Ramsey v. State
| Decision Date | 09 August 2019 |
| Docket Number | No. 2628,No. 1983,1983,2628 |
| Parties | STEVEN RAMSEY, v. STATE OF MARYLAND |
| Court | Court of Special Appeals of Maryland |
Circuit Court for Baltimore County
Case Nos. 03-K-17-002276 and 16-006168
UNREPORTED
Fader, C.J. Graeff, Krauser, Peter B. (Senior Judge, Specially Assigned), JJ.
Opinion by Krauser, 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.
Steven Ramsey, appellant, was charged with having committed multiple sexual offenses with respect to three pre-adolescent sisters. The three sisters, whom we shall refer to as "T.D.," "S.D.," and "E.D.," were his cousins, and the offenses were committed while he was periodically babysitting the three girls at their home. Those offenses occurred routinely over a period of approximately five years, beginning when appellant was 12 years of age and all three girls were under the age of eight and ending just before appellant's eighteenth birthday.
The charges relating to the sexual offenses that appellant was alleged to have committed, from the time that he was 12 years of age to the day before his sixteenth birthday, were brought via a delinquency petition in the Circuit Court for Baltimore County, sitting as a juvenile court (hereinafter referred to as "the juvenile court"), and the charges for the offenses that he purportedly perpetrated from the date of his sixteenth birthday to a week before he reached 18 years of age were brought by indictment in the Circuit Court for Baltimore County, sitting as an adult criminal court (hereinafter referred to simply as "the circuit court"). Appellant thereafter moved to have the adult criminal charges transferred to the juvenile court. When that motion was denied, the State requested that the juvenile court waive its jurisdiction as to the charges that it had before it. The juvenile court agreed to do so, and all of the charges against appellant, adult and juvenile, were subsequently consolidated for trial in Baltimore County's adult criminal court. Then, at appellant's request, severance was granted to permit a separate trial, in the circuit court, with respect to the offenses he committed as to each of the three sisters.
At the conclusion of the trial below, which, consistent with the severance granted, dealt only with the offenses appellant had committed with respect to "T.D." and not as to those offenses he perpetrated with respect to T.D.'s sisters, S.D. and E.D., appellant was convicted of two counts of sexual abuse of a minor and five counts of second-degree sexual offense.
Appellant now presents, on appeal, two questions for our review, which, in fact, amount to three. They are:
For the reasons that follow, we affirm the judgments of the circuit court.
As noted above, after being charged, in the circuit court, with having committed four counts of second-degree sexual offense and one count of sexual abuse with respect to a minor, namely, T.D., when he was 16 and 17 years old, appellant moved to have the case transferred to juvenile court. At the hearing on that motion, the circuit court considered, among other things, the "Transfer of Jurisdiction Investigation Report" that had beenprepared by the Maryland Department of Juvenile Services (the "Department") at the court's request for the transfer hearing. That report stated, among other things, that appellant was presently almost 19 years old and had no "handicapping conditions"; that he had graduated from high school with a 3.08 grade point average and a class rank of 107 out of 336 classmates; that he had been a member of the Navy Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps (NJROTC), where he had reached the rank of "lieutenant" and had been placed in command of his unit for half of his senior year in high school; that he had been employed as a cashier at a grocery store prior to his arrest; and, that he had been diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in kindergarten and had been prescribed various medications over the years for this condition.
The report also asserted that, during the Department's investigation into the sexual offenses appellant had allegedly committed as to T.D., T.D. had revealed that appellant had "sexually abused her for a number of years"; that he had, on multiple occasions, beginning when she was six or seven years old, put his "penis" in her "butt" and mouth; and that she had witnessed him committing similar acts on her sisters. Moreover, T.D.'s sister, E.D., had disclosed that appellant had put his "wiener" in her "backside"; that appellant had abused her "more than 5 times" while he was babysitting her and her sisters at their home; and that she was in first grade when it first occurred.
As for appellant's "amenability to treatment," the report noted that, following a "resource consultation," it was determined that if appellant's adult criminal charges were "to be waived to the juvenile system, there [were] very limited residential services toaddress treatment for sex offenders due [to] his age," although a "psychosexual evaluation would need to be completed to determine risk of re-offending and if sex offending treatment could be treated in the community or in a residential placement." Finally, the report declared that the current offenses posed "a serious risk to public safety especially since the offenses involved the victimization of innocent and impressionable young children."
As noted, the State, before bringing charges in the circuit court, filed a delinquency petition in the juvenile court. That petition charged appellant with having committed, with respect to T.D., the crimes of second-degree sexual offense, third-degree sexual offense, fourth-degree sexual offense, sexual abuse, sodomy, unnatural and perverted sexual practice, and assault. Each of those offenses was based on acts committed by appellant from February 5, 2011, when T.D. was six years old and appellant was 12 years old, until March 29, 2014, the day before appellant's sixteenth birthday.
Following the circuit court's denial of appellant's request to have his adult criminal charges transferred to the juvenile court, the State filed a motion asking the juvenile court to waive its jurisdiction so that both matters, the circuit court case and the juvenile case, could proceed as one matter in circuit court. At the hearing on that motion, appellant's counsel advised the court that, because the circuit court had "already denied [appellant's] request" to have the case transferred to juvenile court, "it didn't make much sense to have these cases in separate jurisdictions." Though he added that he believed "that the juvenilecourt was the appropriate jurisdiction," he nonetheless indicated that, as to the waiver, he would "submit." The juvenile court then granted the State's waiver request.
In the indictment subsequently filed in circuit court, appellant was charged with having committed, with respect to T.D., one count of second-degree sex offense and one count of sex abuse of a minor on and between February 5, 2011, and March 29, 2014. That case was later consolidated with appellant's initial circuit court case, in which appellant was charged with having committed, with respect to T.D., four counts of second-degree sex offense and one count of sex abuse...
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