Payton v. State
| Decision Date | 01 February 2018 |
| Docket Number | No. 2115, Sept. Term, 2016,2115, Sept. Term, 2016 |
| Citation | 178 A.3d 633,235 Md.App. 524 |
| Parties | Brandon PAYTON v. STATE of Maryland |
| Court | Court of Special Appeals of Maryland |
Argued by: Celia A. Davis (Paul B. DeWolfe, Public Defender, on the brief), Baltimore, MD, for Appellant.
Argued by: Gary E. O'Connor (Brian E. Frosh, Atty. Gen., on the brief), Baltimore, MD, for Appellee.
Panel: Beachley, Shaw Geter, Charles E. Moylan, Jr. (Senior Judge, Specially Assigned), JJ.
After a four-day jury trial in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City, appellant Brandon Payton was convicted of first-degree murder, second-degree murder, and use of a firearm in the commission of a felony. Appellant timely appealed and presents three questions for our review, which we have reordered:
While the evidence was sufficient to sustain appellant's convictions, we hold that the trial court abused its discretion when it departed from a position of neutrality and sua sponte reopened the State's case, and remand for a new trial.
At approximately 6:00 p.m. on June 12, 2015, in West Baltimore, several eyewitnesses watched a man dressed in brightly-colored women's clothing and a floppy hat chase down and shoot another man. The victim, identified as Steven Bass, died from multiple gunshot wounds. The shooter fled into an alley by a nearby liquor store, whose security footage corroborated testimony about an individual wearing a floppy hat and floral blouse in the vicinity of the shooting. Police officers searched the scene and alley, but were unable to recover any bullets, shell casings, or articles of clothing belonging to the shooter. However, they were later able to lift a palm print from the car of a witness who believed the shooter may have touched the hood of his vehicle while passing by. A search for the print on an automated database returned a "hit," and an arrest warrant for appellant was eventually issued on July 15, 2015.
Appellant was tried in September 2016 before a jury in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City. During the trial, the State introduced testimony from two expert witnesses from the Latent Fingerprint Unit at the Baltimore City Police Department: Sean Dorr and Elizabeth Patti. Mr. Dorr testified that he examined three fingerprint lift cards taken from the witness's vehicle, and found one—a partial latent print—suitable for comparison. That lift card was uploaded to an automated system that compares unknown prints against Maryland's state database of known prints. After examining the results, Mr. Dorr testified from his report that "the partial latent print ... has been identified as an impression of the left palm of Brandon Payton, SID number 2476078."1 Mr. Dorr further testified that he personally fingerprinted appellant on August 9, 2016, and that he was able to verify that the prints he took were also linked to SID number 2476078. Mr. Dorr, however, did not compare those August 2016 prints directly to the lift card taken from the witness's vehicle. Ms. Patti testified that she used magnifiers to physically compare the lift card to known prints in the system belonging to appellant. She also verified that the prints Mr. Dorr took from appellant in August 2016 were linked to SID number 2476078.
When the State rested, appellant made a motion for judgment of acquittal, asserting simply that "the State has not proven its case at this point." Perhaps due to the State's confusing explanation regarding SID numbers,2 the trial court immediately began to question the State about whether its experts had testified that the unknown print (on the lift card) had ever actually been compared to known prints of appellant.
Despite replaying portions of Mr. Dorr's testimony, the State was unable to provide the trial court with a satisfactory explanation. During the following colloquy, the trial court sua sponte reopened the State's case and offered the State the opportunity to put on further evidence:
Two days later, Mr. Dorr was called back to the witness stand and testified that he had examined the palm print from the witness's car, prepared a report identifying the print as belonging to appellant, and that the associated SID number was 2476078. Mr. Dorr also testified that he personally took fingerprints from appellant on August 9, 2016, and that those prints were associated with SID number 2476078. Mr. Dorr explained that whenever a person is fingerprinted, those prints are tested against an automated database of known prints. If the prints are found to have an existing match within the system, they will be associated with the same SID number. Mr. Dorr explained that an individual may have two SID numbers, one for prints taken as a juvenile and one for prints taken as adult, but that appellant was only associated with SID number 2476078.
After the cross-examination of Mr. Dorr, the State rested. Appellant produced no evidence, and the case proceeded with jury instructions and closing arguments. Later that afternoon, the jury found appellant guilty of first-degree murder, second-degree murder, and use of a firearm in the commission of a felony. On December 5, 2016, appellant received a life sentence for first-degree murder and a consecutive twenty-year sentence for use of a firearm in the commission of a felony.3 Appellant noted this timely appeal.
Appellant argues that the trial court abandoned its position of impartiality when it declined to rule on the motion for judgment of acquittal, sua sponte reopened the State's case-in-chief, and told the State exactly what it needed to do to survive the motion for acquittal. We agree, and hold that the trial court abused its discretion by abandoning its neutral role and sua sponte reopening the State's case for further testimony.4
Generally, trial judges have broad discretion to reopen a case to receive additional evidence, and such decisions will not be overturned on appeal absent an abuse of discretion. Hunt v. State , 321 Md. 387, 405, 583 A.2d 218 (1990). When the State moves to reopen its case-in-chief to introduce additional evidence, "the judge must consider whether the State deliberately withheld the evidence proffered in order to have it presented at such time as to obtain an unfair advantage by its impact on the trier of facts." State v. Hepple , 279 Md. 265, 271, 368 A.2d 445 (1977).
The instant case, however, does not involve a trial court granting the State's motion to reopen its case. Instead, the trial court here sua sponte reopened the State's case for additional evidence, in a jury trial, based on its belief that the State had not adequately proved its case. While we are not aware of any Maryland case directly on point, we addressed this type of scenario through dicta in Cason v. State , 140 Md. App. 379, 780 A.2d 466 (2001).
In Cason , we held that a trial judge did not abuse his discretion when he sua sponte reopened the evidentiary portion of a suppression hearing to admit additional evidence that the prosecution had neglected to introduce during its case-in-chief. Id. at 393, 780 A.2d 466. In making this decision, we acknowledged that courts have identified some factors which may be considered when assessing a trial court's decision to vary the order of proof in a case, such as:
Whether good cause is shown; whether the new evidence is significant; whether the jury would be likely to give undue emphasis, prejudicing the party against whom it is offered; whether the evidence is controversial in nature; and, whether the reopening is at the request of the jury or a party.
Id. at 391–92, 780 A.2d 466 (quoting ...
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