Harrod v. State

• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals
• Writing for the Court: Tang, J.
• Citation: Harrod v. State, 314 A.3d 415, 261 Md.App. 499 (Md. App. 2024)
• Docket Number: s. 7,s. 8
• Decision Date: 22 April 2024
• Parties: Angelo Reno HARROD v. STATE of Maryland

314 A.3d 415

261 Md.App. 499

Angelo Reno HARROD

v.STATE of Maryland

Nos. 7, 8, Sept. Term, 2023

Appellate Court of Maryland.

April 22, 2024

Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County, Case No. C-02-CR-21-002137, Case No. C-02-CR-21-001473, Pamela Alban, Judge

Argued by Rachel Marblestone Kamins, Asst. Public Defender (Marc A. DeSimone, Jr., Asst. Public Defender, Natasha Dartigue, Public Defender of Maryland, Baltimore, MD), on brief, for Appellant.

Argued by Peter R. Naugle, Asst. Atty. Gen. (Anthony G. Brown, Atty. Gen. of Maryland, Baltimore, MD), on brief, for Appellee.

Argued before: Reed, Tang, James R. Eyler (Senior Judge, Specially Assigned), JJ.

Tang, J.

Just after midnight on June 29, 2021, two gunmen opened fire on an occupied vehicle in a residential parking lot next to the Graduate Hotel in Annapolis, Maryland. The occupants were unharmed, but a bullet struck and fatally wounded Michelle Cummings, who happened to be on the hotel patio.

According to the State, the intended targets of the shooting—Breonna Barnes and Roderick Atwell—were driving around the neighborhood near the hotel while the gunmen followed them on foot. The State’s theory was based on the movements of one individual—later identified as Angelo Reno Harrod, the appellant—who was captured on multiple surveillance cameras wearing distinctive black clothing. The appellant was arrested within 24 hours of the shooting.

After a trial in the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County, a jury convicted the appellant of first-degree murder of Mrs. Cummings, among other offenses. On appeal, the appellant presents three questions for our review:¹

I. Did the trial court err in admitting evidence of the appellant’s reaction to his arrest as "consciousness of guilt" evidence?

II. Did the trial court err in admitting a composite video prepared from source surveillance videos as summary evidence?

III. Did the trial court err in permitting detectives to narrate portions of video evidence?

For the reasons below, we shall affirm the judgments of the circuit court.

BACKGROUND

In the hour leading up to the shooting, Ms. Barnes, who was the driver of a Chevrolet Trailblazer, picked up Mr. Atwell and her nephew. After dropping off her nephew in the neighborhood near the hotel, the couple drove to a fast-food restaurant before returning to the neighborhood to drop Mr. Atwell off at his house on Pleasant Street.

At about 12:17 a.m., Ms. Barnes and Mr. Atwell parked in a residential parking lot at the end of Pleasant Street. The vehicle faced the patio of the Graduate Hotel. An iron fence, a five-foot-high concrete wall, and a waist-high brick wall separated the hotel patio from the residential parking lot.

Ms. Barnes’s cell phone rang, and she exited the car to answer the call. As she did so, she heard someone call out her name. She turned and saw two men standing beside a dumpster, wearing "all black, black pants, black sweatshirt, [and] hood." Ms. Barnes got back into her car. Then, she heard one man say, "[Y]ou have five seconds." He began counting down, and Ms. Barnes saw him reach into the front of his pants and pull something out. Then, she heard gunshots and shattering glass and felt her car drop as the tires blew out. She estimated there were seven gunshots.²

At the time, Mrs. Cummings and her husband were on the hotel patio. They had come from Texas to drop off their son for his induction into the United States Naval Academy. They met up with other parents who were also dropping off their children for induction into the Academy. As the parents stood from their seats, they heard the gunshots. A single bullet fatally struck Mrs. Cummings in her chest.

Shortly after, the police were dispatched to the hotel and the residential parking lot on Pleasant Street. They found shell casings near the car that were later determined to be shot from two firearms.

Surveillance Videos

The investigation focused on two neighborhoods. The first was the neighborhood where the shooting took place near the Graduate Hotel. This small, condensed neighborhood comprises Obery Court, Clay Street, West Washington Street, and Pleasant Street. The second neighborhood was the nearby Robinwood community, where one suspect went after the shooting.

There were over a hundred surveillance cameras between the two neighborhoods. Maps of the neighborhoods were admitted into evidence, showing the locations of the cameras by number and direction each camera was facing.

