Jackson v. State

• Decision Date: 01 September 1995
• Docket Number: No. 21,21
• Citation: 668 A.2d 8,340 Md. 705
• Parties: Robert M. JACKSON v. STATE of Maryland
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

Page 705

340 Md. 705

668 A.2d 8

Robert M. JACKSON v. STATE of Maryland.

No. 21 Sept. Term, 1995.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

Dec. 7, 1995.

Gina M. Serra, Assistant Public Defender, (Stephen E. Harris, Public Defender, on brief), Baltimore, for Appellant.

Gary E. Bair, Assistant Attorney General, (J. Joseph Curran, Jr., Attorney General, on brief), Baltimore, for Appellee.

Argued Before MURPHY, C.J., and ELDRIDGE, RODOWSKY, CHASANOW, KARWACKI, BELL and RAKER, JJ.

RAKER, Judge.

In this case we must determine whether the trial court abused its discretion by admitting a prior theft conviction to impeach the credibility of a defendant on trial for theft. We shall hold that the decision to permit same-crime impeachment was within the trial court's discretion, and that prior convictions for offenses that are similar or identical to the charged crime are not per se inadmissible.

On January 28 and February 1, 1994, the Appellant, Robert M. Jackson, was tried by a jury in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City for theft of $300 or more in violation of Maryland Code (1957, 1992 Repl.Vol., 1995 Cum.Supp.) Article 27, § 342. At the trial, he elected to testify and denied any involvement in the crime. He was convicted and sentenced to five years imprisonment. He appealed his conviction to the Court of Special Appeals, and we issued a writ of certiorari on our own motion before consideration of the issues by that court.

I.

On the morning of October 11, 1993, Neil McCabe, a supervisor in Lombard Hall at the University of Maryland at Baltimore, learned that a computer had been stolen from that building. The Appellant, a student at Morgan State University who had worked for McCabe the preceding summer, was charged with the theft.

Edward White, a housekeeper at the University, testified that while he was working at Lombard Hall on the evening of October 8, 1993, he saw the Appellant in the building on three occasions. The first time was at approximately 5:30 p.m., when Appellant came to the building and said that he did not have his access card but needed to be admitted to do work for McCabe. White admitted Appellant and then returned to his housekeeping duties. He saw the Appellant a second time at around 6:00 p.m. coming from a lighted area in the building. White also noticed that two boxes marked with the University emblem that were used to collect recyclable paper were missing. White left the building at about 8:00 p.m., and when he returned at around 10:30 p.m., he saw two recyclable boxes on the main floor of the building. The boxes contained computer units. White then saw the Appellant a third time, standing next to the boxes. Appellant told him that he was taking the computers home to do some work for McCabe. Appellant then placed the boxes in his vehicle and drove away.

White subsequently identified Appellant as the person he saw that evening, and McCabe denied giving Appellant permission to remove the computer equipment from the building. Based on this evidence, the police went to Appellant's home and, in a nearby alley, they saw Appellant discarding two white, University of Maryland boxes. Appellant was arrested and charged with one count of theft of $300 or more.

Before trial, Appellant filed a motion in limine to exclude evidence of his involvement in two prior thefts in 1991. In the first case, Appellant received a probation before judgment disposition. In the second case, Appellant was convicted of three counts of theft arising from the same incident: theft of $300 or more, theft under $300, and conspiracy to commit theft. Defense counsel argued that a probation before judgment disposition is inadmissible for impeachment purposes because it is not a criminal conviction. Defense counsel also argued that the prior conviction was unduly prejudicial because it was for theft, the same crime as the charge before the court. He contended that allowing the State to impeach Jackson with a prior conviction for the same crime as the charged offense would lead the jury to infer improperly that because Appellant had previously been convicted of theft, he must be guilty in the present case.

The trial judge granted the motion in limine with respect to the probation before judgment disposition but denied the motion with respect to the theft conviction. She ruled that if Appellant elected to testify at trial, the prior theft conviction would be admissible for impeachment purposes under Maryland Rule 5-609, because the probative value outweighed the prejudicial effect.

Appellant was tried before a jury on January 28 and February 1, 1994. He denied guilt and presented an alibi defense supported by two corroborating witnesses. Rosalyn Jenkins, Appellant's neighbor, testified that on the evening of October 8, 1993, Jackson stayed at her apartment from 10:00 or 10:30 p.m. until the following morning. Mr. Long, a college student, testified that he saw Appellant at a rally at Johns Hopkins University at approximately 8:00 p.m. on the evening of this incident.

