Revelo-Ramos v. State

• Decision Date: 20 December 2021
• Docket Number: 1867-2019
• Parties: WILLIAM REVELO-RAMOS v. STATE OF MARYLAND
• Court: Court of Special Appeals of Maryland

WILLIAM REVELO-RAMOS v. STATE OF MARYLAND

No. 1867-2019

Court of Special Appeals of Maryland

December 20, 2021

Circuit Court for Talbot County Case No. C-20-CR-19-16

Reed Shaw Geter, Moylan, Charles (Senior Judge, Specially Assigned), JJ.

OPINION ^[*]

Reed J.

A jury in the Circuit Court for Talbot County convicted William Revelo-Ramos, Appellant, of sexual abuse of a minor, false imprisonment, second-degree assault, and fourth-degree sex offense. Appellant, who was sentenced to a total of nine years, challenges his convictions on the ground that the trial court erred in requiring him to enter the courtroom while accompanied by deputies, after jurors had been seated. We disagree and affirm the convictions.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

Appellant was charged with sexually assaulting his then-stepdaughter N.D., between January 2016 and December 2017, when Appellant moved out of the family home. The trial took place over two days, on October 1-2, 2019.

N.D., then age 17, testified about a number of nonconsensual encounters while she and Appellant were clothed. According to N.D., Appellant locked the door, touched her under her shirt and bra, kissed her, held her down, touched her thigh and butt, rubbed his erect penis against her, and made her touch his penis. Each of the incidents ended when N.D. ran away. On December 18, 2018, N.D. reported these incidents to a school guidance counselor and later recounted them to a Department of Social Services worker and a police detective.

Because the sole issue raised by Appellant arises from his pre-trial challenge to the fairness of courtroom security procedure, our review of the record focuses on that matter, rather than other evidence pertaining to the charges. Cf. Hargett v. State, 248 Md.App. 492, 497 (2020) ("The underlying facts pertaining to the charges against appellant are largely irrelevant to the sole issue on appeal" involving a pre-trial request to discharge counsel), cert. denied, 418 Md. 587 (2021). At the outset of the first day, before jury selection began, the trial court addressed "two preliminary issues" raised by defense counsel. After resolving concerns about interpreters, defense counsel objected to the manner in which Appellant would be entering the courtroom, prompting the following colloquy:

[DEFENSE COUNSEL]: Your Honor[, ] to my understanding this is my first jury trial here in Talbot County and I've noticed that the practice in this Court is that the jurors are in the courtroom before the Defendant is seated. I will just put on the record that every jury trial that I've done the Defendant is usually in the courtroom first. That way the jury doesn't see how the Defendant got there so that there's no issues with regard to prejudice, regards to anything like that. My understanding is that he's brought in by the deputies through the courtroom and obviously my concern would be that . . . the jurors are seeing him being brought in by, by the deputies and on the implicit biases that may be brought from that as has been indicated by the Court of Appeals in previous cases so I just wanted to put that on the record, Your Honor.

THE COURT: Well that's your job as attorney for the Defendant. The logistics of the Talbot County Courthouse are as old as I am and obviously . . . we would all prefer a better situation. The bottom line as far as me and this case is concerned is that Mr. Revelo-Ramos has the same situation as others in Talbot County similarly charged. This is just how they have to do things here in a jury trial so.

[PROSECUTOR]: I just, I want to make the record clear, Your Honor, that when he comes into the courtroom [h]e will not be in shackles or, he's in a suit.

. . . .

[PROSECUTOR]: The guards will be following him and he'll be coming through a door that other people didn't come in but he's not going to be held by the hand or something like that.

THE COURT: Well let me tell you, well I thin[k] we can read a lot of things in. The world being what it is today I think half of the jurors out there would figure that the deputies are here for me or us or them not him because of security, you know, and the violence that we have in the world so your point is taken and, you know, and some of them may make note of it but I don't think it's . . . anything that's an obvious prejudice nor anything that I can do anything about.

