Lewis v. State
| Decision Date | 01 May 2015 |
| Docket Number | No. 2632,2632 |
| Parties | STEVEN MAURICE LEWIS v. STATE OF MARYLAND |
| Court | Court of Special Appeals of Maryland |
UNREPORTED
Meredith, Woodward, Sharer, J. Frederick (Retired, Specially Assigned), JJ.
Opinion by Sharer, 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.
A jury in the Circuit Court for Kent County convicted Steven Maurice Lewis of robbery with a deadly weapon, attempted robbery with a deadly weapon, conspiracy and related offenses. In this appeal Lewis raises a variety of arguments to challenge his convictions.1
While we shall vacate several duplicative convictions and sentences, we otherwise affirm.
Although Lewis does not challenge the sufficiency of the evidence, we note some facts from the trial for context. See Westray v. State, 217 Md. App. 429, 434 n.2 (2014) (collecting cases). Moreover, we shall set forth relevant facts as we address the issues before us. Finally, regardless of the issues presented, we review the record as a whole to consider whether any error found is harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. See Dorsey v. State, 276 Md. 638, 659 (1976).
A reasonable jury could have found as follows.
The genesis of the charges against Lewis is a home invasion/robbery shortly after midnight on March 31, 2011, in Chestertown, Kent County. The target residence belonged to Roger and Yolanda Brown. In addition to the Browns, some others, including individuals with special needs, were present at the house. Some of the occupants of the house were assaulted by the intruders, thought to number five men. The intruders demanded money and drugs, but left with far less because of a timely response by the police to a 911 call. Indeed, police responders saw three of the intruders fleeing from the house at different times. Lewis was arrested later that morning.
The prosecution primarily relied on the testimony of two witnesses, Dominic Pritchett and Timothy Brown, two of the participants in the robbery. Brown was recruited as a participant by his uncle, Clarence Cornish. In the afternoon of March 30, 2011, Brown met with Cornish and Pritchett during his lunch hour at Cornish's house in Cambridge to discuss the plan.
That evening Cornish, Brown and Pritchett met again at about 9:00 p.m. at a mini-mart in Cambridge. Jermaine (aka Brondale) Ancrum, who was unknown to Pritchett and Brown, joined them there and the four men proceeded to Chestertown, stopping briefly in Easton. They arrived at a McDonald's and waited for the arrival of the fifth participant - Lewis. Lewis joined them at the McDonald's and the group left for the Brown residence.Pritchett testified that Lewis provided directions to the home; Lewis in turn had been instructed where to go by an acquaintance, Donte Emory.
Maryland State Police Sergeant Steven Hall participated in the response to the 911 call, and at about 6:00 a.m. discovered Ancrum, who was asleep in his vehicle about 200 yards from the Brown residence. Ancrum's vehicle, a Ford Escape, was parked near another car, a Ford Crown Victoria, containing documents associated with Timothy Brown. A cell phone and a man's wallet belonging to Pritchett were recovered from the glove box of the Crown Victoria. A number of items were found on Ancrum. Hall secured these in Ancrum's Ford Escape, and obtained a search warrant for the Escape and its contents. One of the items recovered from the Escape was a receipt from a McDonald's restaurant from about 11:30 p.m.
We shall recite additional facts to the extent they relate to the issues before us.
Lewis complains that the trial court "impermissibly restricted cross-examination of Timothy Brown concerning his eligibility for parole." The ruling complained of occurred in the following context during cross-examination:
The right to cross-examine an adverse witness is a "right guaranteed by the common law[,]" Myer v. State, 403 Md. 463, 476 (2008), the Sixth Amendment, Delaware v. Van Arsdall, 475 U.S. 673, 678-79 (1986), and by Article 21 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights. See Martinez v. State, 416 Md. 418, 428 (2010). In Lewis v. State, 71 Md. App. 402, 412 (1987), we emphasized that the "credibility of any witness is a proper subject of cross-examination[,]" especially where the "weight of the State's case rests almost exclusively upon the testimony of th[at] witness[.]"
