Johnson v. State
| Decision Date | 21 February 2018 |
| Docket Number | No. 6, Sept. Term, 2017,6, Sept. Term, 2017 |
| Citation | 457 Md. 513,179 A.3d 984 |
| Parties | Martaz JOHNSON v. STATE of Maryland |
| Court | Court of Special Appeals of Maryland |
Kiran Iyer, Assistant Public Defender (Paul B. DeWolfe, Public Defender of Maryland, Baltimore, MD), on brief, for Petitioner/Cross–Respondent.
Robert Taylor, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen. (Brian E. Frosh, Atty. Gen. of Maryland, Baltimore, MD), on brief, for Respondent/Cross–Petitioner.
Argued Before: Barbera, C.J., Greene, Adkins, McDonald, Watts, Hotten, Getty, JJ.
A factfinder at a trial applies common sense drawn from shared human experience to the evidence to reach a fair determination of the facts. Some evidence, however, is beyond the common experience of most people. Expert testimony may be necessary for the factfinder to decide the significance of such evidence.
Expert testimony is often required to explain scientific or technical matters. But expert testimony is not required simply because one can explain a matter scientifically. For example, a jury can be expected to readily understand the significance of testimony that a clock or a thermometer displayed certain numbers without need for an expert to explain the scientific phenomenon that underlies the thermometer or the engineering that powers the clock. But the jury will need an expert to understand the significance of an opinion that two biological samples "match" based upon a statistical analysis involving DNA evidence.
While common sense does not change, common human experience does. A technical marvel of an earlier time may become the everyday tool of the contemporary person. This case presents the question whether location information from a GPS device is more like numbers read from a clock or thermometer or more like a conclusion reached from the analysis of DNA evidence.
Petitioner Martaz Johnson,1 an officer with the Maryland Transit Administration ("MTA") police, was charged with assaulting and raping a young woman shortly after she had been involved in a traffic accident with an MTA bus. According to the young woman, Mr. Johnson had responded to the scene of that accident in his official capacity and drove her home, where the offense occurred. Among the equipment that Mr. Johnson carried that evening as part of his job was a mobile GPS device, which allowed the MTA to keep track of the locations of its officers.
At the trial in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City, the State introduced GPS data from Mr. Johnson's device that matched the itinerary given by the woman in her testimony at trial. That evidence was introduced by a custodian of records of the MTA police.
While Mr. Johnson's defense counsel did not appear to dispute that Mr. Johnson had been present at the locations indicated in the GPS data, he objected to the Circuit Court's decision to admit that evidence on several bases. In this appeal, Mr. Johnson argues that the State should have presented expert foundation testimony concerning GPS devices as a prerequisite to the admission of such evidence.
The Court of Special Appeals, relying on one of its prior decisions,2 held that a lay juror could understand the significance of GPS data without expert help and that it was not necessary for the State to present expert testimony on GPS devices and data. We agree with the Court of Special Appeals.
To provide the context in which the legal issues before us arise, we summarize the key testimony at trial and the procedural path of this case.
The victim of the alleged offenses was a 28–year–old woman whom we shall refer to as Ms. K.3 After going out with a female friend on the evening of March 12, 2014, for dinner, drinks, and dancing, Ms. K. was driving home in the early morning hours when her car was struck by an MTA bus at the intersection of Central Avenue and Monument Street in Baltimore City.
MTA police officers responded to the scene of the accident.4 Mr. Johnson was one of those officers. Ms. K. testified that Mr. Johnson told her she should not be driving any more that evening; she agreed to refrain from doing so because she had been drinking. According to Ms. K., Mr. Johnson instructed her to sit in the back of his police car and said that he needed to "release" her to someone or else he would have to take her "downtown," which Ms. K. interpreted to mean jail.
Ms. K. decided to contact the friend she had been out with, who lived nearby, in the hope that the friend would retrieve her and her car. However, Ms. K. was unsuccessful in multiple attempts to reach her friend by phone. Mr. Johnson then drove Ms. K. to her friend's home and Ms. K. attempted to call the friend from the police car, again without success. According to Ms. K., Mr. Johnson would not allow her to leave the car to knock on the door.
