Glover v. State

• Decision Date: 06 March 2002
• Docket Number: No. 67,67
• Citation: 368 Md. 211,792 A.2d 1160
• Parties: Robert Matthew GLOVER, v. STATE of Maryland.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

792 A.2d 1160

368 Md. 211

Robert Matthew GLOVER, v. STATE of Maryland.

No. 67, Sept. Term, 2001.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

March 6, 2002.

George E. Burns, Jr., Asst. Public Defender (Stephen E. Harris, Public Defender, on brief), Baltimore, for petitioner.

Zoe Gillen White, Asst. Atty. Gen. (J. Joseph Curran, Jr., Atty. Gen. of Maryland, on brief), Baltimore, for respondent.

Argued before BELL, C.J., ELDRIDGE, RAKER, WILNER, CATHELL, HARRELL, and BATTAGLIA, JJ BATTAGLIA, Judge.

We are required to determine whether the petitioner was denied his right to a speedy trial pursuant to the Sixth Amendment of the United States Constitution and Article 21 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights. We hold that, given the circumstances of this case—namely, that the delays resulted from unavailability of judges and attempts to acquire complete DNA evidence, and the fact that the record does not establish prejudice—the petitioner's right to a speedy trial was not violated. We therefore affirm the judgment of the Court of Special Appeals, but on different grounds than those employed by the intermediate appellate court.

I. Facts and Legal Proceedings

This case arises from the death of Charles Scherer, whose body was discovered in a vacant lot in Aberdeen, Maryland, on February 24, 1998. A medical examiner subsequently determined the cause of death to be blunt force injuries to the head and strangulation resulting from a severe beating.

The petitioner, Robert Matthew Glover, was arrested for the murder one year later, on February 26, 1999, and was indicted for first degree murder on March 31, 1999. Bail was denied. The petitioner remained confined for the entire pre-trial period, which ultimately amounted to slightly more than fourteen months. During these fourteen months, the petitioner's trial was postponed three times.

Trial initially was scheduled for July 19, 1999, in the Circuit Court for Harford County. The State requested a postponement, however, on the ground that DNA test results had not been received from the crime lab.¹ The judge found the absence of the DNA test results to be good cause for granting the postponement, but stated that "this motion [for postponement] really is of no consequence or no meaning whatsoever, simply because you're not going to have a judge on the 19th [of July 1999] to hear this case in any event."² For these reasons, the court granted the postponement and charged it to the State.

Trial was rescheduled for November 1, 1999, but on that date, the court granted another postponement due to the unavailability of a judge and jurors.³ Finding that administrative reasons were the bases for the postponement, the court charged neither party with the delay. At the postponement hearing, petitioner's counsel commented that her client, the petitioner, was "unhappy about the postponement" but that she had explained to the petitioner that, "there's nothing that could be done."

Trial was then rescheduled for January 13, 2000. One week prior to the date of trial, however, the petitioner moved to suppress the DNA evidence due to the fact that the State did not provide the defense with the complete⁴ DNA discovery materials until December 23, 1999, and thereby failed to comply with the requirement that DNA evidence be disclosed thirty days prior to trial, pursuant to Maryland Code, Section 10-915(c)(2) of the Courts and Judicial Proceedings Article.⁵ The court ruled that suppression of the DNA test results would be too extreme a remedy for the State's failure to provide the petitioner with the complete discovery materials thirty days prior to trial, and therefore, denied petitioner's motion to suppress. A continuance was granted and charged to the State. With respect to the continuance, petitioner's counsel voiced some concern over postponing the trial again, but stated that because the suppression motion was denied, "the only other remedy is a postponement, although the defense, Mr. Glover and I, don't want the postponement, but that's the only other remedy we have."

The trial was reset for July 17, 2000. The trial was rescheduled one more time when, at a suppression hearing held on March 23, 2000,⁶ the petitioner's counsel expressed concern over the length of the delay between trial dates. Counsel for petitioner indicated that the delays were very significant as she stated:

"I have made this court aware that I do plan on filing a motion to dismiss for lack of speedy trial, and I will have that in writing and prepared ahead of trial, Your Honor, but I did want to voice my concern at least today on our motions date that I believe that the July 17th date is just too long of a delay between trial dates."

