Shannon v. State
| Citation | 468 Md. 322,227 A.3d 220 |
| Decision Date | 24 April 2020 |
| Docket Number | No. 46 Sept. Term, 2019,46 Sept. Term, 2019 |
| Parties | Teddy SHANNON v. STATE of Maryland |
| Court | Court of Special Appeals of Maryland |
Argued by Jeffrey M. Ross, Assistant Public Defender (Paul B. DeWolfe, Public Defender of Maryland, Baltimore, MD), on brief for Petitioner/Cross-Respondent.
Argued by Jessica V. Carter, Assistant Attorney General (Brian E. Frosh, Attorney General of Maryland, Baltimore, MD), on brief For Respondent/Cross-Petitioner.
Argued before: McDonald, Watts, Hotten, Getty, Booth, Biran and Greene, Clayton, Jr. (Senior Judge, Specially Assigned), JJ.
A charging document in a criminal case establishes the field of play. Among other things, it must provide adequate notice of the offense charged. That requirement functions both prospectively – allowing a defendant to understand what must be defended, to challenge the legal sufficiency of the charges, and to prepare for trial – and retrospectively – to allow a court to impose an appropriate sentence upon conviction and to protect the defendant from a second prosecution for the same offense.
A charging document that fails to give adequate notice can be akin to moving the goal posts after the game has begun.
This case is about whether a drafting error in an indictment resulted in inadequate notice of the alleged offense that deprived the trial court of jurisdiction. Petitioner Teddy Shannon was charged in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City with, among other offenses, unlawful possession of a regulated firearm by a person who had previously been convicted of a predicate offense. While the pertinent count of the indictment accurately stated detailed information about a prior conviction that prohibited Mr. Shannon from possessing a firearm – namely, the specific offense (possession with intent to distribute a controlled substance), the case number, and the date of that conviction – it also inaccurately referred to that conviction as a "crime of violence." That error went unnoticed in the Circuit Court, perhaps because Mr. Shannon stipulated before the jury that he was prohibited by a prior conviction from possessing a regulated firearm and disputed only whether he had possessed the firearm specified in the indictment. The jury found Mr. Shannon guilty of the firearms offense.
On appeal, Mr. Shannon has sought to overturn his conviction on the firearms count, arguing that the additional language in that count meant that the count failed to charge him with a crime and that the trial court lacked jurisdiction to adjudicate that count. The Court of Special Appeals declined to vacate his firearms conviction on that basis – and so do we, although with somewhat different reasoning.
Under Article 21 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights, a defendant in a criminal case is entitled to be informed in the charging document of the offenses that the defendant allegedly committed.1
This requirement serves several purposes: (1) to notify the defendant as to what is to be defended; (2) to enable the defendant to prepare for trial; (3) to allow the court to consider the legal sufficiency of the charging document; (4) upon a conviction, to allow the court to impose an appropriate sentence; and (5) to protect the defendant against multiple prosecutions for the same offense and thereby vindicate the proscription against double jeopardy. Ayre v. State , 291 Md. 155, 163, 433 A.2d 1150 (1981). To carry out these purposes, a charging document must (1) adequately characterize the crime charged and (2) describe the specific conduct on which that charge is based. Id . at 163-64, 433 A.2d 1150 ; see also Counts v. State , 444 Md. 52, 57-58, 118 A.3d 894 (2015).
To further the constitutional guarantee, the Maryland Rules set standards for the content and amendment of a charging document. In particular, Maryland Rule 4-202(a) requires, among other things, that a charging document "contain a concise and definite statement of the essential facts of the offense with which the defendant is charged and, with reasonable particularity, the time and place the offense occurred." See, e.g. , Edmund v. State , 398 Md. 562, 575-76, 921 A.2d 264 (2007) (); State v. Mulkey , 316 Md. 475, 480-82, 560 A.2d 24 (1989) ().
The Rules allow for amendment of a charging document as follows:
On motion of a party or on its own initiative, the court at any time before verdict may permit a charging document to be amended except that if the amendment changes the character of the offense charged , the consent of the parties is required. If amendment of a charging document reasonably so requires, the court shall grant the defendant an extension of time or continuance.
Maryland Rule 4-204 (emphasis added). As is evident, an amendment that is a matter of form can be accomplished by the State with the permission of the trial court. In contrast, if an amendment affects a matter of substance and would "change the character of the offense charged" – for example, a substantive change to an element of the crime charged in an indictment – the amendment may be made only with the defendant's consent. See Johnson v. State , 358 Md. 384, 387-92, 749 A.2d 769 (2000) (tracing history of Rule 4-204 ); see also Thompson v. State , 412 Md. 497, 516-17, 988 A.2d 1011 (2010) (); Counts , 444 Md. at 65-66, 118 A.3d 894 (). This rule allows only for "changes, alterations, or modifications to an existing charge "; if the State intends to charge a defendant with additional offenses, it must file a new or additional charging document. Johnson v. State , 427 Md. 356, 375, 47 A.3d 1002 (2012) (emphasis in original; citation and quotation marks omitted).
