Sparkman v. State

• Decision Date: 26 March 2009
• Docket Number: No. 1196, Sept. Term, 2007.,1196, Sept. Term, 2007.
• Citation: 968 A.2d 162,184 Md. App. 716
• Parties: Ronald SPARKMAN v. STATE of Maryland.
• Court: Court of Special Appeals of Maryland

968 A.2d 162

184 Md. App. 716

Ronald SPARKMAN v. STATE of Maryland.

No. 1196, Sept. Term, 2007.

Court of Special Appeals of Maryland.

March 26, 2009.

Celia A. Davis (Nancy S. Forster, Public Defender on the brief), Baltimore, for Appellant.

Cathleen C. Brockmeyer (Douglas F. Gansler, Atty. Gen. on the brief), Baltimore, for Appellee.

Panel: HOLLANDER, CHARLES E. MOYLAN, JR. (Retired, Specially Assigned), and RAYMOND G. THIEME, JR. (Retired, Specially Assigned), JJ.

HOLLANDER, Judge.

Ronald Sparkman, appellant, was charged with the murder of Ralph "Wes" Pritchett, who was shot to death in Baltimore City on January 14, 2005. Following a trial in May 2007, a jury sitting in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City convicted Sparkman of first-degree murder, as well as use of a handgun in a crime of violence, and wearing or carrying a handgun.¹

On appeal, Sparkman poses the following two questions:

1. Did the court below err by admitting into evidence a letter purportedly written by Appellant?

2. Was the evidence legally insufficient to sustain Appellant's convictions?

For the reasons set forth below, we shall affirm.

FACTUAL SUMMARY

A. The Suppression Hearing

Prior to trial, Sparkman moved to suppress a letter purportedly written by him while he was in pretrial custody. The letter was sent from jail, but it was seized when it was returned to the institution with a label marked "RETURN TO SENDER," "INSUFFICIENT ADDRESS," and "UNABLE TO FORWARD."

Corporal Monique Mitchell, a correctional officer in the Intelligence Unit of the Division of Pretrial Detention, Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, was the sole witness at the suppression hearing. As of the hearing, she had worked for Pretrial Services for eleven years, the last five of which were in the Intelligence Unit. She stated that her unit's mission is to acquire information about inmates' involvement in "criminal activity."

On June 25, 2006, some eighteen months after Pritchett's murder, Mitchell received an envelope from the mailroom at the Baltimore City Detention Center, addressed to Tamira Sparkman. The envelope, which measured 3½ by 6½ inches, contained a yellow label, apparently applied by the U.S. Postal Service, stating "RETURN TO SENDER," "INSUFFICIENT ADDRESS," and "UNABLE TO FORWARD." The return address on the letter included appellant's name, his inmate number, and the address of the detention center.

Mitchell opened the envelope. It contained two sheets of lined, letter-sized paper, which were folded repeatedly. It also contained a separate sheet of paper, which was also folded, with a photograph inside of it. The separate sheet appeared to be a copy of an autopsy photograph, which Mitchell found "suspicious" and "not ordinary mail." She then opened the lined sheets and saw a handwritten letter. At the bottom of the second page she saw the following sentence: "1 picture is of my victim & the other 1 is my mother!" The letter also contained the statement: "I went to prison at a young age & back I am." Because Mitchell thought that the envelope's contents indicated "some kind of criminal activity," she did not return it to appellant (which she normally would have done, having found no contraband). Instead, it went to the detective assigned to this case.

When asked why she opened the mail, Mitchell said: "Because it was return to sender" and "the thickness of the envelope ... it could be something inside the envelope." Mitchell explained that the institution's policy provided for the opening and perusal of all "suspicious" mail, and the thickness of the envelope prompted her suspicion that it might contain contraband. Mitchell added that she had to unfold the papers because they could have contained drugs. In addition, Mitchell stated that incoming mail is inspected for contraband and, as a matter of policy, "all return to sender mail" is opened, as it is regarded as "incoming mail." According to Mitchell, inmates sometimes attempt to circumvent the policy barring inmate-to-inmate correspondence by sending a letter to a bogus address and writing the other inmate's name as the return addressee.

As to the policy of opening mail that is marked "return to sender," Mitchell elaborated:

That's the policy because we open it to make sure nothing is coming back inside the institution, they may try to send it out or something—sometimes inmates send out mail or send mail to each other, that is not permitted, not permitted mail to each other, mail or correspondence to one another. So in that case, we do check return to sender mail just to make sure they are not trying to get it to another party inside the institution.

