Simpson v. State
| Decision Date | 04 January 2018 |
| Docket Number | No. 2168,2168 |
| Parties | JAMES ROBERT SIMPSON, JR. v. STATE OF MARYLAND |
| Court | Court of Special Appeals of Maryland |
Circuit Court for Wicomico County
Case No. 22-K-16-000343
UNREPORTED
Reed, Leahy, Zarnoch, Robert A. (Senior Judge, Specially Assigned), JJ.
Opinion by Zarnoch, 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.
The facts of this case involve the death of five-week old baby, James Robert Simpson, III ("Baby James"), on January 1, 2016. On October 20, 2016, following a three-day trial in the Circuit Court for Wicomico County, the jury returned a verdict convicting appellant James Robert Simpson, Jr. ("Simpson"), Baby James's father, of two counts of first degree child abuse, one count of second degree child abuse, and reckless endangerment. On November 29, 2016, Simpson was sentenced to thirty years' incarceration.
On appeal, Simpson asks us to decide three issues, which we have reworded as follows: (1) whether the trial court abused its discretion in responding to a question from the jury by declining to provide definitions of the terms "cruel," "inhumane," and "malicious"; (2) whether the trial court abused its discretion in determining that a postmortem photograph of Baby James's body was properly authenticated; and (3) whether the trial court abused its discretion in permitting opinion testimony of a law enforcement officer regarding his perception of Simpson's behavior.
For the reasons explained below, we affirm.
On the evening of December 30, 2015, Simpson and [B]aby James's mother, Jessica Cruzado, drove to Simpson's cousin's house to drop Cruzado off to get her hair done around 7:00 p.m. Simpson testified that he left his cousin's house with Baby James and drove straight to his and Cruzado's apartment. Cruzado stayed at the cousin's house until about 10:30 p.m., when she left to go to a friend's house in Delaware. Officer KevinMcCahill, who spoke with Simpson at the hospital, testified that Simpson said that he fed baby James around 8:00 p.m., the baby slept for three or four hours.
Simpson testified that later in the evening, he became upset with Cruzado when he found out that she had gone to a friend's house in Delaware and would be out later than he expected. At some point, Simpson was unable to get in touch with Cruzado, and he posted on Facebook at 11:15 p.m. a message to Cruzado, which indicated that he had attempted to call her six times. Simpson said that, sometime before midnight after getting in touch with Cruzado, he woke baby James, dressed him and put him in a car seat, drove to the Cook Out restaurant and went through the drive-through, arriving at approximately 12:13 a.m. Video surveillance showed Simpson's vehicle entering his apartment complex at 12:29 a.m. Simpson testified that he had been on the phone with his sister during the entire drive, and that he remained on the phone with her for another fifteen to twenty minutes in the parking lot. After ending the phone call, he said that he carried Baby James's car seat and the food inside. Simpson explained that when he went over to Baby James to take him out of his car seat, he found that he was unresponsive, and called 911.
Lauren Curtis, a nurse and EMT who lived in Simpson's apartment complex, was the first to respond to Simpson's apartment. She testified that Baby James was lying on the floor in the back bedroom, was not breathing, did not have a pulse, and felt cold to the touch. Curtis performed CPR on Baby James assisted by Simpson. While she performed CPR, Simpson told her that Baby James had not woken up at 11:00 p.m. as usual, and that when he attempted to wake him, Simpson discovered that he was not breathing. Curtis continued to perform CPR on the infant until more help arrived. Once Baby James wastaken down to the ambulance, Curtis was finally able to feel a pulse. Baby James was taken to a local hospital, Peninsula Regional Medical Center (PRMC) and later transferred to Children's National Medical Center (CNMC) in Washington, D.C. Baby James ultimately died at PRMC on January 1, 2016.
Dr. Tanya Hinds, a physician and expert in child abuse pediatrics who treated Baby James at CNMC, diagnosed him with abusive head trauma. She testified that Baby James was critically ill and had sustained life-threatening injuries before he arrived at CNMC. She said that "[h]e was unable to effectively breathe on his own" or "contract his heart muscles to maintain a normal pulse," and that his condition affected the oxygen that could be delivered to his brain and other organs. In Dr. Hinds's opinion, the infant's conditions were consistent with "a force that is typically a vigorous force, repetitive force as opposed to a single impact," stating that "the mechanism is vigorous, repetitive shaking trauma with or without impact." Because of the color of some of the blood in Baby James's brain, Dr. Hinds believed the injury was recent. Further, she stated that his injuries suggested that he would have become "immediately and persistently ill."
