 175,175
• Citation: 297 Md. 191,464 A.2d 986
• Parties: Doris Ann FOSTER a/k/a Nuketa Leah Ansara v. STATE of Maryland. ,
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

Page 191

297 Md. 191

464 A.2d 986

Doris Ann FOSTER a/k/a Nuketa Leah Ansara v. STATE of Maryland.

No. 175, Sept. Term, 1981, 35, Sept. Term, 1982.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

June 7, 1983.

Reconsideration Denied Sept. 16, 1983.

Martha Weisheit, Asst. Public Defender, Baltimore (Alan H. Murrell, Public Defender, and George E. Burns, Jr., Asst. Public Defender, Baltimore on the brief), for appellant.

Jillyn K. Schulze, Asst. Atty. Gen., Baltimore (Stephen H. Sachs, Atty. Gen., Baltimore, on the brief), for appellee.

Argued before MURPHY, C.J., and SMITH, ELDRIDGE, COLE, DAVIDSON, RODOWSKY and COUCH, JJ.

DAVIDSON, Judge.

On 1 February 1982, in the Circuit Court for Cecil County, a jury convicted the appellant, Doris A. Foster (accused), of felony murder, for "murder when engaged in the perpetration of a robbery." The trial court imposed the death penalty. This appeal followed.

On appeal, the accused claims that the trial court committed numerous prejudicial errors in the course of the pretrial proceedings, the trial proceedings, and the sentencing proceedings. More particularly, the accused contends that the trial court erred in refusing to admit exculpatory hearsay testimony critical to her defense. Because we find that the trial court committed prejudicial error by refusing to admit such evidence, we shall reverse the conviction.

I Background

At the trial, two conflicting versions of the circumstances surrounding the commission of the crime were presented. Both direct and circumstantial evidence were produced by the State to show that on 29 January 1981, the accused killed Josephine Torres Dietrich (victim) who lived in and was the manager of the Maryland Manor Motel (motel), a motel in which the accused and Tommy Foster, her husband (husband), also resided. The direct evidence was adduced primarily by the accused's husband and Elizabeth Phillips, the accused's daughter (daughter), who was 16 years old at the time of the murder. Their testimony concerning the events of the evening of 29 January and the morning of 30 January, although containing certain inconsistencies, was generally as follows:

According to the accused's daughter, at about 5 p.m. on 29 January, the accused, her daughter, and a friend left the daughter's grandmother's apartment. While driving back to the accused's motel, the three women drank a considerable amount of beer and the accused began to talk about robbing a woman. The friend refused to participate and was dropped off. Upon returning to the accused's motel room, the accused and her daughter continued to drink beer. The subject again turned to robbery. The accused said that she wanted to rob the victim and to kill her.

Ultimately, the accused went into the bathroom and came out holding a screwdriver. The accused and her daughter walked toward the victim's office. The accused knocked on the door, told the victim that she heard noises next door, and asked the victim to check on them. The victim accompanied the accused and her daughter to Room One, a vacant room next to the accused's room, and went inside to check. As the victim moved toward the door to leave, the accused started stabbing her. The daughter, who did not want the accused to kill the victim, told the accused that the police were coming. The accused and her daughter left the room and went to the back of the motel, where the accused threw the screwdriver into the woods.

The accused and her daughter returned to the accused's motel room where, after drinking more beer, the accused said that "she [the accused] had to kill her [the victim] because she [the victim] knew who she [the accused] was." The accused picked up another screwdriver and went back to the motel room where the stabbing had taken place. When she returned to her own motel room, she told her daughter that she had stabbed the victim in the heart.

According to the accused's husband and daughter, several hours later at about 11:30 p.m. or midnight, the accused and her daughter picked up the accused's husband at work. The daughter told him that the accused had killed the victim. The husband decided that the evidence had to be removed. He cleaned up the room, carried the body into the car, and placed a concrete block and rope in the car. The accused, her husband, and daughter then drove to the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal where, after the concrete block was tied to the body with the rope, the body was dropped. When they returned to the motel, they went to the victim's room where they found money, a TV set, and several other items that they took back to the accused's room.