The State's Attorney also expressed concern about the delays, stating:

"Your honor, the State shares in that concern also. I was not a party to the... conference that set the July 17th date ... when I got back to my office, I found out that date had been selected and I, too, had great concern, as well as the victim's family, as to the necessity for having this case tried and brought to a quicker conclusion, and as I said to Mrs. Caruso [petitioner's counsel] earlier in our numerous conversations, it was my intention, and I believe she also agreed, that we would see if we could move that trial date up today."

Responding to these concerns, the court moved the trial date from July 17, 2000 to May 1, 2000.

On April 19, 2000, the petitioner moved to dismiss his case for lack of a speedy trial under the Sixth Amendment of the United States Constitution and Article 21 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights. On May 1, 2000, the Circuit Court, applying the four factor analysis for speedy trial claims enunciated in Barker v. Wingo, 407 U.S. 514, 92 S.Ct. 2182, 33 L.Ed.2d 101 (1972), granted the motion to dismiss and released the petitioner.⁷ The court ruled that the inordinate length of the delay in this case was presumptively prejudicial and thus required constitutional scrutiny under Barker. Further recognizing that the petitioner unquestionably had filed his demand for speedy trial on two separate occasions, the court focused on the two remaining factors: the reason for delay and the prejudice to the defendant. With respect to the reasons for the delay, the court found that:

"the State has offered no explanation as to why, after having obtained the defendant's blood sample in April of 1998, the DNA test results and reports were not completely available until December 23rd of 1999. The unavailability of [DNA test results] resulted in failures of discovery and is the bottom-line reason for the ultimate delay in this case."

The trial court dismissed the indictment, because it found that the State was responsible for every postponement in this case and weighed the entire delay against the State and in favor of the petitioner.

Finally, with respect to whether the defendant was prejudiced by the delay,⁸ the court ruled that the pre-trial incarceration was oppressive and constituted actual prejudice. The court further inferred that the delayed indictment coupled with the delay in the trial of the case impaired the defense. Because the court found that the petitioner was deprived of his constitutional right to a speedy trial, the petitioner's indictment was dismissed.

Pursuant to Maryland Rule 8-201, the State appealed to the Court of Special Appeals which, in an unreported opinion, reversed the Circuit Court's dismissal of petitioner's case. The Court of Special Appeals concluded that the petitioner's counsel "could have obtained an earlier trial date, by complaining about the trial date that was scheduled and/or by putting the State on notice that a motion to dismiss would be filed unless the trial was scheduled on or before a particular date." The Court of Special Appeals emphasized that the petitioner did not object when the January 13, 2000 trial date was rescheduled for July 17, 2000, and did not complain about the newly scheduled trial date until March 23, 2000 (at which point the trial was advanced to April 28, 2000). The intermediate appellate court further stressed that the petitioner did not assert his speedy trial issue until April 19, 2000 and, quoting RICHARD P. GILBERT & CHARLES E. MOYLAN, JR., MARYLAND CRIMINAL LAW: PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE, § 42.3 at 527 (Michie 1983), stated, "[t]he request, `Try me today!' is a far cry from that other request, `Try me never, because you did not try me yesterday!'" On these grounds, the Court of Special Appeals found no violation of the speedy trial right and vacated the Circuit Court's dismissal of petitioner's case.

The petitioner sought, and we issued, a writ of certiorari to determine whether the Court of Special Appeals erred in vacating the Circuit Court's dismissal of petitioner's case. See 365 Md. 472, 781 A.2d 778 (2001). While we agree with the judgment of the intermediate appellate court, we disagree with its reasoning.

II. Standard of Review

In reviewing the judgment on a motion to dismiss for violation of the constitutional right to a speedy trial, we make our own independent constitutional analysis. See State v. Bailey, 319 Md. 392, 415, 572 A.2d 544, 554-55,

cert. denied, 498 U.S. 841, 111 S.Ct. 118, 112 L.Ed.2d 87 (1990); see also Crosby v. State, 366 Md. 518, 526, 784 A.2d 1102,1106 (2001)(stating that "when the issue is whether a constitutional right has been infringed, we make our own independent constitutional appraisal"); Jones v. State, 343 Md. 448, 457, 682 A.2d 248, 253 (1996); Carroll v. State, 335 Md. 723, 736, 646 A.2d 376, 383 (1994). 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. See Rowe v. State, 363 Md. 424, 432, 769 A.2d 879, 883 (2001)(conducting a de novo review of a trial court's legal/constitutional conclusions with respect to a denial of a motion to suppress under the Fourth...