In re T.J.J.
| Decision Date | 13 July 2021 |
| Docket Number | No. 2528,2528 |
| Parties | IN RE T.J.J. |
| Court | Court of Special Appeals of Maryland |
Circuit Court for Charles County
UNREPORTED
Berger, Leahy, Eyler, James R. (Senior Judge, Specially Assigned), JJ.
Opinion by Berger, J.
*This is an unreported opinion, and it may not be cited in any paper, brief, motion or other document filed in this Court or any other Maryland Court as either precedent within the rule of stare decisis or as persuasive authority. Md. Rule 1-104.
Appellant, T.J.J., was charged in the Circuit Court for Charles County with (i) attempted first-degree murder, (ii) attempted second-degree murder, (iii) first-degree assault, (iv) second-degree assault, (v) reckless endangerment, and (vi) having openly carried a dangerous weapon with the intent to injure. Following a two-day adjudicatory hearing, the Circuit Court, sitting as a Juvenile Court, found T.J.J. "involved" in each of the six counts with which he was charged and committed him to a residential treatment facility. On appeal, he presents three questions for our review, which we have reworded as follows:
We answer T.J.J.'s questions in the negative and shall, therefore, affirm the judgments of the circuit court.
On the date of the incident at issue, T.J.J. and the victim, N.P., were fourteen and seventeen years old, respectively. They resided with N.P.'s biological grandparents, who had adopted T.J.J. approximately ten years prior to the date of the incident. On the afternoon of April 2, 2019, T.J.J.'s adoptive mother ("Mother") asked N.P. to clean the upstairs bathroom. N.P. went downstairs in search of a broom. There, she found T.J.J. in the downstairs bathroom with the lights turned off and the door cracked open. N.P. returned upstairs and reported this unusual behavior to Mother, who, in turn, called T.J.J. upstairs. Approximately fifteen minutes later, Mother advised N.P. that T.J.J.'s adoptive father and she were going to the grocery store. After they had departed leaving T.J.J. and N.P. alone in the house, the latter proceeded to clean the upstairs bathroom per Mother's request. When she had finished doing so, N.P. entered the upstairs kitchen to get a snack. Thereafter, she began to descend the steps en route to her downstairs bedroom. As she did so, N.P. passed T.J.J., who was sitting at the top of the steps with a large kitchen knife.3
When N.P. had reached "about . . . the second to last step," T.J.J. attacked her from behind. He grabbed hold of the ponytail of her wig and slit her throat twice, cutting in a vertical downward fashion. A struggle ensued, during which T.J.J. stabbed N.P. in the back of the head behind her left ear. N.P. escaped by "elbow[ing] him off" and fled the house. T.J.J. gave chase, grabbed N.P. by the wrist, and attempted to force her back inside. N.P. attempted to "fight[] him off," while screaming something to the effect of: "Get off of me." T.J.J. did not heed her pleas. N.P. eventually broke free, fled, and elicited the aid of a neighbor who had witnessed the outside altercation but had not intervened, having believed that the youths had been "playing." The neighbor attempted to dial 9-1-1, but was nervous and unable to dial properly. Despite the severity of her injuries, N.P. called the police, who responded shortly thereafter. N.P. was then airlifted to the hospital, where she received sixteen sutures to her neck and two or three additional stitches to the back of her head.
Following the fray, T.J.J. retreated to the house, changed his clothes, and absconded from the scene. Two days later, Reginald Thomas witnessed T.J.J. sitting on his neighbor's porch. The following morning, Mr. Thomas observed T.J.J. enter a shed adjoining a neighboring townhome. Mr. Thomas ordered him out of the shed, after which T.J.J. told him that he was afraid to return home because he was "in trouble" with his parents. Mr. Thomas welcomed T.J.J. into his home, offered him a sandwich, and permitted him to watch television. Thereafter, police officers arrived at Mr. Thomas's house and asked him whether T.J.J. was present therein. Mr. Thomas called out to T.J.J., who exited the house.T.J.J. was handcuffed and transported to a Waldorf police station where he was provided his Miranda rights and interrogated.