DISCUSSION

A. Standards Governing Review of Courtroom Security Measures

A preliminary review of standards governing courtroom security will aid our discussion of the parties' contentions. Subject to a criminal defendant's right to a fair trial under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments, "[t]he decision as to the method and extent of courtroom security is left to the sound discretion of the trial judge." Miles v. State, 365 Md. 488, 570 (2001). See Campbell v. State, 243 Md.App. 507, 518 (2019), cert. denied, 467 Md. 695 (2020), cert. denied, 141 S.Ct. 1048 (2021). When considering due process challenges to courtroom security measures, we are mindful that not "every practice tending to single out the accused from everyone else in the courtroom must be struck down." Holbrook v. Flynn, 475 U.S. 560, 567 (1986). "Recognizing that jurors are quite aware that the defendant appearing before them did not arrive there by choice or happenstance," the Supreme Court has "never tried, and could never hope, to eliminate from trial procedures every reminder that the State has chosen to marshal its resources against a defendant to punish him for allegedly criminal conduct." Id.

Consequently, when reviewing a trial court's deployment of security officers in a particular instance, appellate courts "should not determine whether less stringent security measures were available to the trial court, but rather whether the measures applied were reasonable and whether they posed an unacceptable risk of prejudice to the defendant." Hunt v. State, 321 Md. 387, 408 (1990). "The prejudice posed by security measures, and whether a compelling state interest outweighs that prejudice, must be measured on a case by case basis." Id. at 410. Appellate courts evaluate such a challenged security measure by

look[ing] at the scene presented to jurors and determin[ing] whether what they saw was so inherently prejudicial as to pose an unacceptable threat to [that] defendant's right to a fair trial; if the challenged practice is not found inherently prejudicial and if the defendant fails to show actual prejudice, the inquiry is over.

Holbrook, 475 U.S. at 572.

The Court of Appeals has emphasized that because "some security is necessary or desirable in most, if not all, criminal trials[, ] . . . . not all security measures will result in prejudice to the defendant." Bruce v. State, 318 Md. 706, 718 (1990). For example, certain courtroom practices, including restraining a defendant in view of the jury, are so unmistakable and "pose such a threat to the 'fairness of the factfinding process' that they must be subjected to 'close judicial scrutiny.'" Holbrook, 475 U.S. at 568 (citations omitted). For this reason, in most cases the "'accused has a right to be tried . . . without being shackled, chained, bound, handcuffed, gagged, or otherwise physically restrained.'" Lovell v. State, 347 Md. 623, 639 (1997). See Wagner v. State, 213 Md.App. 419, 476 (2013) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). Cf. Deck v. Missouri, 544 U.S. 622, 630 (2005) ("Visible shackling undermines the presumption of innocence and the related fairness of the factfinding process."); Whittlesey v. State, 340 Md. 30, 85 (1995) ("restraints might derogate the presumption of innocence in the eyes of the jury").

Yet other security procedures, including the use of uniformed security officers inside the courtroom, may support a "wider range of inferences[, ]" so that these measures "need not be interpreted as a sign that [the accused] is particularly dangerous or culpable." Holbrook, 475 U.S. at 569. See Bruce, 318 Md. at 718. In Holbrook, the Supreme Court held that the mere presence of police officers in a courtroom is neither unreasonable per se nor inherently prejudicial, explaining that

[t]he chief feature that distinguishes the use of identifiable security officers from courtroom practices we might find inherently prejudicial is the wider range of inferences that a juror might reasonably draw from the officers' presence. While shackling and prison clothes are unmistakable indications of the need to separate a defendant from the community at large, the presence of guards at a defendant's trial need not be interpreted as a sign that he is particularly dangerous or culpable. Jurors may just as easily believe that the officers are there to guard against disruptions emanating from outside the courtroom or to ensure that tense courtroom exchanges do not erupt into violence. Indeed, it is entirely possible that jurors will not infer anything at all from the presence of the guards.

To be sure, it is possible that the sight of a security force within the courtroom might under certain conditions "create the impression in the minds of the jury that the defendant is dangerous or untrustworthy." However, "reason, principle, and common human experience," counsel against a presumption that any use of identifiable security guards in the courtroom is inherently prejudicial. In view of the variety of ways in which such guards can be deployed, we believe that a case-by-case approach is more appropriate.

Holbrook, 475 U.S. at 568-69 (citations omitted).

B. Parties' Contentions

Appellant contends that "the trial court failed to exercise discretion" when it recognized that "we would all prefer a better situation" but "view[ed] what it understood to be Talbot County's longtime practice as a fait...