Porter v. State
| Decision Date | 06 February 2017 |
| Docket Number | No. 1697,1697 |
| Parties | TRAVIS PORTER v. STATE OF MARYLAND |
| Court | Court of Special Appeals of Maryland |
UNREPORTED
Wright, Berger, Shaw Geter, JJ.
Opinion by Berger, 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.
Appellant, Travis Porter, was indicted in the Circuit Court for Howard County, Maryland, and charged with second-degree burglary and theft of property of value less than $1,000.00. After he was convicted by a jury on these charges, appellant was sentenced to concurrent sentences of three years for second-degree burglary and theft under $1,000.00, with all but one year suspended, to be followed by three years of supervised probation.1 Appellant timely appealed and presents the following questions for our review:
For the following reasons, we shall affirm.
At around 6:30 a.m. on March 5th, 2015, Michael Thompson, Sr., a maintenance worker for the Holiday Inn hotel located in Jessup, Maryland, went to the fourth floor and saw appellant standing at the far end of the hall, near two "shut" doors next to the maintenance shop room. Thompson explained that these doors had an automatic closer attached to them and, at the time, were "secure" and "closed." After seeing appellant lingering near the doors, Thompson went back down to the first floor office area, wherethe hotel cameras were located, and was able to see appellant "standing at the shop door with a piece - a laundry detergent box that he was trying to pry the door open." Thompson explained that the shop was used to store screwdrivers, power tools, electrical equipment and "[e]verything we need to - to run the hotel with." Thompson also testified that he saw that the door, previously closed, was now open. When Thompson returned to the fourth floor, the door was again closed and appellant was no longer outside the shop door. Thompson then opened the maintenance room door with his card, and found appellant inside the room, holding a Holiday Inn screwdriver in his hand. Thompson then "took him to the ground." Thompson asserted that appellant did not have permission to be in the maintenance shop room.
After appellant was detained, he claimed that he wanted to use the hotel phone, but Thompson testified that the hotel phone was located on the first floor. Thompson then called the hotel managers, testifying that he told them, "I [saw] somebody trying to break into the shop door because right beside the shop is the laundry room."
When the police arrived in response to Thompson's call, they searched appellant and recovered Thompson's personal keys to his truck, as well as Thompson's work keys. Appellant also had on his person a set of keys belonging to hotel employee Mike Kirsch, a box cutter, and Holiday Inn key cards, but apparently for the guest rooms at a different Holiday Inn. In the adjacent laundry room, Thompson also found a flashlight, another screwdriver, and a "computer box that scans every door in the hotel." That box, also referred to as a "door coder," was available only to maintenance workers, was normallystored in the shop room, and was worth, according to Thompson, approximately five to six hundred dollars.
On direct examination, Thompson was asked about the hotel security cameras. He testified that there were several cameras located on each floor. Thompson explained that the cameras were "protected" and that they looked like "smoke detectors on each corner of each hallway." When he was observing appellant on one of these cameras, i.e., the "far left" camera on the floor, Thompson was inside the hotel office. Thompson explained that there was a computer screen that contained the image from each camera. There were over a hundred cameras associated with the hotel and he had to "punch the code" to bring up the fourth floor camera.
Thompson agreed that he observed appellant on camera, near the maintenance door, in "live time." He also testified that he did not watch the recording of appellant's activities until earlier on the same day of trial, at the prosecutor's instruction. Thompson was asked whether that recording accurately portrayed what he saw while he was physically on the fourth floor on March 5th and what he saw on the computer screen in the office area. Thompson testified that "[e]verything is the same."
On cross-examination, Thompson agreed that he did not install the surveillance cameras and was unsure of their "type." However, Thompson averred that he was trained in how to operate the cameras and that he did, in fact, know how to use them. Thompson agreed that he did not actually see appellant enter the maintenance room and that there was no damage to the door.
On redirect examination, Thompson testified that the cameras were "motion cameras" that were activated by "movement, like in the hallway." Thompson testified that he was trained how to zoom in on the camera and how to select which hallway to observe. When he entered the office area on the day in question, he found that the cameras were already operating, and each screen was numbered according to the number of the camera. Thompson then "click[ed]" through the screens to use the surveillance system. Thompson again agreed he did not know the manufacturer of the cameras, or the particular serial number of the cameras he witnessed, but maintained that this information did not affect his ability to use the cameras. He also testified, on recross examination, that if the cameras needed maintenance, he would call an outside vendor.
Also testifying at trial for the State was Sean Hawbecker, the controller and human resources manager for the Holiday Inn in Jessup. Hawbecker testified that he was familiar with the layout of the hotel and knew that there were approximately twenty to twenty-five "motion sensor" cameras distributed throughout the hotel property. There were two such cameras on the fourth floor. The maintenance room was located on the fourth floor, and Hawbecker testified, without objection, that the door to that room was "secured and locked."
On the day in question, Hawbecker heard a call from Thompson and then responded to the fourth floor maintenance room. There, Hawbecker saw Thompson "restraining an individual that had - he had found in the maintenance room." Hawbeckerthen went to meet the police, escorted the police back to the maintenance room, and observed the police arrest appellant.
Hawbecker further testified that the police retrieved a number of room key cards that looked similar to the ones provided to the guests at this Holiday Inn. However, Hawbecker testified that those cards were not active at the time. He explained that "[t]he keys have a certain time limit that they will open a certain door, multiple doors and seeing if any were active to open any doors at the time."
Hawbecker also clarified that the door coder box found concealed in the laundry room was worth over $1,000.00. Hawbecker explained that it was valued that high because "[w]hen used correctly it can open any door, including a dead bolted door in the hotel."
Hawbecker then testified that he went back to the hotel office and watched some of the recorded footage from the fourth floor cameras. In that recording, Hawbecker saw an individual talking to one of the housekeepers and then proceeding into the laundry room near the end of the hall. Hawbecker testified, "that was the last I saw of [appellant]."
This recorded footage was provided to the police the same day. Hawbecker witnessed the assistant front office manager, Daniel Kerwin, make a copy of the footage from one of the fourth floor cameras and store it on a USB drive. Hawbecker testified that he "observed [Kerwin] open the box that the DVRs are held in, plug in a USB and slow down the footage and save it in real time to the USB drive." Hawbecker thenidentified that same USB thumb drive during trial. Hawbecker also testified that he did not see Kerwin manipulate or alter the footage, testifying that "[n]othing was changed or manipulated."
On cross-examination, Hawbecker agreed that he did not install the cameras but believed they had the brand name, "Silent Night," and were installed in 2012. The cameras were motion activated but Hawbecker did not know the "degree of motion" required to activate them. Hawbecker confirmed that if the cameras needed service, the hotel would contact an outside vendor. There was no maintenance contract for the cameras and the vendor was called "as needed."
Hawbecker also reiterated that Daniel Kerwin transferred the footage to the USB drive because "[h]e has a knowledge of how to save it and I do not." And, Hawbecker added that Kerwin Hawbecker also clarified that Kerwin slowed the footage down four times, or "as much as it possibly could have been." Hawbecker further testified that the recording began at the moment they observed appellant speaking to the housekeeper near the laundry room. Hawbecker explained that the decision on what to record was made by Hawbecker, Kerwin, and the responding police officers.
On redirect examination, Hawbecker confirmed that he reviewed the surveillance footage in this case both on the day of the incident and with the prosecutor at a later date. There was no difference between the footage he reviewed with the prosecutor and the footage he saw prior to it being transferred to the USB drive. On recross, Hawbeckeragreed that he did not see the events depicted on the video recording footage as they...
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