As a general rule, if a defendant wishes to raise a defect in the charging document, the defendant must file a motion based on that defect "within 30 days after the earlier of the appearance of counsel or the first appearance of the defendant before the court"; otherwise, the defect is waived. Maryland Rule 4-252(a)(2), (b). There is an exception to this requirement if, as a result of the defect, the charging document fails "to show jurisdiction in the court or ... to charge an offense"; in that case, the defect may be raised "at any time." Maryland Rule 4-252(a)(2), (d). To a certain extent, these two exceptions amount to the same thing, for if a charging document fails to charge a cognizable crime, a court "lacks fundamental subject matter jurisdiction to render a judgment of conviction...."
Williams v. State , 302 Md. 787, 792, 490 A.2d 1277 (1985) ; see also Townes v. State , 314 Md. 71, 74, 548 A.2d 832 (1988).
Title 5 of the Public Safety Article defines a category of "regulated firearms" – essentially handguns and certain assault weapons – and regulates the possession, sale, and transfer of such firearms. Maryland Code, Public Safety Article ("PS"), § 5-101 et seq . The statute prohibits the possession of a regulated firearm by various categories of individuals. PS § 5-133(b).2 It is a criminal offense for an individual who has previously been convicted of certain crimes to violate that prohibition. PS § 5-133(c). As a shorthand, we will refer to an individual subject to that prohibition as a "prohibited person."
The statute groups predicate convictions into three categories. Those categories are as follows:
(1) Conviction of a "crime of violence," defined to include 19 offenses under State law.3 PS § 5-133(c)(1)(i).
(2) Conviction of certain drug offenses. PS § 5-133(c)(1)(ii). Nine offenses are listed in the statute.4 Pertinent to this case, possession with intent to distribute a controlled substance, in violation of Maryland Code, Criminal Law Article ("CR"), § 5-602, is among those offenses.
(3) Conviction of an out-of-state or federal offense equivalent to an offense in the first two categories. PS § 5-133(c)(1)(iii).
The gravamen of the offense defined in PS § 5-133(c)(1) is the possession of a regulated firearm. The unit of prosecution is the firearm. Thus, a prohibited person may be charged with a separate count of that offense for each regulated firearm that the person possesses, even if the person has only one predicate conviction. See Snyder v. State , 210 Md. App. 370, 395-98, 63 A.3d 128 (2013), cert. denied , 432 Md. 470, 69 A.3d 476 (2013). On the other hand, if the prohibited person possesses only one regulated firearm, he or she has committed only one violation of the statute, regardless of whether the prohibited person was previously convicted of one predicate offense or a dozen predicate offenses. See Melton v. State , 379 Md. 471, 484-502, 842 A.2d 743 (2004).
A person who possesses a regulated firearm following a conviction of any of the offenses listed in PS § 5-133(c)(1) is guilty of a felony and may be sentenced to up to 15 years' imprisonment and may be subject to a mandatory minimum sentence of five years' imprisonment. PS § 5-133(c)(2)-(3).
At a trial in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City, Mr. Shannon was convicted of two offenses – threatening arson and a firearms offense – related to an altercation near his residence on December 10, 2016. The issue in this appeal concerns an undisputed error in the drafting of the firearms count and does not depend on the sufficiency of the evidence or the particular facts of the case. The underlying facts, as established at trial, are summarized in the opinion of the Court of Special Appeals...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Garcia v. State
...those definitions to the case before us. Accordingly, as legal questions, we apply the de novo standard of review. Shannon v. State , 468 Md. 322, 335, 227 A.3d 220 (2020).A. Murder Defined Common law murder is the unlawful "killing of one human being by another with the requisite malevolen......
-
Becker v. Falls Rd. Cmty. Ass'n
...the general concepts added by the Commissioner as dicta "akin to moving the goal posts after the game has begun." Shannon v. State , 468 Md. 322, 326, 227 A.3d 220, 222 (2020). Therefore, the ALJ overestimated the extent of substantive change between the two proposals and underestimated the......
-
Wallace v. State
...exposing the jury to the potential prejudicial effect that a description of the nature of that conviction might have." Shannon, 468 Md. at 333 n.6, 227 A.3d at 226 n.6 (citation omitted). The failure to object was not result of reasonable professional judgment." In re Parris W., 363 Md. at ......
-
Garcia v. State
...theory.I. STANDARD OF REVIEW This appeal presents a question of law. As such, we apply a de novo standard of review. Shannon v. State , 468 Md. 322, 335, 227 A.3d 220 (2020) ; see also Schisler v. State , 394 Md. 519, 535, 907 A.2d 175 (2006) (explaining that when the question presented on ......