Hurtado-Valdez v. State
| Docket Number | 1549-2021 |
| Decision Date | 11 September 2023 |
| Parties | EDWIN JAVIER HURTADO-VALDEZ v. STATE OF MARYLAND |
| Court | Court of Special Appeals of Maryland |
Shaw, Albright, Raker, Irma S. (Senior Judge, Specially Assigned), JJ.
Following the deaths of Antwan Briggs and Antwon Queen, a jury in the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County found Edwin Hurtado-Valdez, appellant, guilty of two counts of second-degree felony murder, two counts of manslaughter, and related other crimes. For both murder convictions, the predicate felony was possession of marijuana with intent to distribute. Mr. Hurtado-Valdez was not separately charged (or convicted) of this felony, though. Mr. Hurtado-Valdez was sentenced to a total term of 46 years in prison.[1]
On filing his initial brief, Mr. Hurtado-Valdez presented two questions for our review:
After Mr. Hurtado-Valdez was sentenced, and during the pendency of his appeal, the law on possession of marijuana with intent to distribute changed. Specifically, Maryland's General Assembly passed, and voters later approved, the Maryland Cannabis Reform Act ("MCRA"), one feature of which was to reclassify possession of marijuana with intent to distribute from a felony to a misdemeanor. The mechanism for this change was to repeal and reenact the penalty provision for possession with intent to distribute marijuana, Md. Code Ann., Criminal Law ("CR") § 5-607(a)(2). This statutory change took effect January 1, 2023.
After (and in light of) the reclassification of the predicate for his murder convictions, Mr. Hurtado-Valdez moved to supplement his brief. The State opposed this request. We granted Mr. Hurtado-Valdez's motion, asking the parties to file supplemental briefs on the effect of the reclassification and how Maryland's general savings clause, Md. Code Ann., Gen. Provis. § 1-205, might apply. Specifically, we ordered briefing on the following issue, which, for organizational purposes, we number as "3." in keeping with the numbering of the above questions presented:
3. The effects of Md. Code Ann., Crim. Law § 5-607(a)(2) and Md. Code Ann., Gen. Provis. § 1-205 on this appeal.
For reasons to follow, we affirm Mr. Hurtado-Valdez's convictions. As to the photographic and videographic gun evidence, while we agree that it should not have been admitted, the error was harmless. Because self-defense is not a defense to second-degree felony murder, we see no error in how the jury was instructed on this point. Finally, the reclassification of possession with intent to distribute marijuana from a felony to a misdemeanor, coming as it did after Mr. Hurtado-Valdez was found guilty and sentenced, does not affect his convictions.
In 2019, Mr. Briggs and Mr. Queen were shot in the laundry room of an apartment complex. Mr. Briggs died instantly. Mr. Queen made it outside before dying in the parking lot. Before the murders, a building resident confirmed seeing Mr. Briggs and Mr. Queen sitting on a bench outside the building. After a time, that resident heard gunshots in the laundry room.
Another resident was walking to her car when she encountered a man later identified as Mr. Queen, staggering and then collapsing near her car. According to this resident, another man drove up, got out of his car, flipped Mr. Queen over onto his back, "[went] through his pockets and patt[ed] his pockets down[,]" and then [left] in the car without concern for Mr. Queen.
When police arrived, they found no guns, cell phones, or marijuana on Mr. Briggs, Mr. Queen, or at the crime scene. Near the entrance to the laundry room, the police recovered a cartridge case for a bullet on the floor next to Mr. Briggs' body, as well as a bullet recovered from under him. In all, "[s]even [9 mm caliber] cartridge casings, two bullets[,] and two fragments were recovered."
Police investigation soon focused on Mr. Hurtado-Valdez, a high school acquaintance of Mr. Queen's who sold drugs. After speaking with Mr. Queen's family, police secured records (including electronic messages and images) from Mr. Hurtado-Valdez's and Mr. Queen's social media accounts. Some six months before the murders, Mr. Queen had messaged Mr. Hurtado-Valdez, asking whether he had any cocaine available. When Mr. Hurtado-Valdez was unable to acquire it at the price Mr. Queen was willing to pay, the deal fell through. Three months later, Mr. Hurtado-Valdez messaged Mr. Queen about the availability of a different drug for sale, a high-grade variety of marijuana. And on the day of the murders, Mr. Queen messaged Mr. Hurtado-Valdez, telling him that he needed marijuana.