The determination of the scope of cross-examination is committed to the trial court's discretion, which we review for abuse. See Martin v. State, 364 Md. 692, 698 (2001). The trial court's discretion has its limits, because "a cross-examiner must be given wide latitude in attempting to establish a witness' bias or motive to testify falsely." Id. (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). A "trial judge may not exercise his discretion to control the limits of cross-examination until the constitutionality required threshold level of inquiry has been afforded the defendant." Brown, 74 Md. App. 414, 419 (1988) (emphasis added) (citing cases). This threshold is satisfied when the defense is afforded "sufficient leeway toestablish a reasonably complete picture of the witness' veracity, bias, and motivation." United States v. Capozzi, 486 F.3d 711, 723 (1st Cir. 2007).
Lewis has not persuaded us that the trial court abused its discretion by limiting the cross-examination of Brown on the issue of whether, or when, he thought he would be eligible for parole. The trial court properly reasoned that the question could only have prompted speculation.
The cross-examination of Brown clearly met an adequate constitutional threshold. The jury heard testimony about his agreement with the State and the favorable treatment it entailed in return for his testimony. Further, the State's argument that Lewis failed to make an adequate proffer is well-taken. See Md. Rule 5-103(a)(2). Cf. Merzbacher v. State, 346 Md. 391, 416 (1997) ().
In the final analysis, Lewis would have this Court reverse the convictions reached after a lengthy trial because the trial court refused to let defense counsel ask Brown to speculate about his parole eligibility. Indeed, Lewis's appellate claim is undermined by counsel's rhetorical flourish in closing argument that the State's key witnesses, Brown andPritchett, were "heavily impeached." The trial court did not abuse its discretion by limiting Lewis's cross-examination of Brown.
Lewis, by counsel, sought to suppress statements he gave to investigators. On June 29, 2012, the motions court conducted a suppression hearing, and on July 3rd issued a Memorandum Opinion denying the motion to suppress. We take the relevant facts from the findings of the motions court:
At 6:15 a.m. dispatch contacted Sgt. Linz requesting that he respond to a citizen report that a black male was observed running in a field between one and two miles south of the Broadneck Road house in the area of the intersection of Broadneck and Langford Road. At that time there still remained two suspects at large in the area. Sgt. Linz and Lieutenant Metzbower ("Lt. Metzbower") responded to the complaint in two separate vehicles. They arrived at the intersection of Broadneck and Langford Roads around 6:26 a.m. Sgt. Linz remained in the intersection to see if he could observe anyone from the roadway and Lt. Metzbower proceeded East down Langford Road. Lt. Metzbower located a black man walking east away from the Broadneck Road's intersection with Langford Road. The suspect was wearing white tennis shoes, dark blue jeans, and a grey hooded sweatshirt. The weather that morning was wet and cold with intermittent rain and Lt. Metzbower observed that the suspect's clothes were damp and his jeans and shoes were muddy.
Lt. Metzbower apprehended Lewis. Lewis was placed in handcuffs and informed that he was "being detained as a possible suspect in an ongoing investigation of an armed home invasion." A search of Lewis's pockets and waistband yielded "nothing of an illegal nature."
Ruling against Lewis, the motions court first concluded that Lewis had been arrested. Nonetheless, the court ruled, the arrest was supported by probable cause. The court explained that Lewis was encountered on a sparsely populated road in an "agricultural area," with no commercial establishments nearby. His clothing was wet and muddy and Lewis appeared to have spent time out in the elements. The officers were aware that a violent home invasion had taken place earlier that morning in the vicinity, and that two suspects, at the least, were still at large. Like the men who were seen fleeing the scene of the home invasion, Lewis wore dark clothing, and the officers did not recognize him as someone from the area.
The motions court then concluded:
The Court, having examined the above-mentioned events leading up to the Defendant's apprehension and applying a common sense evaluation of the totality of the circumstances taken together with rational inferences from these facts finds that an objectively reasonable police officer would have reasonable grounds to believe that the Defendant had been involved in the home invasion. The Defendant's proximity in time and place to the home invasion, the mud on the pants and shoes suggesting that the Defendant could very likely have been the individual seen running through the fields, and the knowledge that a black...
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