Merzbacher v. State

• Decision Date: 28 July 1997
• Docket Number: S,No. 99,99
• Citation: 346 Md. 391,697 A.2d 432
• Parties: John J. MERZBACHER v. STATE of Maryland. ept. Term 1996.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

Page 391

346 Md. 391

697 A.2d 432

John J. MERZBACHER v. STATE of Maryland.

No. 99, Sept. Term 1996.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

July 28, 1997.

Michael R. Braudes, Assistant Public Defender (Stephen E. Harris, Public Defender, on brief), Baltimore, for Petitioner.

Annabelle L. Lisic, Assistant Attorney General (J. Joseph Curran, Jr., Attorney General, on brief), Baltimore, for Respondent.

Argued before BELL, C.J., and ELDRIDGE, RODOWSKY, CHASANOW, KARWACKI, RAKER and WILNER, JJ.

KARWACKI, Judge.

In Wills v. State, 329 Md. 370, 620 A.2d 295 (1993), this Court exhaustively reviewed the history and constitutional imperative of the reasonable doubt instruction. We issued a writ of certiorari in this case to consider the adequacy of the instruction given on that subject, as well as the propriety of several evidentiary rulings made by the trial judge. Finding no error, we shall affirm.

I.

John Joseph Merzbacher and Elizabeth Murphy first encountered each other in 1972 when Merzbacher was a teacher at the Catholic Community Middle School of Baltimore ("CCMS"). Murphy, who was eleven years of age at the time, was his student. According to Murphy, Merzbacher subjected her to three years of sexual, physical, and emotional violence. ¹ The torment ended when Murphy left CCMS in 1975. She did not reveal the substance of these attacks to anyone for some time. In 1979, she informed Sister Eilene Weisman of Merzbacher's behavior, but to no avail. She did so again in 1988, again without result. ² That same year, Murphy sought advice from Father William Mannion, a former classmate of hers at CCMS. Mannion agreed to speak with Murphy at length about her experiences with Merzbacher. After doing so, Mannion reported the incidents to officials of the Archdiocese of Baltimore.

Merzbacher was eventually charged with three counts of carnal knowledge of a female child under the age of fourteen years, and single counts of perverted practice, common law rape, and sexual child abuse. From May 22 through June 8, 1995, he was tried before a jury in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City. Elizabeth Murphy was the principal State's witness against Merzbacher at that trial. The jury returned guilty verdicts on all counts, and the court sentenced Merzbacher to four life sentences, plus ten years, to run concurrently. Merzbacher timely appealed those judgments to the Court of Special Appeals. The intermediate appellate court affirmed in an unreported opinion. We will mention additional facts as necessary to our consideration of Merzbacher's contentions.

II.

In his Petition for Certiorari, Merzbacher complains that the trial court (1) provided the jury with an erroneous reasonable doubt instruction; (2) improperly admitted criminal propensity or "bad acts" evidence against him; and (3) wrongfully excluded relevant evidence favorable to the defense. We shall consider each of these assertions in turn.

a.

Merzbacher first alleges that the trial court "propounded a completely deficient instruction defining the concept of proof beyond a reasonable doubt." Following the close of all evidence, the trial court instructed the jury as follows upon reasonable doubt:

"as you ... know [ladies and gentlemen of the jury] under our law the Defendant is presumed to be innocent of all of the charges against him. This presumption remains with the Defendant throughout every stage of the trial and is not overcome unless you are convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the Defendant is guilty. The state, as you know, has the burden of proving the guilt of the Defendant beyond a reasonable doubt. This burden remains on the State throughout the trial. The Defendant is not required to prove his innocence, however, the State is not [ ] required to prove guilt beyond all possible doubt or to a mathematical certainty nor is the State required to negate every conceivable circumstance of innocence. Proof beyond a reasonable doubt, ladies and gentlemen, is proof that leaves you firmly convinced of the Defendant's guilt. There are very few things in this world that we know with absolute certainty and in criminal cases the law does not require proof that overcomes every possible doubt.

If based on your consideration of the evidence you are firmly convinced that the Defendant is guilty of the crimes charged you must find him guilty. If on the other hand you think there is a real possibility that he is not guilty you must give him the benefit of the doubt and find him not guilty."

Merzbacher excepted. In his view, this instruction, (1) set the State's burden too low; (2) failed to define or explain the State's burden in any comprehensible way; or (3) otherwise rendered the harboring of a reasonable doubt more difficult than that for which the law actually calls. The State, of course, responds by asserting that the trial court's reasonable doubt instruction fell within acceptable limits and in no way prejudiced the accused.