In addition to the electronic messages, police found three still images of handguns that Mr. Hurtado-Valdez had posted on his social media account within a month of the murders. Two stills were of revolvers, and one still was of a 9 millimeter (mm) Luger. On Mr. Hurtado-Valdez's social media account, police also found a video showing him in possession of a firearm. This video had been posted to the account about a month prior to the murders.
After the murders, police found marijuana in Mr. Hurtado-Valdez's home and a blood stain on the car he was believed to have driven away from the apartment complex. Specifically, in the kitchen cabinets, in a potato chip bag, police found "a bag of marijuana," holding approximately 62 grams of marijuana. The marijuana was packaged in a sealed plastic bag that itself contained two sandwich bags that themselves contained 36 smaller bags or "bag corners." Inside the potato chip bag was also a variety of other chip bags, including a Cheetos bag. The blood stain was on the driver's side door.
When police searched Mr. Hurtado-Valdez's home, he had already fled the area and crossed the border into Mexico near Laredo, Texas. Later, Mr. Hurtado-Valdez was returned to Texas, and then to Maryland. Once in Maryland, Mr. Hurtado-Valdez met with Anne Arundel County Police Detectives Adrian Lewis and Vincent Carbonero and provided a long, recorded interview.
During the interview, Mr. Hurtado-Valdez did not deny shooting Mr. Briggs and Mr. Queen but said he did so in self-defense. Mr. Hurtado-Valdez told the detectives that he met Mr. Queen at the apartment complex to smoke marijuana together. When he arrived, Mr. Queen showed Mr. Hurtado-Valdez some marijuana that he had in a small Cheetos bag.[3] Mr. Queen then gave Mr. Hurtado-Valdez the bag; he smelled it and returned it to Mr. Queen before following him into the apartment building, down the hall, and toward the laundry room.
As Mr. Hurtado-Valdez told the police, Mr. Briggs must have been in a dark corner of the laundry room waiting out of sight because when he walked into the room ahead of Mr. Queen, he heard the door shut behind him, and before he turned toward the door, Mr. Briggs hit him, knocking him to the ground. Mr. Hurtado-Valdez claimed that Mr. Briggs pointed a gun at him and demanded that he turn over his stuff. After taking a wallet from Mr. Hurtado-Valdez, Mr. Queen turned to give it to Mr. Briggs, and that is when Mr. Hurtado-Valdez claimed Mr. Briggs said, "[I]f he don't got nothing, we gonna smoke him."
Taking Mr. Briggs' statement to mean they were going to kill him, Mr. Hurtado- Valdez acted out of fear for his life.
[MR. HURTADO-VALDEZ]: Yeah, like . . . that is when I took the gun. I can't really explain how I took the gun. I just know I took it. I twisted it. And then - it was kind of falling to the ground but I still had, I was holding the [gun] where you insert the clip .... My finger wasn't even on the trigger. [Mr. Briggs] grabbed like the barrel and we were still like I guess you could say fighting over a gun ....I'm on the ground at this point. I had the gun and [Mr. Briggs] was on me at this point . . . [b]ut he was pressing down on me. I pointed the gun toward him and I shot, and I shot him .... I'm pretty sure it was his chest because he was like above me . . . but I just pointed the gun and it went off[.]
After taking the gun from Mr. Briggs and shooting him, Mr. Hurtado-Valdez shot Mr. Queen. According to Mr. Hurtado-Valdez, Mr. Queen was some distance away when he fired the gun at him. The first time he shot him "in the front," and the second time was when Mr. Queen turned and picked up his phone that had fallen out of his pocket before struggling to open the door and running out of the room. Mr. Hurtado-Valdez-still lying on the ground-panicked, got up, grabbed his wallet from atop the nearby washing machine, and left.
When Mr. Hurtado-Valdez finished explaining what happened, the detectives inquired about the gun, but the inquiry yielded little useful information.
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