Raynor v. State
| Decision Date | 27 August 2014 |
| Docket Number | No. 69, Sept. Term, 2012.,69, Sept. Term, 2012. |
| Citation | 440 Md. 71,99 A.3d 753 |
| Parties | Glenn Joseph RAYNOR v. STATE of Maryland. |
| Court | Court of Special Appeals of Maryland |
Byron L. Warnken (Warnken, LLC, Baltimore, MD), on brief, for Petitioner/Cross–Petitioner.
Robert Taylor, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen. (Daniel J. Jawor, Asst. Atty. Gen.; Douglas F. Gansler, Atty. Gen. of Maryland, Baltimore, MD), on brief, for Respondent/Cross–Petitioner.
Paul B. DeWolfe, Esq., Public Defender, Stephen B. Mercer, Esq., Chief Atty., Office of the Public Defender, Forensics Division, Baltimore, MD, for Amicus Curiae Public Defender's Brief.
Argued before: BARBERA, C.J., HARRELL, BATTAGLIA, GREENE, ADKINS, McDONALD, and JOHN F. McAULIFFE (Retired, Specially Assigned), JJ.
This appeal has its genesis in the commission of a rape in 2006. More than two years later, the victim of the rape contacted the police and explained that she suspected that Petitioner, Glenn Joseph Raynor, had been the perpetrator. Shortly thereafter, Petitioner agreed to the request of the police to come to the police station for an interview. At some point during the interview, the police requested Petitioner's consent to the taking of a DNA sample for comparison to DNA evidence collected at the scene of the rape. He declined. Minutes after the interview concluded and Petitioner had departed the station, the police, who had noticed Petitioner rubbing his bare arms against the armrests of the chair in which he had been seated, took swabs of the armrests in an attempt to collect his DNA. The police submitted those swabs to the crime lab for DNA analysis, which revealed that the DNA extracted from the swabs matched DNA samples investigators had collected from the scene of the rape.
Further investigation ensued and, eventually, Petitioner was charged with first-degree rape and related offenses. He filed a pre-trial motion seeking suppression of the DNA evidence and all evidence derived therefrom, arguing that the warrantless collection and testing of cellular material that he shed during his interview at the police station violated his right under the Fourth Amendment to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. The suppression court denied the motion, having concluded that Petitioner had no reasonable expectation of privacy in the DNA evidence left on the chair. The Court of Special Appeals agreed with that ruling.
Petitioner no longer disputes, as he did before the suppression court, that the police lawfully obtained his DNA from the armrests of the chair in the station, and we assume, solely for purposes of our present analysis, that the police were not required to have a warrant or individualized suspicion of Petitioner's commission of the rape before collecting those DNA samples. Accordingly, the only legal question before us is whether analysis by the police of the 13 identifying “junk” loci contained within Petitioner's DNA was a search for purposes of the Fourth Amendment. For reasons we shall explain, we hold that the DNA testing at issue in the present case was not a search under the Fourth Amendment.
The rape occurred in Bel Air, Harford County, Maryland during the early morning hours of April 2, 2006. The facts material to its commission and the police investigation that followed are undisputed. At approximately 5:00 a.m., the perpetrator broke into the home of the victim1 through a patio door that led to the basement. Shortly thereafter, the perpetrator entered the victim's bedroom, raped her repeatedly, and fled the scene. The victim did not see her attacker's face because, upon entering the bedroom, he pressed a pillow against her face and blindfolded her with his t-shirt. The victim noticed, however, that her attacker was Caucasian, had a medium build, and emanated a “metallic scent.”
After the perpetrator fled, the victim ran to her neighbor's home, where she reported the rape to the police. Investigators responded to the victim's home and a crime scene technician processed it for evidence. The technician collected material possibly containing DNA, including blood from a pillow found in the victim's bedroom and the area near the door through which the perpetrator had entered. Meanwhile, a police officer accompanied the victim to the hospital where she underwent a rape examination, during which a nurse took vaginal and anal swabs.
The victim contacted the police on numerous occasions throughout the next two years to inform them about potential suspects. During that time, the police obtained consensual DNA samples from approximately 20 individuals with possible connections to the 2006 rape, including several of the victim's neighbors. None of those DNA samples matched the DNA collected from the victim's home on the day of the rape.
In July 2008, the victim contacted the lead investigator assigned to the case, Trooper First Class Dana Wenger, to report her suspicion that Petitioner was the rapist. The victim explained that she and Petitioner had gone to school together, he was the previous owner of the home in which the rape occurred, and his body type matched that of the man who raped her. Approximately two weeks later, Trooper Wenger left a note at Petitioner's home asking him to contact her. A few days later, Petitioner called the trooper and agreed to come to the station later that day to answer questions related to the rape investigation.
Upon Petitioner's arrival at the station, Trooper Wenger escorted him to a vacant office and directed him to have a seat. Shortly thereafter, Sergeant James DeCourcey entered the room and a 30–minute interview ensued. The officers noted during the interview that Petitioner, who was wearing a short-sleeved shirt, repeatedly rubbed his bare arms against the armrests of his chair, and his body carried a metallic odor similar to the odor the victim had described smelling during the rape.
At some point during the interview, Trooper Wenger asked Petitioner for his consent to the taking of a DNA swab of his mouth. Petitioner responded that he would consent only if the police agreed to destroy the DNA sample after they concluded their investigation of the rape. When the police declined to give that assurance, Petitioner refused to provide a DNA sample, and the interview concluded.
Minutes after Trooper Wenger escorted Petitioner out of the station, Sergeant DeCourcey took swabs of the armrests of the chair in which Petitioner had sat during the interview, sealed those swabs in an envelope, and placed them in an evidence locker. Two days later, Trooper Wenger submitted the swabs to the Maryland State Police Forensic Sciences Division laboratory for DNA analysis. The analysis revealed that the DNA extracted from the swabs of the armrests matched the DNA extracted from blood collected at the scene of the rape.
Trooper Wenger relied upon the results of the lab's DNA analysis, as well as other evidence the police had gathered during their investigation, in applying for and obtaining warrants to arrest Petitioner, collect an additional DNA sample, and search his home. After arresting Petitioner, the police transported him to the station, interviewed him, and, at some point, took a DNA sample via a buccal swab. That DNA sample, like the DNA samples collected from the chair in the police station, matched DNA collected from the victim's home on the day of the rape. A second DNA analysis of the buccal swab revealed a match to DNA extracted from the vaginal and anal swabs obtained during the victim's rape examination.
The State charged Petitioner with several counts of rape, assault, burglary, and related crimes. He was tried before a jury, which heard the results of the DNA analyses and other evidence linking him to the crimes. The jury found Petitioner guilty of two counts of rape and related crimes, for which the court sentenced him to a total of 100 years' imprisonment.
Petitioner filed a pre-trial motion to suppress the DNA evidence the police obtained from the chair in the police station, and the fruits derived therefrom.2 He argued that the police violated his right under the Fourth Amendment to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures, by seizing his genetic material3 from the armrests of the chair and then searching that material for the 13 loci on the DNA strand that allowed the police to connect him to the rape. He claimed in the alternative that, even if the police officer's obtaining his genetic material by swabbing the chair was not an unlawful seizure for purposes of the Fourth Amendment, the police nonetheless conducted a separate search that violated the Fourth Amendment when they performed a DNA analysisof the material.4
The suppression court denied the motion, reasoning in pertinent part:
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