Reyes-Mendoza v. State

• Decision Date: 29 September 2015
• Docket Number: No. 0604,0604
• Parties: MARVIN REYES-MENDOZA v. STATE OF MARYLAND
• Court: Court of Special Appeals of Maryland

MARVIN REYES-MENDOZA v. STATE OF MARYLAND

No. 0604

COURT OF SPECIAL APPEALS OF MARYLAND

September Term, 2014

September 29, 2015

UNREPORTED

Graeff, Kehoe, Reed, JJ.

Opinion by Graeff, 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.

On January 31, 2014, a jury in the Circuit Court for Prince George's County convicted Marvin Reyes-Mendoza of attempted first degree murder and related crimes in connection with his participation in a drive-by shooting. The court sentenced appellant to life, all but 45 years suspended, on the conviction for attempted murder, and it imposed a five-year consecutive sentence on the conviction for use of a handgun in the commission of a crime of violence.¹

On appeal, appellant raises five issues for our review, which we have reworded and rephrased slightly, as follows:

1. Did the circuit court abuse its discretion in admitting text messages found on a co-conspirator's cell phone?

2. Did the circuit court err in denying appellant's motion for a mistrial and overruling his objections regarding the prosecutor's statements during closing argument?

3. Did the circuit court abuse its discretion in admitting appellant's written statement?

4. Did the circuit court err in refusing to strike the Department of Juvenile Services report?

5. Did the circuit court err in denying appellant's motion to dismiss on speedy trial grounds?

For the reasons set forth below, we find no error or abuse of discretion on the first four grounds raised, but we agree that the court erred in addressing the speedy trial claim. Accordingly, we remand to the circuit court for further proceedings on this claim.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

In September 2011, Wilmer Argueta ("Chango"), a member of the Mara Salvatrucha ("MS-13") gang, assaulted Gustavo Marquez ("Monster"), a member of the Adelphi Park Crew gang ("ADP") and the victim in this case.² Mr. Marquez provided the Prince George's County Police a statement and identified Mr. Argueta as the assailant. Mr. Argueta subsequently was arrested and charged with assault.

On November 14, 2011, Mr. Marquez informed Detective William Lee, a member of the Prince George's Police Department's Gang Unit, that people were driving a distinctive 4Runner SUV through his neighborhood and threatening him. Detective Lee assigned several officers to watch Mr. Marquez's home.

Efrain Ramirez ("Potter"), another MS-13 gang member, testified that Mr. Carlos Beltran-Flores ("Joker") wanted to kill Mr. Marquez because he was a member of the rival ADP gang and because he was cooperating with police regarding the September assault. Mr. Ramirez noted that Mr. Beltran-Flores had driven by Mr. Marquez's house a couple times looking for him.

On November 15, 2011, Mr. Ramirez, appellant, and Mr. Beltran-Flores agreed to commit a robbery. The three collected a revolver from Mr. Ramirez's apartment,purchased a black mask from a local mall, and drove to Adelphi, Maryland, to find a victim. Appellant was driving through a neighborhood when he spotted Mr. Marquez in front of his home. Appellant asked Mr. Beltran-Flores what he "wanted to do." Mr. Beltran-Flores suggested they do a "drive-by," and he moved to the back seat with the revolver. Appellant agreed, put on the black mask they had purchased earlier, circled around the block, and turned onto Mr. Marquez's street. Mr. Beltran-Flores instructed appellant to drive slowly. Mr. Beltran-Flores then rolled down the rear passenger side window and fired several shots at Mr. Marquez, hitting him once in the chest.³

The officers surveilling Mr. Marquez's home quickly pulled up behind appellant's vehicle and activated their lights. Mr. Ramirez testified that appellant drove away, attempting to avoid the police by driving at a high rate of speed. The officers pursued the vehicle, and Mr. Beltran-Flores threw the revolver into the rear of the SUV. Mr. Ramirez objected, concerned that the officers would inevitably catch them and discover the fingerprints on the gun. At that point, Mr. Beltran-Flores retrieved the gun from the rear of the vehicle and threw it out the window. Appellant stopped the vehicle and the three men in the vehicle were arrested.

During a post-arrest search, officers seized a cell phone from Mr. Beltran-Flores. Detective Steven Huie obtained a search warrant, and the data recovered from Mr. Beltran-Flores' cell phone included a number of text messages addressed to and from a contact named "Chino."⁴ Police also recovered a black mask from the SUV that tested positive for appellant's DNA.

