Jackson v. State, 96

• Court: Court of Appeals of Maryland
• Writing for the Court: CATHELL.
• Citation: 772 A.2d 273,364 Md. 192
• Parties: Valentino Maurice JACKSON v. STATE of Maryland.
• Docket Number: No. 96,96
• Decision Date: 11 May 2001

772 A.2d 273
364 Md. 192

Valentino Maurice JACKSON
v.
STATE of Maryland

No. 96, Sept. Term, 2000.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

May 11, 2001.

772 A.2d 274

Nancy S. Forster, Asst. Public Defender (Stephen E. Harris, Public Defender, on brief) Baltimore, for petitioner

Steven L. Holcomb, Jr., Atty. Gen. (J. Joseph Curran, Jr., Atty. Gen., of Maryland, on brief) Baltimore, for respondent.

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

CATHELL, Judge.

This case calls into question the appropriateness of comments made by a trial judge during the sentencing phase of a criminal proceeding. On May 5, 1999, following a jury trial in the Circuit Court for Howard County, Valentino Maurice Jackson, petitioner, was convicted of first degree assault, second degree assault, reckless endangerment, and unlawful possession of a short-barreled shotgun. On August 16, 1999, the trial judge imposed a total sentence of eighteen years in the Division of Corrections. In an unreported opinion, the Court of Special Appeals affirmed the judgment.¹ Pursuant to Maryland Rule 8-303, petitioner presented one issue for which we granted certiorari:

Did the trial court's comments at sentencing that people moved to Howard County to get away from people like Petitioner, who come to Howard County from Baltimore City and act like they are animals living in the jungle, exceed the outer limit of the judge's broad discretion in sentencing and amount to impermissible sentencing criteria?²

We answer petitioner's question in the affirmative. We hold that the trial court's comments at sentencing exceeded the outer limit of a judge's broad discretion in sentencing and therefore amounted to the application of impermissible sentencing criteria. Accordingly, we reverse the decision of the Court of Special Appeals and remand the case to that court with instructions to vacate the sentence of the Circuit Court for Howard County and to remand

772 A.2d 275

the case to that court for resentencing before a different judge

Facts

The victim of the assault in the underlying case is named Mitchell Woods (Woods). He is a self-confessed drug dealer who both resides and conducts his illicit business in Howard County. Apparently, petitioner or members of his family were among Woods's customers. Woods testified that at approximately 1:00 a.m. on July 12, 1998, petitioner came to Woods's townhouse at 5593 Cedar Lane in Columbia, Maryland³ to purchase cocaine. Woods refused to sell petitioner any drugs because he alleged that petitioner owed him money, apparently from previous drug sales. Petitioner became angry, and a brief verbal altercation took place between the two men after which petitioner left Woods's townhouse.

According to Woods' testimony, approximately two hours later, at 3:30 a.m., he and his friend, Corey Drain, were standing in the parking area in front of his townhouse when petitioner drove up in an automobile and called out Woods's name. Petitioner then exited the vehicle and confronted Woods with a short-barreled shotgun. When petitioner pointed the shotgun at him, Woods stopped walking towards the car and tried to convince petitioner to put the shotgun down by telling him that there were police in the area. Woods further testified that at this time, the police came upon the incident and arrested petitioner.

Officer Daniel Boehler of the Howard County Police Department testified that he was in the area responding to a domestic call when he noticed petitioner standing in the parking lot pointing a shotgun at Woods. The officer drew his weapon on petitioner and ordered him to place the weapon on the ground, back away from it, and keep his hands where the officer could see them. Petitioner followed the officer's orders and was subsequently arrested. The shotgun was confiscated and upon inspection was found to have been loaded with two rounds.

On May 5, 1999, following a jury trial in the Circuit Court for Howard County, petitioner was convicted of first degree assault, second degree assault, reckless endangerment, and unlawful possession of a short-barreled shotgun. On August 16, 1999, the trial judge imposed a total sentence of eighteen years imprisonment.⁴ In imposing sentence, the judge stated:

THE COURT: Well, this case was very well prepared and very well presented by both sides. Mr. Tauber did his very best. Convinced the jury that Mr. Jackson was not carrying a weapon openly with intent to injure. He was found not guilty of that charge. He was found guilty of first degree assault, second degree assault, reckless endangerment and possessing an unlawful short-barreled shotgun. And I agree that Mr. Woods is no bargain. Now, unfortunately, a number of communities in the lovely city of Columbia have attracted a large number of rotten apples. Unfortunately, most of them came from the

