Richardson v. State
| Decision Date | 09 March 2016 |
| Docket Number | No. 2432,2432 |
| Parties | THOMAS LEE RICHARDSON v. STATE OF MARYLAND |
| Court | Court of Special Appeals of Maryland |
THOMAS LEE RICHARDSON
v.
STATE OF MARYLAND
No. 2432
COURT OF SPECIAL APPEALS OF MARYLAND
September Term, 2014
March 9, 2016
UNREPORTED
Krauser, C.J., Berger, Reed, JJ.
Opinion by Reed, 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.
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Appellant, Thomas Lee Richardson, was convicted following a jury trial in the Circuit Court for Worcester County, Maryland, of importing cocaine into Maryland and related charges. After he was sentenced to sixteen years' incarceration, appellant timely appealed and presents the following questions for our review:
1. Did the lower court err in denying Mr. Richardson's motion to suppress?
2. Did the lower court err in denying a continuance?
For the following reasons, we answer these questions in the negative, and affirm the judgments of the trial court.
On the early afternoon of Sunday, March 2, 2014, Senior Trooper Marlin Meyers of the Maryland State Police was patrolling southbound U.S. Route 13 in Worcester County, Maryland, when he noticed a black Nissan Altima, with Massachusetts license plates, traveling in the same direction. As Trooper Meyers was passing this vehicle, he noticed that the right front passenger was not restrained by a seat belt. Trooper Meyers then initiated a traffic stop of the vehicle.
After exiting his vehicle, Trooper Meyers approached the passenger side of the Nissan. He advised the driver, identified as Vashawn Walker, and the passenger, later identified as appellant, of the reason for the stop and requested the vehicle's registration, as well as some form of identification from both occupants. In addition to a rental agreement for the vehicle from Enterprise Rent-A-Car, Trooper Meyers was provided with
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a New Jersey driver's license from Walker. Appellant, however, informed the trooper that he did not have any identification. He also did not provide Trooper Meyers with any name.
Trooper Meyers then testified that in response, he advised appellant that "there was a possibility that he would be detained for identification purposes as [he] was going to be issuing him a citation for the seat belt violation . . . ." The trooper then asked appellant to provide "anything with his name, whether it would be a credit card or a bank statement or anything at all with his name."
Trooper Meyers further testified that when he approached the Nissan, he noticed that appellant was now wearing a seat belt, but the belt was "underneath of his right arm and it was buckled at the center console at the buckle." He also noticed that both of the occupants were taking "short, shallow breaths," and that he could see "their hearts beating to the point where I could actually see the heartbeat in the center of their chest, although their shirts weren't skin tight." Trooper Meyers then looked over the rental agreement and saw that it was rented to a third party female who was not present, despite the fact that the rental agreement provided that "no other individual was to be operating this vehicle."
At this point, Trooper Meyers asked the driver, Walker, to exit the vehicle. Trooper Meyers explained that he wanted to separate the two occupants to aid his attempt to identify the passenger, i.e., appellant. The trooper testified:
[T]he reason I separate people is because of the - because of the nervous behavior, because I've run into situations before where if I let somebody know, hey, you're probably going to be receiving a citation for this, so I need to positively identify you, do you have anything at all, they can usually come up with something. And then even if they hesitate, I let them know that there's a possibility that they could be detained for fingerprinting purposes
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to positively identify them. Usually at that point they come up with something with their name on it.
The passenger made no attempt to even so much as look for something with his name on it even after being advised that he could be placed in handcuffs and detained for the purposes of identification.
With the culmination of all of these things to include the short, shallow breathing, the heart beating in the chest - or in each of the occupants' chest, the passenger making no attempt to identify himself, at this point I wanted to have the two separated so as to - so that I could positively identify - as part of my investigation techniques is to separate what I would consider witnesses to positively identify the passenger.