We will include additional facts as necessary to our resolution of the questions presented.
In challenging the sufficiency of the evidence to support his involvement in first-degree assault, T.J.J. contends that "his mental diagnosis and recent changes in medication undermine[d] the conclusion that he formed an intent to cause 'serious physical injury.'"4 He further asserts that the State introduced "no evidence" from which the court could have reasonably inferred the requisite intent to commit attempted second-degree murder. Finally, he claims that "the record does not support the high bar of finding willful, deliberate, and premeditated attempted killing" required to sustain a finding of involvement in attempted first-degree murder. "Because the State failed to establish the intent to kill or cause serious injury," T.J.J. concludes, it "failed to meet its burden of establishing beyond a reasonable doubt each essential element of the offenses."
The State counters that T.J.J. challenges the court's "ultimate conclusion and the resolution of conflicting evidence" -- and not the sufficiency of the evidence. It furthermaintains that "[a] reasonable fact finder could have concluded from the[] facts that T.J.J. was lying in wait to attack N.P. and tried to kill her by slitting her throat and stabbing at her skull."
The standard for review of the sufficiency of the evidence is the same in a jury trial and a bench trial, as well as in a criminal prosecution and a juvenile delinquency proceeding. See Chisum v. State, 227 Md. App. 118, 129 (2016) (); In re James R., 220 Md. App. 132, 137 (2014) . We must, therefore, determine whether, "after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt." White v. State, 217 Md. App. 709, 713 (2014) (quotation marks and citation omitted). Given that exculpatory evidence and inferences "are not a part of that version of the evidence most favorable to the State's case," they do not exist for purposes of our review of the sufficiency of the evidence. See Cerrato-Molina v. State, 223 Md. App. 329, 351, cert. denied, 445 Md. 5 (2015). The scope of our review is, therefore, limited to the incriminating evidence adduced at trial. "The test is 'not whether the evidence should have or probably would have persuaded the majority of fact finders but only whether it possibly could have persuaded any rational fact finder.'" Painter v. State, 157 Md. App. 1, 11 (2004) ().
When reviewing evidentiary sufficiency, our concern is not with the burden of persuasion but with the burden of production. See Joppy v. State, 232 Md. App. 510, 546, cert. denied, 454 Md. 662 (2017). It is not, therefore, within our purview to reweigh the evidence or to retry the case. See Stanley v. State, 248 Md. App. 539, 564 (2020) . Rather, we defer to the court's assessment of witness credibility and to its resolution of conflicting evidence. See State v. Stanley, 351 Md. 733, 750 (1998) .
We begin by addressing T.J.J.'s contention that the evidence was legally insufficient to support a reasonable inference that he attacked N.P. with the deliberate and premeditated intent to kill, in that mens rea entails the specific intent to kill, which, in turn, embodies the specific intent to inflict grievous bodily harm. See Dixon v. State, 364 Md. 209, 240 (2001) (). If evidence of T.J.J.'s murderous mens rea suffices to sustain a conviction for attempted first-degree murder, it is, ipso facto, sufficient to sustain convictions for attempted second-degree murder and first-degree assault. In order to survive T.J.J.'s sufficiency challenge to the mens rea element of attempted first-degree murder, the State must have met its burden ofproving the specific intent to kill, deliberation, and premeditation. In Tichnell v. State, 287 Md. 695, 717 (1980), the Court of Appeals explained that murderous mens rea, writing:
For a killing to be "willful" there must be a specific purpose and intent to kill; to be "deliberate" there must be a full and conscious knowledge of the purpose to kill; and to be "premeditated" the design to kill must have preceded the killing by an appreciable length of time, that is, time enough to be deliberate.
A. The Specific Intent to Kill
Where, as here, a juvenile does not admit to having specifically intended to kill his or her victim, ...
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