In re Heather B.

• Decision Date: 07 June 2002
• Docket Number: No. 90,90
• Citation: 799 A.2d 397,369 Md. 257
• Parties: In re HEATHER B.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

799 A.2d 397

369 Md. 257

In re HEATHER B.

No. 90, Sept. Term, 2001.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

June 7, 2002.

George E. Burns, Jr., Assistant Public Defender, Neil I. Jacobs, Assigned Public Defender (Stephen E. Harris, Public Defender, on brief) Baltimore, for petitioner.

Rachel Marblestone Kamins, Asst. Atty. Gen., (J. Joseph Curran, Jr., Attorney General of Maryland, on brief) Baltimore, for respondent.

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

HARRELL, J.

In February 2000, Petitioner, Heather B., and a number of other students at Roberto Clemente Middle School in Montgomery County, alleged, apparently to school faculty or administrators, that a male teacher at their school had abused female students sexually. After maintaining in two interviews with a detective from the Montgomery County Police Department that the teacher had engaged in such conduct, Petitioner admitted that the allegations were false in a subsequent interview with an investigator for the Montgomery County Public Schools.

On 23 October 2000, the District Court of Maryland, sitting in Montgomery County as a juvenile court¹, found Petitioner delinquent for making false statements to a police officer which, if she were an adult, would violate Maryland Code (1957, 1996 Repl. Vol.), Article 27, § 150,² and for conspiring to cause a false statement to be made to a police officer in violation of that statute. The District Court placed Petitioner on probation with a number of special conditions and ordered her and her parents to pay restitution in the amount of $85, payable to the Department of Juvenile Justice, for ultimate disbursement to the teacher who was the object of the students' scheme.

Petitioner appealed to the Court of Special Appeals. In an unreported opinion, filed on 27 July 2001, the intermediate appellate court affirmed the judgment of the District Court. We granted Petitioner's petition for writ of certiorari, In re Heather B., 366 Md. 273, 783 A.2d 653 (2001), to consider the following questions:

1. Whether the Court of Special Appeals erred in concluding that Petitioner could violate or conspire to violate Md. Code (1957, 1996 Repl.Vol.), Art. 27, § 150 where there was no evidence that Petitioner agreed to or did give a false statement that instigated a police investigation.

2. Whether the trial judge should have recused himself after he specifically found that Petitioner was a conspirator at the trial of another alleged conspirator.

I.

On 16 February 2000, Detective Erol Birch of the Montgomery County Police Department initiated an investigation of charges that a male physical education teacher at Roberto Clemente Middle School ("RCMS") in Montgomery County had abused sexually a number of students.³ As part of his investigation, Detective Birch interviewed the alleged victims and witnesses of the sexual abuse, including Heather B. (Petitioner), who was 12 years old at the time. In her first interview by Detective Birch, which took place on 16 February 2000, Petitioner described a number of instances in which the male teacher inappropriately had touched her and other girls, and stated that he twice had entered the girls' locker room at the school while students were changing. In addition, Petitioner told Detective Birch that some of the girls reported the instances of the teacher entering the locker room to the physical education in-house resource teacher and another physical education teacher at RCMS. Both of the latter teachers, who are female, denied that the children reported any such incidents to them. On 23 February 2000, Detective Birch conducted a second interview with Petitioner, in which Petitioner reiterated and expanded upon her previous statements regarding the alleged misconduct.

On 1 March 2000, Mr. Miles Alban, an investigator for the Montgomery County Public Schools, began investigating the allegations against the male teacher. According to Mr. Alban's testimony, he noticed "minor inconsistencies" in the "point of view statements" prepared by the students involved, which had been obtained by the principal of RCMS. He also was "bothered" by some of the language attributed to the teacher in those statements, which Mr. Alban did not believe was the kind of language an adult "would use." After reading those statements, Mr. Alban visited the girls' locker room at RCMS and spoke to the female instructors to whom some of the students allegedly had reported the locker room intrusions. While at RCMS, he discovered that "it would have been impossible for [the male teacher] to stand" where the students alleged he stood in the locker room, "without being seen by one of the female instructors" in the "women's office." In addition, Mr. Alban also learned in the course of his investigation that, prior to making the allegations of sexual misconduct against the male teacher, some of the involved students had requested to meet with their school counselor regarding problems they were having with the teacher in a classroom setting.⁴