After Walker exited the vehicle "without question," Trooper Meyers testified that he requested assistance from Senior Trooper Dana Orndorff, which, as he explained, was "so that I may continue with the business of the traffic stop and start conducting license and wanted checks, and also to have the Berlin Barrack contact Enterprise Rent-A-Car because at this point it appears that I also had a violation of a rental agreement." When Trooper Orndorff arrived, Trooper Meyers advised him of his observations to that point. Trooper Orndorff then began to speak to Walker, who was standing near the rear of the Nissan. Around this time, Trooper Meyers then began conducting license and wanted checks, and contacted the Berlin Barrack for the Maryland State Police to check on the rental agreement.1
Trooper Meyers then testified that Trooper Orndorff learned from Walker that the passenger was Walker's cousin and his name was "Thomas Rich." Trooper Orndorff then
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went to the passenger, and the passenger stated that his name, instead, was "Ahmad Assan Dickson," and that his date of birth was April 12, 1983. While speaking with the passenger, Trooper Orndorff detected the odor of marijuana emanating from the vehicle.
Trooper Orndorff then walked away from the Nissan and, based on the odor of marijuana and the conflicting stories about the identity of the passenger, handcuffed Walker and instructed him to sit on the ground. The passenger was also removed from the vehicle, apparently by Trooper Meyers, and also placed in handcuffs.
After officers from the Pocomoke City Police Department arrived to offer assistance, Troopers Meyers and Orndorff searched the Nissan. The troopers found contraband underneath the hood, inside a bag secreted inside the air filter box. Trooper Meyers' initial inspection of the contraband led him to suspect that it was crack cocaine. Walker and appellant were then advised that they were under arrest.
On cross-examination, Trooper Meyers testified that, before the search commenced, Trooper Orndorff radioed the Berlin Barrack and told them the passenger provided the name of "Ahmad Assan Dickson." At some point thereafter, apparently during the search, the Berlin Barrack radioed the troopers and informed them that "Ahmad Dickson" was an alias for "Thomas Lee Richardson." Meyers also agreed that he did not smell marijuana when he first approached the Nissan, but that he subsequently smelled the odor of raw marijuana during the car search. Ultimately, no marijuana or related paraphernalia was found during their search.
Trooper Meyers also testified that the Nissan was rented in the name of "Sacavera Fitzgerald." Meyers testified he did not know whether Fitzgerald had any relationship with
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either of the occupants, or if Fitzgerald was the driver's mother. He testified that the vehicle had been rented in Newark, New Jersey, and that after identifying appellant, Trooper Meyers learned appellant was from Norfolk, Virginia.
After Meyers' testimony concluded, Trooper Orndorff, assigned to the K-9 unit at the Berlin Barrack for the Maryland State Police, testified and corroborated much of Trooper Meyers' account of the stop. Trooper Orndorff added that, as he arrived on the scene to assist, he saw an individual, who was standing between the stopped vehicle and Meyers' patrol car, begin to "move quickly away from his vehicle towards the shoulder of the road. It appeared to me that he was at that point attempting to flee the traffic stop." Trooper Orndorff's K-9 companion, Chamo, then began to bark from inside Orndorff's vehicle. At that point, the individual, identified as, Walker, stopped, and Trooper Meyers motioned for him to move back towards the Nissan.
After speaking with Trooper Meyers, Trooper Orndorff then spoke with Walker. Trooper Orndorff learned that Walker was traveling from Newark, New Jersey, to Norfolk, Virginia, and that he was en route in an attempt to find work as a mason. Because of Trooper Meyers' concern about identifying the passenger, Trooper Orndorff then learned from Walker that the passenger was his cousin, "Thomas Rich."
Trooper Orndorff then left Walker and approached the passenger side of the Nissan. At that time, he detected the odor of burnt marijuana emanating from the passenger compartment. The passenger then informed the trooper that his name was "Ahmad Assan Dickson," and that his date of birth was April 12, 1983.
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Based on this information, Trooper Orndorff returned to Walker and placed him in handcuffs. Trooper Orndorff conveyed the information to Trooper Meyers, and Trooper Meyers then removed the passenger from the Nissan and placed him in handcuffs as well. Trooper Orndorff testified that he told Trooper Meyers about the odor of burnt marijuana at around the same time he told him about receiving conflicting information about the passenger's identity.
Troopers Orndorff and Meyers then searched the Nissan. While he was searching underneath the hood, Trooper Orndorff noted that the engine compartment of this new rental vehicle was relatively clean, except for some fingerprint "smudges" on top of the air filter. When he opened the air filter compartment, Orndorff found a black bag that, upon further inspection, contained a white baggie with a compressed white powder-like...
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