Ms. K. testified that, after failing to rouse her friend, she sat crying in the back of the police car. She said that Mr. Johnson, instead of taking her "downtown" as he had originally indicated, then drove her to her own home at 708 North Duncan Street in Baltimore City. According to Ms. K., while they were en route, Mr. Johnson asked her "what are you going to do to make this up."
Ms. K. testified that, as she entered her home, Mr. Johnson followed her in without being invited to do so. According to Ms. K., Mr. Johnson asked her whether anyone else lived there, and she replied that she lived alone. He then used his flashlight to check whether there was anyone else in the house.
According to Ms. K., Mr. Johnson then assaulted and raped her. Afterwards, she testified, she tried to take a picture of Mr. Johnson with her cell phone without success. Mr. Johnson took the phone from her, made her unlock it, and scrolled through her pictures. He then left the house.
Shortly after Mr. Johnson left her home, Ms. K. called 9–1–1 and reported that she had been raped by a police officer. An ambulance transported her to a hospital where she underwent a rape kit examination. At that time Ms. K. was reluctant to be interviewed by Baltimore City police detectives because she thought that Mr. Johnson was associated with the Baltimore City police. She spoke with an attorney acquaintance later that day who encouraged her to talk to the detectives. When she was subsequently interviewed by the detectives, she told them that Mr. Johnson was the officer who had assaulted her.
Mr. Johnson later submitted to forensic testing, which revealed Ms. K.'s skin cells on the shaft of his penis.5
Mr. Johnson was charged in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City with first and second-degree rape, third and fourth-degree sex offenses, first-degree assault, two counts of second-degree assault, first, third, and fourth-degree burglary, reckless endangerment, and misconduct in office.
At trial, the State presented the testimony of Ms. K., who recounted the events as summarized above and made an in-court identification of Mr. Johnson as her assailant. The State sought to corroborate Ms. K.'s account through other testimony and evidence. In particular, it called the MTA police officer who had initially responded to the accident before Mr. Johnson arrived and who left the scene while Mr. Johnson was talking with Ms. K. That officer testified that an MTA police protocol required an officer who planned to transport a civilian to report that activity to radio dispatch. He testified that the radio log for that evening did not reveal such a call by Mr. Johnson.
The Baltimore City police detectives who investigated the offense also testified about their interview of Ms. K. and the gathering of forensic evidence. The forensic nurse who had examined Mr. Johnson, the police DNA technician who noted skin cells on the swabs taken from Mr. Johnson's genitals, and the DNA analyst who matched the DNA of those skin cells to Ms. K.'s DNA also testified. The attorney acquaintance of Ms. K. testified that he had found a "frantic" message on his phone from Ms. K. the morning of March 13 in which she stated that she had been raped by a police officer and that he had counseled her to talk to the detectives.
The State also introduced evidence from a GPS tracking device6 known as a "Pocket Cop" that Mr. Johnson had carried that night. MTA police officers carry Pocket Cops primarily for officer safety. A Pocket Cop records GPS data concerning its location and movements. Police supervisors can access the data from a particular officer's device through a program called "Field Force Manager." That program generates a report that shows the location of a Pocket Cop at specific times and the duration of time spent at each location. As a result, the MTA can determine where its officers are, and have been, at any particular moment.
An MTA police supervisor who served as its custodian of records testified that the data derived from the device carried by Mr. Johnson on March 13, 2014, showed that he had spent 14 minutes that night in the vicinity of the address of Ms. K.'s friend and 37 minutes in the vicinity of Ms. K.'s residence. The evidence and arguments concerning the admissibility of that data are described in greater detail in Part II.A of this opinion.
The MTA police supervisor also reiterated that it would be contrary to department policy for an officer to transport a civilian in the officer's police car without calling a supervisor over the radio and obtaining permission. He testified that the radio log for the evening did not show a call by Mr. Johnson to his supervisor for that purpose.
The defense did not call any witnesses and Mr. Johnson exercised his right not to testify.
The Circuit Court granted a judgment of acquittal on charges of fourth-degree burglary, first-degree assault, third-degree sex offense, and reckless endangerment. The jury acquitted Mr. Johnson of first-degree and third-degree burglary, as well as first-degree rape. It could not reach a verdict on the charges of second-degree...
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