The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees that a criminal defendant's conviction can be had only upon proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Wills v. State, 329 Md. 370, 374, 620 A.2d 295, 297 (1993)(citing In re Winship, 397 U.S. 358, 361-64, 90 S.Ct. 1068, 1071-73, 25 L.Ed.2d 368, 373-75 (1970)); Lambert v. State, 193 Md. 551, 558, 69 A.2d 461, 464 (1949). The reasonable doubt standard is such an indispensable and necessary part of any criminal proceeding that, with respect to a case tried before a jury, the trial court's failure to inform the jury of that standard constitutes reversible error. Wills, supra, 329 Md. at 376, 620 A.2d at 298; Montgomery v. State, 292 Md. 84, 93, 437 A.2d 654, 658 (1981) (citing Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 320 n. 14, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 2790 n. 14, 61 L.Ed.2d 560, 574 n. 14 (1979)).

The issue in this case, of course, is not whether the trial court must provide the jury with a reasonable doubt instruction. It must. We here are asked the narrow question of whether the reasonable doubt instruction in the instant case understated the State's burden of proof to the prejudice of Merzbacher. We believe that it did not.

Both the State and Merzbacher find support for their respective positions in Wills v. State, 329 Md. 370, 620 A.2d 295 (1993), and in Joyner-Pitts v. State, 101 Md.App. 429, 647 A.2d 116 (1994). Merzbacher's reliance, however, is misplaced.

In Wills, supra, this Court endorsed the reasonable doubt instruction agreed upon by various members of the bench and bar comprising the Committee which adopted the Maryland Pattern Jury Instructions-Criminal Law (1991) (MPJI-CR). MPJI-CR 2:02 provides that

"[a] reasonable doubt is a doubt founded upon reason. It is not a fanciful doubt, a whimsical doubt or a capricious doubt. Proof beyond a reasonable doubt requires such proof as would convince you of the truth of a fact to the extent that you would be willing to act upon such belief without reservation in an important matter in your own business or personal affairs. However, if you are not satisfied of the defendant's guilt to that extent, then reasonable doubt exists and the defendant must be found not guilty." [ ³] (Emphasis added).

In contrast to MPJI-CR 2:02, however, the trial judge in the case sub judice neither employed the "without reservation" language highlighted above, nor did he relate that concept to the jurors' decision to act "in an important matter in [their] own business or personal affairs." In Merzbacher's view, "these ideas provide real assistance to lay jurors in coming to grips with the required degree of certainty in finding a fellow-citizen guilty of a crime[.]" Without them, he argues, the trial court's instruction was hopelessly deficient.

While we agree that MPJI-CR 2:02 provides an adequate, if not preferable, explanation of the reasonable doubt standard, we in no way intimated in Wills that 2:02 is the definitive statement of the concept; to the contrary. We noted that "[o]ur opinions [prior to Wills ] have refrained from adopting a boiler plate explanation of [the term] reasonable doubt[.]" 329 Md. at 382, 620 A.2d at 301; see also Poole v. State, 295 Md. 167, 186, 453 A.2d 1218, 1228 (1983); Montgomery, supra, 292 Md. at 95, 437 A.2d at 659-60. Merzbacher's contentions notwithstanding, the law does not enshrine any particular form of the reasonable doubt instruction. We recently said as much, albeit in dicta, in Hunt v. State, 345 Md. 122, 151-52, 691 A.2d 1255, 1269 (1997)(no magic words must be included in reasonable doubt instruction for it to pass muster). The United States Supreme Court expressed the same sentiment in Victor v. Nebraska, 511 U.S. 1, 114 S.Ct. 1239, 127 L.Ed.2d 583 (1994) by stating that "so long as the [trial] court instructs the jury on the necessity that the defendant's guilt be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, ... the Constitution does not require that any particular form of words be used in advising the jury of the government's burden of proof." 511 U.S. at 5, 114 S.Ct. at 1243, 127 L.Ed.2d at 590.

For our part, we have stressed that

"when an explanation is given to the jury, whether at the instance of the judge or at the request of a party, it must be such as does not tend to confuse, mislead, or prejudice the accused. It is better that the explanation begin with a statement of the principle of presumption of innocence which places the burden of proof on the State, where it remains throughout the trial. The State is not required to prove guilt beyond all possible doubt or to a mathematical certainty, but it is not enough if the evidence shows that the defendant is probably guilty. Nor is it sufficient that reasonable doubt is defined only by its own terms. The explanation should focus on the term 'reasonable doubt,' so as to bring home to the jury clearly that the corpus delicti of the crime and the criminal agency of the accused must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt."

Wills, 329 Md. at...