A team of investigators gathered and reviewed surveillance videos from these neighborhoods. Investigator Timothy Hall downloaded videos from about 110 cameras, amounting to hundreds of hours of raw footage around the time of the shooting. These videos were admitted into evidence without objection and were contained in about 30 video exhibits.

Lieutenant Michael McDonald was one of the investigators who reviewed the downloaded surveillance footage. He examined 25 to 35 hours of video and found footage depicting the shooting at about 12:17 a.m. He then worked backward and forward from that point in time to determine the suspects’ movements before and after the shooting.

Over objection, Lieutenant McDonald testified that he focused on one of the suspects who wore distinctive attire. The clothing was a black sweatsuit with a white "Keys to Success" logo on the thigh and front of the sweatshirt. He used this as an identifying marker to track the suspect’s movements in the neighborhoods by switching between cameras and noting anything of evidentiary value. Based on his knowledge of the area and the camera locations, Lieutenant McDonald identified relevant portions of footage, the camera numbers, their locations, and the times captured.

Composite Video

John Foster, a demonstrative evidence specialist with the State’s Attorney’s Office, took the original footage and prepared a 40-minute composite video. He isolated clips from the original videos that investigators had identified as having evidentiary value and assembled them in a video-editing software application, where he finetuned the clips and mastered the final composite. He inserted two zoomed-in dips, one scaled up to 200 or 220 percent and another enlarged to about 125 percent, without altering their contents.

The composite video showed a man wearing a distinctive black sweatsuit on Clay Street at 10:42 p.m. before the shooting; on Pleasant Street at 12:17 a.m. when the shooting occurred; and in the Robinwood neighborhood, where he was seen exiting a cab at 12:30 a.m. The court admitted the composite video over objection.

Detective Aaron Stein, who had served with the Annapolis Police Department for over six years, was familiar with the neighborhood near the hotel. After the shooting, Detective Stein went to the hotel and Pleasant Street to investigate. He helped collect footage from local businesses and reviewed footage gathered by the team.

The State asked Detective Stein to review the composite video during his testimony. He used the two neighborhood maps to guide the jury through the clips of the composite video because they were "sometimes difficult to follow[.]" Over various objections, he explained the relationship between the different clips in the composite video and identified the camera numbers, times, streets, and specific activities depicted in the clips. He conveyed that the clips in the composite video were chronological.

Arrest

Law enforcement circulated images of the suspects captured from surveillance footage. Certain officers recognized the appellant as wearing the distinctive black sweatsuit. One advised the detectives that the appellant had an active warrant. Within 24 hours of the shooting, a surveillance team was set up in the Robinwood community, where the appellant was known to frequent. During this surveillance, the appellant was seen walking out of the community with a group and heading towards a gas station.

While wearing a body camera, Officer Edward Cooper responded to the gas station and recorded his interaction with the appellant in the convenience store. Officer Cooper informed the appellant that he had a warrant, which the appellant denied. When Officer Cooper tried to arrest the appellant, the appellant pushed him away and fled the store towards the wooded fence line of the Robinwood community.

After a brief foot pursuit, the police apprehended the appellant. The appellant "was very excited," upset, and in a state of panic. He cursed and screamed while officers tried to calm him down. The appellant repeatedly yelled about his belongings, including his cell phone. He yelled for his acquaintances to get his phone and demanded that the police give his phone to his acquaintances. Upon arrest, the police mentioned the recovery of "CDS" and collected his phone, a digital scale, and currency from his person. The police also recovered the appellant’s dark tennis shoes with a pink Nike logo and white soles, which appeared to match those worn by the man in the distinctive black sweatsuit captured on video surveillance the previous night. Officer Cooper’s body camera footage was admitted over objection.

Appellant’s Cell Phone

The appellant’s cell phone contained information that linked him to the shooting. A forensic expert who analyzed the appellant’s cellular records concluded that the phone activity between 10:00 p.m. and 12:20 a.m. around the time of the shooting placed the phone near the Graduate Hotel.

The phone records showed that an outgoing call was made to a local cab company at 12:10 a.m., about seven minutes before the shooting. The cab driver testified that he was dispatched to Obery Court around the same time. Another outgoing call was made to the eab company at 12:20 a.m., a few minutes after the shooting. The cab driver confirmed that he arrived at Obery Court and picked up two men who instructed him to drive to "Robinwood." The cell site analysis corroborated that the appellant’s phone was in the Robinwood area by 12:59 a.m.

The phone records...