Henry v. State
| Decision Date | 25 April 2012 |
| Docket Number | No. 952,Sept. Term, 2010.,952 |
| Citation | 42 A.3d 96,204 Md.App. 509 |
| Parties | Carlton Nicholas HENRY v. STATE of Maryland. |
| Court | Court of Special Appeals of Maryland |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Katherine P. Rasin (Paul B. DeWolfe, Public Defender, on the brief), Baltimore, MD, for Appellant.
Diane E. Keller (Douglas F. Gansler, Atty. Gen., on the brief), Baltimore, MD, for Appellee.
Panel: DEBORAH S. EYLER, KEHOE, IRMA S. RAKER (Retired, Specially Assigned), JJ.
The primary question in this case is whether the State satisfied its burden to rebut the presumption, under Edwards v. Arizona, 451 U.S. 477, 101 S.Ct. 1880, 68 L.Ed.2d 378 (1981), that inculpatory statements given to the police by a suspect in custody after he had invoked his right to counsel were not voluntary. We hold that the State did not satisfy its burden of proof and the statements therefore should have been suppressed from evidence before trial.
In the Circuit Court for Prince George's County, Carlton Nicholas Henry, the appellant, was charged with two counts of first-degree rape; two counts of second-degree rape; kidnapping; attempted first-degree sexual offense; two counts of first-degree sexual offense; two counts of second-degree sexual offense; second-degree assault; and two counts of false imprisonment. Following a jury trial, he was acquitted of all charges except second-degree assault. The court sentenced him to ten years' imprisonment, with all but eight years suspended, with credit for time served, to be followed by three years' supervised probation. In his timely appeal, the appellant asks whether the circuit court erred in denying his motion to suppress inculpatory statements to the police and whether the court erred in denying his motion to dismiss based on an alleged speedy trial violation. As noted, we agree with the appellant that the court should have granted the suppression motion. Because we conclude that the court did not err in denying the speedy trial motion, we shall reverse the judgment and remand the case for further proceedings.
For context, we shall review the State's evidence at trial. Casey Mark, the victim, testified that on February 5, 2009, she was working as a prostitute. At around 8:00 that evening, she met the appellant at a prearranged location in Virginia to have sex for money. Mark got into the appellant'svehicle and he began driving toward Maryland. At some point during the ride, the appellant pulled a butcher knife from the side of his car door, held it against Mark's neck, and threatened to kill her. He then stopped the car and placed a blindfold over Mark's eyes. When the appellant resumed driving, he hit Mark's head with the flat part of the knife.
According to Mark, she and the appellant arrived at an apartment complex (in Maryland) and the appellant told her that if she ran he would shoot her. Thinking the appellant had a gun, Mark entered an apartment at the appellant's direction.1 Inside, the appellant held the knife at Mark's throat, threatened her, and forced her down on the bed. Mark struggled to escape, at one point reaching for the knife, but she hit her head on a dresser and blacked out. When she came to, she was tied down to the bed. The appellant sexually assaulted her by forced vaginal intercourse, cunnilingus, fellatio, and attempted anal intercourse. The appellant used a condom during the forced vaginal intercourse. Afterward, he instructed Mark to take a shower, which she did. The appellant also took a shower.
After showering, Mark attempted to get dressed, but the appellant told her not to. He put on another condom and again forced vaginal intercourse and fellatio on her. Once again, he instructed Mark to shower afterward, which she did. The appellant then proceeded to clean the apartment. He directed Mark to put the blanket, sheets, and several towels in a bag.
Mark testified that the appellant forced her into his car, drove to a residential area, and ordered her to put the bag in a trash can. He then drove her to a nearby Metro station, told her he was a police officer, threatened to kill her if she told anyone anything about the encounter, and released her.
Mark contacted authorities at the Metro station, who called the police. When the police arrived, Mark directed them to the apartment and to the trash can where she had disposed of the evidence at the appellant's direction. The police searched the apartment and also recovered the bag. The bag contained clothing, paper towels, sheets, a used condom, and a condom wrapper. DNA testing performed on the condom showed that the inside of the condom contained the appellant's DNA and the outside of the condom contained Mark's DNA.
A.
Before trial, the appellant filed a motion to suppress a written statement he gave the police; audiotaped statements he made to the police and a police photographer; and three photographs taken by the police photographer, all while he was in custody at the station house. At the suppression hearing, the State called three detectives with the Prince George's County Police Department: Sherry Prince, Denise Shapiro, and Meredith Bingley. The appellant testified on his own behalf. The evidence was as follows:
The police arrested the appellant on February 7, 2009, at about 12:30 a.m., after they had searched the apartment Mark had identified. The appellant was transported to the police station and placed in an interview room that was equipped with an automatic recording device. At the time, the recording device only was capturing audio, not video.2
Detective Prince met with the appellant at around 1:30 a.m., in the interview room, to obtain general information. The audiotape reveals the following conversation between the appellant and Detective Prince, which made clear that, without a Miranda warning,3 he knew he had a right to counsel and he invoked it:
The appellant proceeded to talk about something that happened between him and a woman “in Virginia.” The conversation then continued:
Detective Prince asked the appellant whether he had a lawyer; when he replied that he did not, Detective Prince left the room.
Not long thereafter, Detective Shapiro observed the light go off in the interview room in which the appellant was being detained. Explaining that this was a “safety issue,” Detective Shapiro testified that she opened the door, turned the light on, and told the appellant that the light needed to remain on. The appellant asked to go to the bathroom, for a warm drink, and for some socks. Detective Shapiro told the appellant he was okay and left the room.
Lieutenant Bingley, also on duty that night, was a sergeant assigned to the police department's sexual assault unit.4 She testified that in the middle of the night in question, she was on duty and entered the interview room in which the appellant was detained, accompanied by a photographer. The audiotape reveals the following conversation:
When asked at the suppression hearing if she had known whether the appellant could see a lawyer earlier than the preliminary hearing date, Lieutenant Bingley testified, She did not tell the appellant that. Also, when she told the appellant he would be charged, she did not know what the charges would be.
The police photographer who entered the interview room with Lieutenant Bingley took pictures of the appellant. The photographer asked him, “Where's your other injury?” The appellant showed the photographer another injury, which the photographer took a picture of. The appellant told the photographer how he had been injured by a person with a knife.
The appellant again asked to be taken to the bathroom. Sergeant Robert Taylor entered the interview room and he and Lieutenant Bingley took the appellant to the bathroom. That required escorting the appellant out of the interview room (where the audiotape recorder was located) and down a hallway to where the bathroom was located. There was no recording device in the hallway or the bathroom. It is undisputed that when the appellant left the interview room to walk to the bathroom he had invoked his right to counsel more than once and had said nothing to the contrary, but by the time Sergeant Taylor and Lieutenant Bingley returned the appellant to the interview room, the appellant was saying that he wanted to talk.
The prosecutor questioned Lieutenant Bingley as follows about the trip to the bathroom:
Q. Let me stop you for a minute. Did you go into...
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