Pennington v. State

• Decision Date: 01 September 1986
• Docket Number: No. 52,52
• Citation: 521 A.2d 1216,308 Md. 727
• Parties: Jean PENNINGTON v. STATE of Maryland. ,
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

Page 727

308 Md. 727

521 A.2d 1216

Jean PENNINGTON v. STATE of Maryland.

No. 52, Sept. Term, 1986.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

March 9, 1987.

George E. Burns, Jr., Asst. Public Defender, Baltimore (Alan H. Murrell, Public Defender and Jose Felipe Anderson, Asst. Public Defender, Baltimore, on the brief), for appellant.

Valerie W. Loftin, Asst. Atty. Gen. (Stephen H. Sachs, Atty. Gen., Baltimore, on the brief), for appellee.

Argued before MURPHY, C.J., and ELDRIDGE, COLE, RODOWSKY, COUCH, McAULIFFE, JJ., and MARVIN H. SMITH, Associate Judge of the Court of Appeals of Maryland (retired), Specially Assigned.

MARVIN H. SMITH, Judge.

Appellant, Jean Pennington, was convicted in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City of a violation of Maryland Code (1957, 1982 Repl.Vol.) Art. 27, § 27, pertaining to obstruction of justice, upon her entering an "Alford " plea of guilty. ¹ The charge stemmed from her having stabbed another woman in order to dissuade the woman from testifying in an assault case then pending in Baltimore City. The entire incident took place in the District of Columbia.

Pennington contended in the Court of Special Appeals and contends here that Maryland courts lack jurisdiction over the offense because every act attributed to her took place in the District of Columbia. The Court of Special Appeals disagreed with Pennington and affirmed her conviction. Pennington v. State, 66 Md.App. 710, 505 A.2d 895 (1986). We granted Pennington's petition for a writ of certiorari in order that we might consider the important public question here presented, one of first impression, not only in this State but elsewhere. We shall affirm.

Code (1974, 1984 Repl.Vol.) § 1-501, Courts and Judicial Proceedings Article, provides that our "circuit courts are the highest common-law and equity courts of record exercising original jurisdiction within the State." Each such court "has full common-law and equity powers and jurisdiction in all civil and criminal cases within its county, and all the additional powers and jurisdiction conferred by the Constitution and by law, except where by law jurisdiction has been limited or conferred exclusively upon another tribunal." Neither the Constitution nor the code specifically addresses jurisdiction over the offense of obstructing justice. ² Under § 1-501 of the Courts Article, then, the question of jurisdiction in this case must be determined with reference to the common law.

The general rule under the common law is that a state may punish only those crimes committed within its territorial limits. ³ See, e.g., Urciolo v. State, 272 Md. 607, 325 A.2d 878 (1974); Goodman v. State, 237 Md. 64, 205 A.2d 53 (1964); Bowen v. State, 206 Md. 368, 111 A.2d 844 (1955); Stout v. State, 76 Md. 317, 25 A. 299 (1892). If the various elements of a given offense do not all occur within the borders of a single state, it becomes necessary to decide in which state or states the offense has been "committed." 1 W.R. LaFave & A.W. Scott, Jr., Substantive Criminal Law § 2.9 (1986) states that when the elements are thus scattered,

"the common law picked out one particular act (or omission) or result of the act (or omission) as vital for the determination of the place of commission (i.e. the situs) of each of the various crimes and gave jurisdiction to that state ... where the vital act or result occurred. Generally, it may be said that the situs of a crime at common law is the place of the act (or omission) if the crime is defined only in these terms, and the place of the result if the definition of the crime includes such a result." Id. at 180-81.

Likewise, R. Perkins & R. Boyce, Criminal Law ch. 1, § 3 (3d ed. 1982) states:

"[I]t came to be accepted that each crime has a particular situs. In any case of difference, for example, homicide is committed, not at the place from which the killer started the fatal force, but where it impinged upon the body of the victim. Thus when one standing in North Carolina fired across the boundary line a shot which hit and killed the victim in Tennessee, this was not a North Carolina crime but a Tennessee crime, and a conviction in North Carolina had to be reversed. To mention other examples, robbery is committed where the property is taken from the victim and not where he was first seized, or where the property was subsequently taken. Libel is committed at the place of publication, and bigamy where the bigamous ceremony is performed." Id. at 40-41 (footnotes omitted).

See generally 22 C.J.S. Criminal Law § 136 (1961 & Supp. 1986).