Appellant also testified. According to his testimony, on the evening of October 8, he attended a lecture at Johns Hopkins University, arriving at approximately 7:30 p.m. and returning home at 9:00 p.m. When he arrived at home, he saw that his clothes were strewn around his apartment and concluded that someone had broken in while he was gone. Because the window in his bedroom had been broken, he spent the night at the apartment of his neighbor, Ms. Jenkins. He also explained the presence of the white, recyclable boxes discovered in the nearby alley, testifying that he had removed the boxes from the University during his summer employment and had used them as trash bins.

On cross-examination, the State asked Appellant whether he had previously been convicted of a crime involving dishonesty. Appellant admitted a prior conviction but denied knowing the name of the offense. The State then offered a certified copy of the docket entry from the Circuit Court for Prince George's County as proof of the 1991 theft conviction. Appellant was convicted and sentenced to five years imprisonment.

II.

Maryland Rule 5-609 governs the admissibility of prior convictions to impeach a witness. The Rule provides in pertinent part: ¹ (a) Generally.--For the purpose of attacking the credibility of a witness, evidence that the witness has been convicted of a crime shall be admitted if elicited from the witness or established by public record during examination of the witness, but only if (1) the crime was an infamous crime or other crime relevant to the witness's credibility and (2) the court determines that the probative value of admitting this evidence outweighs the danger of unfair prejudice to the witness or the objecting party.

Appellant argues that the trial court abused its discretion in admitting evidence of his prior theft conviction to impeach him because the prejudice outweighed the probative value. ² He contends that the similarity of the prior crime to the charged offense rendered the prior conviction so prejudicial as to outweigh any probative value that it may have had. We disagree. Under Rule 5-609, prior convictions for the same or similar offenses as the charged offense are not automatically excluded. The similarity between the prior conviction and the current charge is only one factor the trial court should consider in determining whether to admit the conviction.

In rejecting a rigid approach to the use of prior convictions, we follow the trend toward increasing flexibility that has marked the historical development of Rule 5-609. At common law, a person who had been convicted of an infamous crime or a crime involving dishonesty was incompetent to testify at any trial. State v. Giddens, 335 Md. 205, 214, 642 A.2d 870, 874 (1994); Prout v. State, 311 Md. 348, 359, 535 A.2d 445, 450 (1988). The Legislature removed this disqualification by enacting Chapter 109 of the Acts of 1864, which permitted a person who had been convicted of an infamous crime to testify, but provided that the prior conviction could be admitted to impeach that person's credibility. Prout, 311 Md. at 359, 535 A.2d at 450. This statute is now found in Maryland Code (1995 Repl.Vol.) § 10-905 of the Courts and Judicial Proceedings Article. ³ While ameliorating the harsh common law rule disqualifying a person from testifying, "rather than allow these witnesses to testify free from the taint of their prior infamous convictions, the legislature chose to make these convictions admissible for impeachment purposes." Prout, 311 Md. at 359, 535 A.2d at 450.

Rule 5-609 now governs the admissibility of impeachment by evidence of conviction of a crime. ⁴ The Rule creates a three-part test for determining whether a conviction is admissible for impeachment purposes. Giddens, 335 Md. at 213, 642 A.2d at 874. First, a conviction must fall within the eligible universe to be admissible. This universe consists of two categories: (1) infamous crimes, and (2) other crimes relevant to the witness's credibility. Md.Rule 5-609(a). Second, if the crime falls within one of these two categories, the proponent must establish that the conviction is less than fifteen years old. Md.Rule 5-609(b). Finally, the trial court must weigh the probative value of the impeaching evidence against the danger of unfair prejudice to the defendant. Md.Rule 5-609(c).

We are concerned here only with the third step--the trial court's exercise of its discretionary power and the weighing of the evidence--because Appellant concedes that the other two prongs of the test for admissibility are satisfied. First, the offense of theft falls within the eligible universe of admissible crimes because it is the "embodiment of deceitfulness," Beales, 329 Md. at 270, 619 A.2d at 108, and thus bears on credibility. Id., 619 A.2d at 108. Second, with respect to timeliness, the 1991 theft conviction is sufficiently recent to satisfy the Rule's fifteen-year...