At some point during his investigation, Mr. Alban was notified by his supervisor that one of the students "had changed his story."⁵ On 9 March 2000, Mr. Alban met with Petitioner's father at RCMS and explained that "some of the children were changing their stories." He urged Petitioner's father "to talk to his daughter," who was located in a conference room at the school, "and see if he could not ... elicit the truth of what happened." Petitioner's father "spent about fifteen minutes" with his daughter, during which she continued to "maintain[ ] that the story was true." At that point, Petitioner's father left Petitioner and Mr. Alban alone. Under questioning by Mr. Alban, Petitioner admitted that the allegations of sexual misconduct were false. As Mr. Alban testified:

I told [Petitioner], I said, [the teacher] had been teaching thirty years. He was going to lose his job, his wife was going to leave him, and he was going to go to jail. At that point, she said, started crying, said it didn't happen, I couldn't tell my father, he'll ground me, please don't tell my father.

On 12 May 2000, the State of Maryland (Respondent) filed a petition in the District Court of Maryland, sitting in Montgomery County as a juvenile court, alleging that "on or about" 16 and 23 February 2000, Petitioner, in violation of Md.Code (1957, 1996 Repl.Vol.), Art. 27, § 150,

did unlawfully and knowingly with intent to deceive, in Montgomery County, Maryland, make and cause to be made a false report, statement and complaint to a Montgomery County police officer, knowing the statement, complaint and report to be false, with the intent to cause an investigation and other action to be taken as a result thereof.

In addition, the petition also alleged that "on or about and between" 1 February and 25 February 2000, Petitioner "did unlawfully and wilfully" conspire with six other juveniles to commit acts in violation of § 150. Specifically, the petition maintained that Petitioner conspired with the other students "to make and cause to be made a false report, statement and complaint to a Montgomery County police officer, knowing the same to be false and with intent to deceive and with intent to cause an investigation and other action to be taken as a result thereof."

On 21 October and 23 October 2000, an adjudicatory hearing was held in the District Court. A number of individuals testified, including two of the juveniles alleged to have conspired with Petitioner. Mirella H. explained that Petitioner asked her if she "wanted to help her tell a lie about [the teacher]." Mirella H. agreed because she "didn't like him." Mirella H. then testified, however, that Petitioner did not tell Mirella H. that what she was saying about the teacher was false. According to Mirella H., she believed that the teacher had touched Petitioner and thought that Petitioner was asking her to help because "[Petitioner] knew that [she] didn't like him either."

Likewise, Denisse V. testified at the hearing that Petitioner "told [her] what happened." Specifically, Denisse V. indicated that Petitioner told her that "[s]he had seen [the teacher] come in the locker room and that he had touched her and [Karey] R.," and also that he "came up to them and gave them a group hug." Denisse V. testified that she believed that something "had happened to [Petitioner]," and admitted that she told school personnel that she witnessed the alleged events, even though she did not, "because [she] was just trying to help...." Finally, Denisse V. testified that Petitioner never told her to lie to the police and agreed that she had "heard some stories and ... continued a lie that [she] had been told...."⁶

At the conclusion of the two day adjudicatory proceeding, the District Court found Petitioner delinquent for making false statements to a police officer which, if she were an adult, would violate § 150, and for conspiring to cause a false statement to be made to a police officer in violation of that statute. On 21 November 2000, a disposition and restitution hearing was held. The District Court placed Petitioner on probation "in the care and custody of her parents, following a brief detention at the courthouse, and imposed a number of special conditions on her probation.⁷ In addition, the District Court ordered that Petitioner and her parents "jointly pay restitution to the Department of Juvenile Justice in the amount of $ 85," by 20 December 2000, for disbursement to the victim of Petitioner's scheme.

On 27 November 2000, Petitioner appealed to the Court of Special Appeals. Petitioner maintained that the District Court erred in holding that Petitioner's conduct violated § 150 because Petitioner was "merely interviewed as part of a police investigation." According to Petitioner, pursuant to our holding in Jones v. State, 362 Md. 331, 765 A.2d 127 (2001),⁸ an individual must make a false statement, report, or complaint...