Scott v. State, 1332
| Decision Date | 05 July 2018 |
| Docket Number | No. 1332,1332 |
| Parties | DUSTIN FITZGERALD SCOTT v. STATE OF MARYLAND |
| Court | Court of Special Appeals of Maryland |
Circuit Court for Baltimore County
Case No. 3K-15-3410
UNREPORTED
Graeff Berger, Battaglia, Lynne A. (Senior Judge, Specially Assigned), 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.
A jury in the Circuit Court for Baltimore County convicted Dustin Fitzgerald Scott, appellant, of first degree assault, use of a firearm in the commission of crime of violence, and possession of a regulated firearm by a prohibited person.1 The court imposed a sentence of 25 years' incarceration on the conviction for first degree assault, to be served consecutively to the sentence of 10 years' incarceration imposed on the conviction for use of a firearm in the commission of a crime of violence (the first five years without parole). The court also imposed a sentence of 5 years' incarceration, concurrent, for the conviction of possession of a firearm by a prohibited person.
On appeal, appellant presents five questions for this Court's review:
For the reasons set forth below, we shall affirm the judgments of the circuit court.
In the early morning hours of May 29, 2015, Donzal Carter was shot several times in the parking lot of the Oakleigh Station Bar in Parkville, Maryland. Carter, who was afrequent patron of the Oakleigh Station Bar, was there that night with Earl Hines, Lewis Pearson, and someone named Tianna. Carter arrived, and left, with Hines, in Hines' white four-door Acura.
Carter testified that, when he left the bar at closing time, he was "[v]ery intoxicated." He recalled that, once in the parking lot of the bar:
After he was shot in his left shoulder, Carter walked to the front of the club and informed someone who was with him that he had been shot. Carter testified that he and Hines then went back to the white Acura. While he was seated in the car, another car pulled up, and he was shot again. Hines then drove Carter to the hospital.
Carter identified himself, in a surveillance video shown to the jury, as wearing a striped tank top while at the bar that night. He also identified Hines in the video.
Carter did not recall any sort of dispute occurring inside the bar, but he admitted that he was intoxicated that night, and his recollection of the events was "fuzzy." He could not identify the person who shot him. When he was shot, he had been looking in the other direction.
Hines, a childhood friend of Carter's, corroborated Carter's version of events. He testified that he drove Carter to the bar in a white Acura. Like Carter, he was intoxicated, and he did not remember any altercation taking place inside the bar.
When Hines and Carter left the bar, there was a crowd in the parking lot. Hines heard some "words" exchanged, heard a "shot," and noticed that Carter had been shot. Carter was walking and talking after being shot. Hines and Carter then went to the car, where Carter was shot again. Hines then drove Carter to the hospital. He could not identify Carter's shooter.
Pearson, another childhood friend of Carter's, was also at Oakleigh Station on the night of the shooting. He also wore a striped tank top that evening.
Pearson's testimony closely tracked that of Carter and Hines. Pearson left the bar around closing time, and while standing outside, he heard shots fired and noticed that Carter had been hit. Carter showed him his shoulder and then walked away. Pearson did not see the shooting, and he could not identify the person who shot Carter.
Detective Parrish McClarin, a member of the Violent Crimes Unit of the Baltimore County Police Department, was assigned to investigate the shooting. He and other police officers spoke with Carter about the shooting, as well as with a number of other individuals who had been present in the bar and the parking lot that night.
Approximately one to two days later, the police obtained surveillance video from inside the bar and outside in the parking lot. The State introduced as Exhibit 4/8A a DVD containing five surveillance video recordings from both inside and outside the bar on thenight Carter was shot.2 The police were able to ascertain that a vehicle depicted in the surveillance video was registered to Christopher Davis. The vehicle was a black four-door Hyundai Accent, with the front passenger-side fender painted a lighter color than the rest of the car.
Detective McClarin identified appellant in State's Exhibit 6A, an image taken from the Oakleigh Station Bar surveillance video, as the person wearing a white tank top.3 A recording from the surveillance video, labeled "camera 1 inside," showed appellant leaving the bar at 1:34.04 a.m.4
The video recording labeled "camera 1 outside" showed Davis' car parked in the parking lot before the shooting. The recording shows that, shortly after appellant left the bar, a tall man, with a muscular build resembling appellant, wearing a white tank top, long shorts, and black socks, walked toward Davis' car, opened the front passenger door, and leaned into the car. The man jogged off to the right, with his right arm either in his shorts pocket or held against the right side of his body. Two people appeared to attempt to restrainthe man, but the man walked away, holding his right arm by his side. He did not swing his right arm, as he did with his left arm.
Less than a minute later, the man approached a group of people and leaned into the group, at which point the people began to run away. The man then walked back to the passenger side of Davis' car, again holding his right arm to his right side, and got into the front passenger seat. Shortly thereafter, another man got into the driver's seat and drove away.
The video recording shows that, a couple of seconds later, a person, identified as Carter, was walking with his tank top in his hand. Approximately one minute later, Davis' car is seen pulling up to the passenger side of a white vehicle, stopping for approximately eight seconds and then driving away.
Detective McClarin testified that the information from the surveillance video was "put into a police data base." As a result of the police investigation, the police developed two suspects: appellant and Davis, the registrant of the vehicle.
Appellant and Davis were arrested. The same car depicted in the surveillance video was parked outside Davis' home the day he was arrested. No firearms, cartridge casings, or any other physical evidence were collected that tied appellant, or Davis, to the shooting.
Both appellant and Davis were interviewed at police headquarters. During the interview, which was played for the jury, Detective McClarin asked appellant where he was, and what he did, on the evening of Thursday, May 28, 2015. Appellant stated that hethought he spent the evening with a girl named Sierra. He repeatedly denied that he had been at any bar, club, or restaurant.
The police eventually showed him a surveillance photograph, taken inside the Oakleigh Station Bar on the night of the shooting, which appellant acknowledged "look[ed] like" him. At that point, appellant acknowledged that he and Davis (his roommate at the time) were at the bar on the evening of May 28, 2015, and the early morning of May 29, 2015. Appellant explained that he rode as a passenger to the bar in Davis' black four-door car. He stated that they did not stay at the bar until closing time, they did not observe any altercation or argument at the bar, and he had not been involved in any altercation or argument. When confronted with the fact that the detectives observed him on the video recording arguing with another man, appellant maintained that he did not have any problems with anyone while at the bar. He stated that, when he and Davis left the bar, everything was fine, and the two drove home.
Anthony Jenkins, Jr., a security guard at the Oakleigh Station Bar, was working on the night of the shooting with his father, Anthony Jenkins, Sr., and two other security guards. Jenkins, Jr. testified that there may have been a "little scuffle" inside the bar on the dance floor that night at approximately 11:30 p.m., but it did not concern him because everybody seemed to calm down. He did not witness the altercation, but he saw the "aftermath" and helped to calm everyone down.
Regarding a "second incident" in the parking lot later on, Jenkins, Jr. stated:
Jenkins, Jr. stated that when he heard the gunshots, he saw people "scatter."
Jenkins, Jr. said that he did not know the names of the persons...
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