Some circumstantial evidence was adduced by the State to show that the accused had committed the crime. A social worker testified that, on the afternoon of the murder when the victim withdrew some cash from a bank, she folded the money lengthwise. Various other witnesses testified that shortly after 30 January they observed the accused in possession of large amounts of money folded lengthwise.

At the trial, a different version of the circumstances surrounding the crime was presented by the accused. She produced direct evidence to show that on 29 January her husband and daughter killed the victim. The direct evidence consisted of the testimony of the accused herself and letters and statements written or made by her husband. The accused's testimony concerning the events of the evening of 29 January and the morning of 30 January, although inconsistent with her previous testimony at trial, was as follows:

On the evening of 29 January, the accused and her daughter picked up the accused's husband at work. After returning to the motel, they drank some beer, and the accused went to sleep. When she awoke, her daughter was going in and out of the accused's motel room. The accused went outside and saw the victim lying on the grass. When she asked her husband what had happened, he replied that the victim was dead. The accused's husband and daughter then put the body in the car and took a cinder block with them. When her husband returned, he and the accused went into the victim's room and took her money.

In a letter dated 30 January, allegedly written by the accused's husband to her, ¹ he in essence admitted that he had killed the victim. In addition, in a letter postmarked 19 June 1981 addressed to "The Attorney General, Cecil County, MD," written by the accused's husband, ² he not only confessed that he killed the victim and was solely responsible for her death, but also described in detail the circumstances surrounding the murder.

According to the letter, after returning to the accused's motel room after work, the husband noticed that a light was on in the vacant adjoining room. He decided that the victim was there and went to tell her that he had the parts necessary to fix a bathroom that she had asked him to repair. At the time, he had a screwdriver in his hand. When he entered the vacant adjoining room, the victim lashed out at him, telling him he was in the wrong room; that he should not make any repairs; and that she was not going to pay him. Her screaming went on and on, and he stabbed her to death. Ultimately, he removed her body and disposed of it in the "bay." Thereafter, he returned to the accused's motel room where she was still sleeping.

The letter further said that the accused's daughter must have seen the murder because she was in the accused's room crying and was really frightened. The husband enlisted the daughter's help to make the adjacent vacant room look as if it had been robbed. The daughter found a large amount of money, which the husband took. Thereafter, they returned to the accused's motel room. According to the husband's letter, "the accused was asleep during all of this."

At the trial, there was evidence that cast doubt upon the credibility of each of the three primary witnesses, the accused's husband, her daughter, and the accused herself. The husband's confessions that he had committed the murder seriously discredited his trial testimony concerning the circumstances surrounding the commission of the crime. Additionally, on cross-examination, the accused's husband conceded that, although he himself had been charged with the murder, he had not been prosecuted. Rather, a plea bargain was arranged in which he was allowed to plead guilty to obstruction of justice and theft of property over $300 in exchange for his testimony against the accused. Finally, there were certain discrepancies between the testimony of the accused's husband and that of her daughter.

Additionally, there was evidence to discredit the accused's daughter's version of the circumstances surrounding the commission of the crime. On cross-examination, the accused's daughter conceded that Maryland State Troopers had told her that she could be prosecuted for the murder and that the death penalty could be imposed. She further testified that ultimately she entered into an agreement that she would not be prosecuted for the murder or any other related crime in exchange for her testimony against the accused. ³

Moreover, although the accused's daughter herself testified at trial that the crime was a murder committed in the course of a robbery, there was other evidence to show that on the evening of the crime, she had described the circumstances surrounding its commission quite differently. The accused's husband testified that on 29 January, after the accused and her daughter picked him up from work and they returned to the accused's motel room, the accused's daughter told him that the victim was dead. According to the husband, the daughter then described the circumstances surrounding the commission of the crime as follows:

"She [the daughter] said that [the victim] was in Room No. 1 cleaning, and [she] and [the victim] and [the accused] was in the room arguing about, I believe, [the daughter] being at the motel because [there was] some drinking going on, and [the victim] didn't particularly care...