772 A.2d 276

city.⁵ And they live and act like they're living in a ghetto somewhere. And [t] hey weren't invited out here to [behave] like animals. Drugs and guns and drugs and guns. It's nonsensical. Other people don't want that. Other people don't tolerate that. And the problem here, of course, is that although Mr. Jackson has a drug problem, none of these people talk about drug problems. This is the great Valentino Jackson. So he's great part of the day and he's goofy the other part of the day. With guns and drugs. So he turns it on and turns it off at will. And it's admirable that he's able to deal effectively with his superiors in the military as well as the civilian employees at Toby's Dinner Theater. But roaming around the streets at 3:30 in the morning, going to a WaWa, uh, going to somebody—going out of the way to go to somebody else's house and confront people with sawed-off shotguns is what they do in the city. That's why people moved out here. To get away from people like Mr. Jackson. Not to associate with them and have them follow them out here and act like this was a jungle of some kind. So. It's not. And our only chance to preserve it is to protect it. The other thing that's discouraging, of course, is that Mr. Jackson was placed on supervised probation on two previous occasions and he not only didn't do well on probation, he failed miserably. And the reason he failed miserably was because he made no effort while under supervision to take advantage of the opportunity to address the very problems that he was well aware of. So it's simply a question of warehousing him, to tell you the truth. All right. Do you have anything further to say, Mr. Jackson? I'll give you a chance now that you've had an opportunity to recover

THE DEFENDANT: Yes. Your Honor, I was never trying to hurt anyone. But my families was, uh, my family was attacked and all I was trying to do was help and do something. To stop it from going to where it went. And now my brother's away recovering, thank God. Like you said, (unintelligible) for a year. And I'm the one looking at the time. I was the middle person. (Unintelligible) I mean—

THE COURT: Well, you worked hard to be a bad person and you accomplished it. Civilized people are not on the roads at 3:30 in the morning, confronting other people with sawed-off shotguns. Civilized people don't own sawed-off shotguns. Only criminals. Only criminals looking for no good, that's why a sawed-off shotgun. So, I mean, what can I say? [Emphasis added.]

In an unreported opinion, the Court of Special Appeals affirmed petitioner's sentence for first degree assault and possession of a short-barreled shotgun. That court concluded:

We have reviewed the entire transcript of the sentencing hearing and find no indication, from the remarks made by the sentencing court or from any information supplied by counsel, that the court was under the impression that appellant [now petitioner] was not from Howard County. As the excerpt we have quoted reveals,⁶ the court made general comments about people moving to Columbia from other places, many from Baltimore City, and about how some of those people brought with them

772 A.2d 277

a culture of drugs and guns that has harmed the communities to which they have moved. Those comments were not directed to the "otherness" or outsider status of the people moving into Columbia from Baltimore City or elsewhere. Rather, they were a commentary about how many of the problems most often associated with the poorest urban areas of Baltimore City are now cropping up in suburban towns like Columbia. The court did not appear concerned about where appellant [now petitioner] had come from—or whether he was an outsider to Howard County at all. It seemed concerned about the nature of the conduct in which he had been engaging, and his recalcitrance to changing his behavior. Those were not impermissible considerations for the court to make during sentencing.

We granted certiorari to address whether the trial court's comments at sentencing exceed the outer limit of the judge's broad discretion in sentencing and amount to impermissible sentencing criteria.

Discussion

It is well settled that "[a] judge is vested with very broad discretion in sentencing criminal defendants." Poe v. State, 341 Md. 523, 531, 671 A.2d 501, 505 (1996); Gary v. State, 341 Md. 513, 516, 671 A.2d 495, 496 (1996); Jennings v. State, 339 Md. 675, 683, 664 A.2d 903, 907 (1995); Jones v. State, 336 Md. 255, 265, 647 A.2d 1204, 1209 (1994); Logan v. State, 289 Md. 460, 480, 425 A.2d 632, 642 (1981). However, "[a] judge should fashion a sentence based upon the facts and circumstances of the crime committed and the background of the defendant, including his or her reputation, prior offenses, health, habits, mental and moral propensities, and social background." Poe, 341 Md. at 532, 671 A.2d at 505 (internal citation omitted). "The judge is accorded this broad latitude to best accomplish the objectives of sentencing—punishment, deterrence and rehabilitation." State v. Dopkowski, 325 Md. 671, 679, 602 A.2d 1185, 1189...