Griffin v. State
Decision Date | 29 August 2019 |
Docket Number | No. 484, Sept. Term, 2018,484, Sept. Term, 2018 |
Citation | 242 Md.App. 432,215 A.3d 424 |
Parties | Wendell GRIFFIN v. STATE of Maryland |
Court | Court of Special Appeals of Maryland |
Argued by: Benjamin Rosenberg (Charles N. Curlett, Jr., Sarah F. Lacey, Rosenberg, Martin, Greenberg, LLP, on the brief), Baltimore, MD, for Appellant.
Argued by: Jer Walter (Brian E. Frosh, Atty. Gen., on the brief), Baltimore, MD, for Appellee.
Panel: Wright, Beachley, Alan M. Wilner (Senior Judge, Specially Assigned), JJ.
On October 25, 2016, appellant Wendell Griffin filed a Petition for Writ of Error Coram Nobis and Request for Hearing in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City, seeking to vacate his 1982 convictions for first-degree murder and openly carrying a deadly weapon. The circuit court held a hearing on appellant's petition on November 15, 2017. In an opinion and order dated April 3, 2018, the circuit court denied appellant's petition. Appellant timely appealed, and presents two issues for our review,1 which we have rephrased as follows:
We hold that appellant's inability to file a civil rights claim does not satisfy the "significant collateral consequences" element required for coram nobis relief. In the alternative, we hold that appellant waived the grounds underlying his coram nobis petition. Accordingly, we affirm.
On March 8, 1982, a jury convicted appellant of the first-degree murder of James Wise, III, and of openly carrying a deadly weapon with intent to injure. Appellant received a life sentence for first-degree murder, and a consecutive sentence of three years for the weapon conviction. A panel of this Court affirmed appellant's convictions in an unreported opinion, and the Court of Appeals denied appellant's petition for certiorari. Several years later, in the 1990s, appellant unsuccessfully sought both Maryland state post-conviction relief in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City and federal habeas corpus relief in the United States District Court for the District of Maryland.2
On June 10, 2010, appellant filed a pro se petition seeking post-conviction DNA testing pursuant to Md. Code , § 8-201 of the Criminal Procedure Article ("CP").3 Pursuant to that filing, appellant, through counsel, requested documents from the Baltimore Police Department ("BPD") regarding its investigation of appellant for the murder of Mr. Wise. As a result of that document request, in 2011 appellant learned that the BPD had withheld exculpatory evidence consisting of photo arrays, witness statements, and chain of custody documents. On February 2, 2012, appellant filed a motion for leave to reopen his post-conviction case, seeking post-conviction relief based on the newly discovered evidence. Four days later, he filed a petition for writ of actual innocence pursuant to CP § 8-301.4 Both petitions alleged that the State had committed numerous Brady5 violations.
The State went on to explain that the matter had "been discussed" with "all levels of the State's Attorney's Office," and that this particular course of action would "ensure that [appellant] for the rest of his life will remain convicted for the murder of James Wise ." (Emphasis added). Appellant's counsel responded that appellant "maintain[ed] his actual innocence of these convictions but [had] agreed to this resolution in the interest of moving forward and obtaining his freedom ." (Emphasis added). As we shall explain below, these expressed considerations—the State's intent that appellant remain convicted of James Wise's murder for the rest of his life, and appellant's decision to accept a commuted sentence rather than challenge the underlying convictions for Brady violations—play an important role in resolving this appeal.
Id . at 486-87, 114 S.Ct. 2364 (footnote omitted). As relevant here, Heck required appellant to have his convictions "declared invalid by a [Maryland] state tribunal" before proceeding with his § 1983 action.
Appellant appealed the district court's decision to the Fourth Circuit. In Griffin v. Balt. Police Dept ., 804 F.3d 692, 699 (4th Cir. 2015), the Fourth Circuit affirmed the dismissal of appellant's claim. The Fourth Circuit noted that Maryland provides "many avenues of post-conviction relief[,]" listing as examples petitions for writ of error coram nobis and for writ of actual innocence, procedures which are in addition to direct appeals and collateral review. Id . at 698. Nevertheless, the Fourth Circuit cautioned that "[appellant] may or may not qualify for any or all of [those] remedies; that is for Maryland to decide." Id .
Apparently heeding the Fourth Circuit's suggestion, on October 25, 2016, appellant filed his petition for writ of error coram nobis , which is the subject of this current appeal. In the petition, appellant sought to vacate his convictions based on the same Brady violations he alleged in his 2012 petitions for post-conviction relief and for writ of actual innocence. As previously noted, the circuit court held a hearing on November 15, 2017. In its memorandum opinion, the circuit court denied appellant's petition, finding that he failed to establish that he was suffering significant collateral consequences, and that pursuant to the doctrine of res judicata, he waived his right to seek coram nobis relief. As stated above, appellant timely appealed. We shall provide additional facts as necessary.
Id . (citation omitted) (quoting Smith , 443 Md. at 598, 117 A.3d 1093 ).
Turning to the substantive requirements of the writ, a petitioner must satisfy five conditions before a court may grant relief:
[1] "the grounds for challenging the criminal conviction must be of a constitutional, jurisdictional, or fundamental...
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