Shelton v. State
| Decision Date | 30 August 2021 |
| Docket Number | 236-2020 |
| Parties | CHARLES D. SHELTON v. STATE OF MARYLAND |
| Court | Court of Special Appeals of Maryland |
Circuit Court for Montgomery County Case No.: 135064C
Graeff, Beachley, Eyler, Deborah S. (Senior Judge, Specially Assigned), JJ.
In the Circuit Court for Montgomery County, Charles D. Shelton, the appellant, was indicted on three counts of second-degree rape and one count of attempted second-degree rape. His first trial ended in a mistrial after a hung jury. The jury in his second trial convicted him of two counts of second-degree rape and one count of attempted second-degree rape and acquitted him of one count of second-degree rape. The court sentenced him to an aggregate sentence of thirty-five (35) years, to be followed by five years' supervised probation.
On appeal, Shelton raises four questions, which we have rephrased, combined into three, and reordered:
For the following reasons, we shall affirm the judgments of the circuit court.
At trial, the State called A.V.[2], the victim; Detective Benjamin Stokes, from the Special Victims Investigation Division Adult Sex Assault Unit of the Montgomery County Police; and several other witnesses who offered testimony concerning their observations of events on the evening in question. Shelton did not testify. He called one witness.
A.V.'s testimony established the following. On Sunday, December 9, 2018, at around 1:00 p.m., she went to Growlers bar in Old Town Gaithersburg to watch a football game. While there, she consumed one bowl of soup and approximately eight or nine beers. As a result, she felt "tipsy" and "slightly intoxicated" but was able to stand and walk without difficulty.
Earlier the same day, A.V. had taken phentermine, an appetite suppressant. She explained that she had undergone gastric sleeve surgery, i.e., weight loss surgery, in November 2016, and had lost 100 pounds. After the surgery, she would become "intoxicated much more quickly." At the time of this incident, A.V. weighed 150 pounds and stood 5'2" tall.
At around 7:00 p.m., A.V. left Growlers with a group of people and proceeded to another bar, Finnegan's, in Rockville. They arrived at around 7:30 p.m. A.V. consumed two more beers. She stayed at Finnegan's until around 9:00 p.m. She briefly returned to Growlers, only to discover it was closing, and then was invited by her friends to proceed to a third bar, Quincy's, in Gaithersburg. She declined and went home, but then decided to call an Uber to rejoin her friends. She arrived at Quincy's at around 10:00 p.m. By then, she had consumed 15 or 16 beers throughout the day.
Quincy's was lively when A.V. got there, with everyone watching football games. She sat at the bar and consumed four or five more beers. She stayed at Quincy's for three hours, by which time she was intoxicated.
At around 1:30 a.m., and after the effects of the phentermine had worn off, A.V. went outside Quincy's, sat on a concrete wall, and tried to call an Uber to take her home. Upon discovering that her phone had died, she went back inside the bar. She told an unidentified man she did not know, whose romantic pursuits she had rebuffed earlier in the evening (and who was not Shelton), that she could not get an Uber. He offered to get her a ride, but she decided she would rather walk home, even though that would take 40 minutes. She left the bar.
A.V. was having trouble walking, and outside the bar she fell over a planter. At that point, Shelton approached her and offered to give her a ride home. She accepted because, as she testified, she "didn't have a lot of options at that time." The jury was shown surveillance video of the encounter between A.V. and Shelton outside Quincy's.
Shelton took A.V. by the hand and led her to his car. She still was having trouble walking. One of her contact lenses had fallen out so she also was having trouble seeing. She felt "hazy" and "tired." A.V. got into the back seat of Shelton's vehicle and lay down. During the drive, she realized that Shelton was not going in the direction of her apartment. She let him know that, but he responded that he "knew where he was going." A.V. "passed out in the seat."
Soon thereafter, A.V. momentarily awoke when she felt Shelton removing her leggings and underwear. She realized he was pulling her pants down but was unable to stay awake and passed out again. She regained consciousness and felt Shelton's finger inside her vagina. When he then placed his finger inside her anus, she screamed out in pain. A.V. then felt Shelton behind her, on top of her legs. She still was intoxicated and was "terrified." Shelton flipped her over and removed her top and her bra. She was completely naked. Shelton tried, unsuccessfully, to penetrate her vagina with his penis. He then grabbed her hair and pushed her face into his penis, which she testified was "flaccid." Shelton told her to "suck it, suck it, suck it," and forced her to perform fellatio on him. She "didn't think I had any choice in the matter." After that, Shelton again tried, unsuccessfully, to penetrate her vagina. He forced her to perform fellatio once more and then, because he remained flaccid, "he stopped."
A.V. testified that she did not consent to any of the sexual acts Shelton perpetrated against her and did not consent to being made to perform fellatio on him.
Shelton got back in the driver's seat and drove to a location near A.V.'s apartment, where he stopped. He asked her to give him her cell phone number. She did so in order to avoid a "conflict" and "get out of there." She got out of Shelton's vehicle, entered her apartment, and fell asleep. A few days later, she texted a friend and told him that she was "almost raped" and that she thought she was "going to be killed." After telling several other friends, A.V. eventually reported the incident to the police.
On December 17, 2018, Detective Stokes interviewed A.V. After developing Shelton as a suspect based on the phone number in A.V.'s cellphone, he obtained video surveillance footage from near Quincy's bar. Soon thereafter he obtained an arrest warrant for Shelton. On December 21, 2018, Shelton was arrested. After he waived his rights under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966), Detective Stokes interviewed him.
The police interview of Shelton was not admitted into evidence at either trial. The court ruled that portions of it could be used in questioning Detective Stokes, however.
The defense theory of the case was that on the night in question Shelton and A.V. engaged in consensual sexual acts.
Shelton contends the trial court abused its discretion by allowing Detective Stokes to be questioned about what Shelton said during the first part of his police interview.[3] He maintains that the contents of that part of the interview was unfairly prejudicial. He further contends that, once the trial court allowed Detective Stokes to be questioned about the first part of the interview, the trial court further abused its discretion by not allowing defense counsel to question Detective Stokes about the second part of the police interview. The rulings Shelton complains about were made in motions hearings before and during the first trial, and in a ruling on a motion in limine during the second trial.[4]
Before his first trial, Shelton moved to exclude the first part of his police interview by Detective Stokes, arguing that it was irrelevant and unfairly prejudicial. He asserted that he was not advised of the purpose of the interview when it began and that his remark during the interview that he "goes to bars and that he talks to lots of women" had no relevance because he did not say he had engaged in sexual acts with these other women. He took the position that the prosecution was attempting to admit propensity evidence to prove bad character. He argued that in light of his defense of consent, this remark in the interview not only was irrelevant but also was unfairly prejudicial and would "confuse the issues of the case."
The prosecutor responded that the first part of Shelton's interview was "extremely probative of [his] state of mind, and [his] consciousness of guilt with respect to this case." Specifically:
The fact that [Shelton] denies ever drinking, the fact that [Shelton] denies ever driving to Quincy's bar when he obviously drives there and away from the bar, the fact that he indicates that he initially doesn't mention Quincy's, doesn't go there, and then he says he does go there, it's - are valid things for the jury to be able to consider when they are determining whether or not he was truthful. Ultimately, this is a difficult case because it will center, likely, on the issue of consent. [Shelton's] denials during that 28 minutes, and his - what the State will present as incredible, or not credible, indications that he doesn't know what they're talking about, are important things, critical things, for the jury to be able to consider when weighing the credibility of the victim, as opposed to [Shelton]. Whether his, it's his statement, or his testimony, should he choose to get on the stand.
The prosecutor went on to say that ...
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