Appellant was taken to the police station, where he signed an Advice of Rights and Waiver Form and provided a statement. In the beginning of his statement, appellant admitted that he, Mr. Beltran-Flores, and Mr. Ramirez were driving through Adelphi, but he suggested that he had no idea what was about to occur when Mr. Beltran-Flores moved to the back seat of the vehicle and told him to drive down Mr. Marquez's street. After appellant's initial narration, Detective Samantha Milligan wrote 41 questions on the statement, which appellant answered. Appellant then provided a second narration, in which he confessed that (1) he had a "beef" with Mr. Argueta; (2) he knew that Mr. Beltran-Flores "planned to get" Mr. Marquez; (3) they had traveled to Adelphi several times to look for Mr. Marquez; (4) he knew that Mr. Beltran-Flores had a gun when he picked him up on the day of the shooting; and (5) he knew what Mr. Beltran-Flores would do if they found Mr. Marquez. Following the second narrative, Detective Milligan wrote an additional five questions, which appellant answered. These questions revealed, inter alia, that appellant lied about the gun in the initial part of his statement because he did not want Mr. Beltran-Flores or Mr. Ramirez to know he was the one telling the police about the gun, and Mr. Beltran-Flores "wanted to get back at [Mr. Marquez] for landing [Mr. Argueta] in court."

Additional facts will be discussed as necessary in the discussion that follows.

DISCUSSION

I.Admissibility of the Cell Phone Evidence

Appellant contends that the circuit court erred in admitting the cell phone recovered from Mr. Beltran-Flores. He makes several arguments in this regard. First, he contends that the State did not lay a proper foundation to authenticate the text messages displayed to the jury because: (1) Detective Huie "never testified that the text-messages he displayed to the jury are the same text-messages, and in the same condition (unaltered), as when he originally discovered the text-messages on the cell phone"; and (2) "Detective Huie never testified that 'Chino' was the Appellant or the phone number attached to Chino's alleged text message was the appellant's" phone number. Second, he argues that the cell phone contained "a lot of irrelevant and prejudicial material."⁵ Finally, he asserts that it was error to admit the cell phone because, under Carpenter v. State, 196 Md. App 212 (2010), and Griffin v. State, 419 Md. 242 (2011), the State failed to produce a witness to testify how the text messages introduced at trial came to be stored on the phone.

The State contends that the only issue that appellant preserved for this Court's review is the argument that there was not a sufficient showing that the text messages were"to or from" appellant. With respect to this issue, the State argues that the "text messages were properly authenticated as text messages to and from" appellant.

A.Proceedings Below

The State initially sought to introduce the text messages found on the cell phone through testimony from Detective Huie regarding a printout (State's Exhibit 49), which was derived from a "forensic image" generated from Mr. Beltran-Flores' cell phone.⁶ Appellant objected, arguing that "we're completely void of any testimony from anybody who can state as to how that information has been pulled from that phone." Counsel explained that "our objection is that the State has not produced a witness to explain how that information came to be stored on the cell phone, which we do believe is a requirement for chain of custody and authentication of the text messages."

The State argued that the printout of the text messages was admissible, stating as follows:

The detective testified that he reviewed the record, he reviewed the phone and those records came from that phone. And so the matter of extraction, if he is not the one that personally extracted it, this is not a chain-of-custody issue.

What is an authentication issue that he can attest to the fact that the records came from that phone. He doesn't have -- he doesn't have to personally extract everything in order to say that those records, example that I would give the Court, is a search warrant.

The person that -- when the search warrant is done, somebody takes a photograph of those photos. The person that comes in to authenticate the photos doesn't necessarily have to be the person that took the photos.

The person that takes the pictures doesn't have to come to court and say, I took these pictures. But someone that says, yes, these pictures fairly and accurately reflect the way the scene was that day was enough to authenticate the pictures.

***

And I would bring the court's attention towards that's what the authentication process is, somebody looking at it saying this is what I know to be -- I looked at it and this is an accurate representation of what is on there. And I'm not seeking to move the CD, obviously, because there's a lot more on there, but that he reviewed the CD and those text messages are from what was on that phone.

Appellant disagreed, arguing that Detective Huie did not personally extract the information from the phone, and the State needed "to produce [an] outside party" to authenticate the printout:

We have heard testimony

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