Maryland cases in which the particular situs of an offense has been identified for jurisdictional purposes include Urciolo, 272 Md. 607, 325 A.2d 878 (jurisdiction over embezzlement; there must be some act by the accused or his agent within the state); Goodman, 237 Md. 64, 205 A.2d 53 (no territorial jurisdiction over unlawfully obtaining narcotic drug by misrepresentation where the misrepresentation was made in Maryland but the prescription was filled in the District of Columbia); Medley v. Warden, 210 Md. 649, 123 A.2d 595 (forgery committed at place where the false instrument is uttered; fact that instrument was made in Virginia no bar to prosecution in Maryland), cert. denied, 352 U.S. 858, 77 S.Ct. 77, 1 L.Ed.2d 64 (1956); Bowen, 206 Md. 368, 111 A.2d 844 (larceny after trust and embezzlement; there can be no prosecution in Maryland of larceny after trust or embezzlement absent some act of conversion or appropriation within the jurisdiction); Stout, 76 Md. 317 25 A. 299 (jurisdiction over murder prosecution exists in the state where the mortal blow was inflicted, notwithstanding fact that the victim died in another state); Grindstaff v. State, 57 Md.App. 412, 470 A.2d 809 (jurisdiction exists over bribery prosecution where the duties sought to be affected by the bribe offer were to be performed in Maryland, although the offer and payment occurred outside of Maryland), cert. denied, 299 Md. 655, 474 A.2d 1344 (1984); State v. Jones, 51 Md.App. 321, 443 A.2d 967 (1982) (jurisdiction exists over first degree rape prosecution where intercourse occurred outside of Maryland yet other essential elements occurred within Maryland), vacated on other grounds, 298 Md. 634, 471 A.2d 1055 (1984).

Two aspects of the principle of territorial jurisdiction merit mention in this case. First, as 1 Wharton's Criminal Law § 14 (C. Torcia 14th ed. 1978) states:

"Although a court has jurisdiction to subject an accused to prosecution only if the crime charged was committed within the territorial limits of the state wherein such court is sitting, the accused's actual presence in such state at the time the crime was committed is not necessary. As one court has put it, the accused's presence within a state 'need not be actual; it may be constructive. The well-established theory of the law is that where one puts in force an agency for the commission of crime, he in legal contemplation accompanies the same to the point where it becomes effectual.... So, if a man in the State of South Carolina criminally fires a ball into the State of Georgia the law regards him as accompanying the ball and as being represented by it up to the point where it strikes.' " Id. at 69 (quoting Simpson v. State, 92 Ga. 41, 17 S.E. 984 (1893)).

Accord W.L. Clark & W.L. Marshall, A Treatise on the Law of Crimes § 3.02, at 148 (M. Barnes ed. 1967); Urciolo, 272 Md. at 631, 325 A.2d at 892. See generally Annotation, Absence from State at Time of Offense as Affecting Jurisdiction of Offense, 42 A.L.R. 272 (1926).

Second, as observed by LaFave and Scott, supra "Generally, it may be said that the situs of a crime at common law is the place of the act (or omission) if the crime is defined only in these terms, and the place of the result if the definition of the crime includes such a result." Id. at 180-81.

The Court of Special Appeals applied this theory in Grindstaff, 57 Md.App. 412, 470 A.2d 809, in upholding a bribery conviction where all of the elements of the offense save the intended result occurred in the District of Columbia:

"In the instant case the crime charged was the corrupt offering of something of value to a Mt. Rainier, Maryland police officer to influence the performance of his official duties in Maryland. The false report was to be made concerning his business in Maryland. We think this case is akin to those involving the offense of obstruction of justice. The gravamen of the crime was the intended result in Maryland. Thus, in In re Special Investigation No. 224, 54 Md.App. 137, 144, n. 1, 458 A.2d 454 [, cert. denied, 296 Md. 414] (1983), Judge Moylan, writing for this Court, stated:

United States v. Kibler, 667 F.2d 452 (4th Cir.1982), held that jurisdiction over an obstruction of justice case properly lay in the District of Maryland, although the threats upon a witness which represented the obstruction had occurred in the District of Columbia. The Court held, at 454, '[T]he situs of the crime is the place of the judicial proceeding that the accused sought to thwart.' " 57 Md.App. at 416-17, 470 A.2d at 812. ⁴

Similarly, commentary to the Model Penal Code contains the observation that "[b]oth the decisions and the statutes generally affirm state jurisdiction" where causing a particular result constitutes an element of the offense "and the result is caused within the state by conduct occurring in another jurisdiction in which such conduct is lawful." Model Penal Code § 1.03 comment, at 45 (1985) (citing, among other authorities, Medley, 210 Md. 649, 123 A.2d 595, and State v. Kriss, 191 Md. 568, 62 A.2d 568 (1948)).

Manifestly, causing or attempting to cause a particular result--the obstruction of justice--forms an essential ingredient of the offense here involved:

"If any person by corrupt means or by threats or force endeavors to influence, intimidate, or impede any juror, witness, or court officer of any court of this State in the discharge of his...