Dr. Robert Mitchell, the Chief Medical Examiner in Washington, D.C., testified at trial as an expert in forensic pathology. Aided by photographs taken during the autopsy, he noted that there was a recent bruise on the underside of the infant's scalp that had not yet risen to the surface of the skin. Further, he explained that there was increased pressure in the infant's skull, bleeding inside of his skull cavity, blood and swelling on his brain, blood in his spinal column, and retinal hemorrhages and optic nerve sheath hemorrhages.Like Dr. Hinds, Dr. Mitchell testified that all of these conditions were consistent with "[b]lunt force trauma of the head," which could include shaking with or without impact.
Officer Edward Fissel of the Salisbury Police Department, who was assigned to the Child Advocacy Center task force, was assigned to investigate a potential child abuse incident and responded to PRMC. Officer Fissel questioned both Cruzado and Simpson regarding the timeline of events and Baby James's injuries. During his interview with Simpson at the hospital, Simpson took two Cook Out restaurant receipts from his pocket and offered them to Officer Fissel. Officer Fissel testified that one receipt indicated the time of payment and the other appeared to be taken from the top of the food box.
At trial, Simpson denied shaking, dropping, throwing, or hurting Baby James in any way. The jury began its deliberations on the morning of October 20, 2016, and returned a verdict by the end of the day. During its deliberations, the jury asked the trial judge questions relevant to its instructions on the charge of first and second degree child abuse. By the end of the day, the jury returned a verdict finding Simpson guilty of child abuse in the first degree -- death; child abuse in the first degree -- severe physical injury; child abuse in the second degree -- household family member on family member; and reckless endangerment. The jury found Simpson not guilty on the remaining counts of first degree murder, second degree murder, first degree assault, and second degree assault. Simpson was sentenced to thirty years in prison on November 29, 2016.
Simpson's appeal to this Court asks us to reverse and remand for a new trial based on three challenges to the circuit court's rulings. As we explain below, all three issuesrelate to decisions typically left within the trial court's discretion. The first issue relates to the trial court's supplemental jury instruction, which was prompted by a question from the jury. The second and third issues challenge the trial court's admission of certain evidence and testimony. Simpson's arguments, however, suffer from a lack of preservation, as well as merit. We, therefore, affirm the decision of the circuit court.
Simpson argues that the trial court erred by "failing to propound a helpful, clarifying, or accurate response to the jury's questions concerning key terms of the child abuse offenses." We "review[] for abuse of discretion a trial court's decision as to whether to give a jury instruction." Hall v. State, 437 Md. 534, 539 (2014); see also Stabb v. State, 423 Md. 454, 465 (2011) (Citation omitted). Also within a trial court's discretion is whether to provide a particular supplemental instruction in response to a question from the jury after its deliberations have commenced. See Appracio v. State, 431 Md. 42, 57 (2013); see also Holmes v. State, 209 Md. App. 427, 449 (2013) (quoting Lovell v. State, 347 Md. 623, 657 (1997)) ("Whether to give a jury supplemental instructions in a criminal case is within the discretion of the trial judge."). We will not disturb a trial court's discretionary decision "except on a clear showing of . . . discretion manifestly unreasonable, or exercised on untenable grounds, or for untenable reasons." Jarrett v. State, 220 Md. App. 571, 584 (2014) (quoting Bazzle v. State, 426 Md. 541, 549 (2012)).
Before we can address whether the trial court abused its discretion, however, we must determine whether the issue is preserved for our review. Pursuant to Md. Rule1 4-325(e), "[n]o party may assign as error the giving or the failure to give an instruction unless the party objects on the record promptly after the court instructs the jury, stating distinctly the matter to which the party objects and the grounds of the objection." A party challenging the trial court's instructions to the jury is charged with raising potential "inadvertent omissions or inaccuracies." Austin v. State, 90 Md. App. 254, 265 (1992).
At the end of the trial, the...
To continue reading
Request your trial