The State introduced as an exhibit a document governing Mailroom Operations, dated April 15, 2003.² It included the statement, in section VI.C, that "DPDS inmates shall be prohibited from mailing correspondence to each other."

On cross-examination, Mitchell acknowledged that State's Motion Exhibit 3, a page from the inmates' handbook, said nothing about the institution's policy of opening returned mail.³ But, she pointed out that it stated that incoming mail is opened prior to delivery and inspected for contraband or money orders. The following exchange is pertinent:

[DEFENSE COUNSEL]: For incoming inmate mail, and tell me if I'm right, this ICU, that is your group, right?

[MITCHELL]: Yes.

[DEFENSE COUNSEL]: May search an inmate's incoming mail when there is a reasonable suspicion that inmate is engaged in criminal activity or any action which may jeopardize public safety, correct?

[MITCHELL]: Yes.

[DEFENSE COUNSEL]: And then it says ICU will document that reasonable suspicion of inmate engaging in activity, including document knowledge that form[s] the basis for reasonable suspicion. Now, are you telling us that upon receiving this matter, return [to] sender that you had reasonable suspicion to believe that Mr. Sparkman was engaged in illegal activity?

[MITCHELL]: Well, sir, when it is return to sender, again we do open it because we do believe, that sometime[s] it's inmate to inmate correspon[d]ence and something being done to bring the mail back in, we have to make sure there is no type of contraband, and we search it entering the institution.

[DEFENSE COUNSEL]: Okay. How, first of all, if it is sent out and return[ed] to sender, how is that being sent, how would that be mail sent to another inmate?

[MITCHELL]: Because that's what they do.... They put them as the person to send out in order to receive it. I'm trying to say this correctly? When he writes the letter, so that the other party receives it what they do is give a bogus address that's somewhere that they know they are going to send it back to the person that's going to receive it; does that make sense?

The following exchange is also relevant:

[DEFENSE COUNSEL]: Well, my question to you is, what contraband was inside that envelope that allowed you to turn it over to the State's Attorney's Office?

[MITCHELL]: Well, the letter—picture itself, it's a morgue, a picture of someone having an autopsy. I thought, that is suspicious. That's not everyday mail.

[DEFENSE COUNSEL]: But a photo copy is not a contraband, is it?

[MITCHELL]: No, it's not contraband.

According to Mitchell, the letter "seem[ed] to be criminal activity that involved some type of criminal activity. I found it to be." The following ensued:

[DEFENSE COUNSEL]: You thought that a photo copy was criminal activity?

[MITCHELL]: Once I perused it.

[DEFENSE COUNSEL]: So you did read the letter.

[MITCHELL]: I perused the letter. Once I saw the picture, I perused it at the bottom and saw a statement that was made.

Following argument by counsel, the court issued an oral ruling denying the motion. It stated, in part:

The Court believes and holds that it was proper for the corporal to inspect the letter. There is no question that the Court of Appeals has held that there is no absolute right of expectation, but rather diminished right of expectation [of privacy] pursuant to Fourth Amendment. And that the rule indicated that the institution has to be reasonable. This was a returned letter, therefore, mak[ing] it incoming mail. The rules in the institution are that any incoming mail that is believed that there is a reasonable suspicion that may involve public safety, there inside the institution or inside or out of the institution, may be inspected. And certainly as the Court of Appeals has said in the Thompson [sic]⁴ case, smuggling money, drugs and weapons, other contraband, all too common in the institution; therefore, inspection of the letters that are in this case, two [sic] fat to just be a single letter, warranted her opening the envelope. Once she opens the envelope and saw a picture, an autopsy picture, this Court holds that she then had the authority then, based on that suspicion, now she has that suspicion, in an effect of exacerbated it by the presence of the autopsy picture, she had a right to read the letter, and when she discovers that the letter indicated that, in fact, the Defendant was admitting that this was the victim of his crime, then [she] had the responsibility to turn that over to the State's Attorney's Office. So I will deny the motion for those reasons, and allow the State to introduce the letter. ...

B. The Trial

The prosecution presented five witnesses at trial, including two eyewitnesses to the shooting who identified appellant's photo in an array and identified appellant at trial. The defense did not present any witnesses.

Frank Gilliam testified that at about 10:00 p.m. on January 14, 2005, while he was talking with a friend near an apartment complex he called "Target City," a "guy came up and shot several times, shot at this guy named Wes about seven times." At the time, Wes was on the sidewalk, near Madison Street. Gilliam was about twenty to twenty-two feet away from the victim, but could not estimate how far he was from the shooter. The...