State v. Butler

• Decision Date: 19 February 1999
• Docket Number: No. 65,65
• Citation: 353 Md. 67,724 A.2d 657
• Parties: STATE of Maryland v. Terrence Zachary BUTLER.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

724 A.2d 657

353 Md. 67

STATE of Maryland v. Terrence Zachary BUTLER.

No. 65, Sept. Term, 1998.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

February 19, 1999.

Celia Anderson Davis, Asst. Atty. Gen., (J. Joseph Curran, Jr., Atty. Gen., on brief), Baltimore, for petitioner.

Julia Doyle Bernhardt, Asst. Public Defender (Stephen E. Harris, Public Defender, on brief), Baltimore, for appellee.

Argued before BELL, C.J., and ELDRIDGE, RODOWSKY, CHASANOW, RAKER, WILNER and CATHELL, JJ.

CATHELL, Judge.

Terrence Zachary Butler, respondent, was tried and convicted by a jury in the Circuit Court for Prince George's County on charges related to the deaths of three individuals: his former girlfriend, Marvis Willis; Ms. Willis's brother, Raynard Willis; and Ms. Willis's son, Donnell Willis. The jury found respondent guilty of the following: Count one: second degree murder of Marvis Willis; count two: use of a handgun in the commission of a felony in the murder of Marvis Willis; count three: second degree murder of Donnell Willis; count four: first degree murder of Raynard Willis; and count five: use of a handgun in the commission of a felony in the murder of Raynard Willis. The court sentenced respondent to life without parole for count four and additional consecutive sentences of thirty years each for counts one and three and twenty years each for counts two and five.

Respondent appealed to the Court of Special Appeals, which reversed his convictions in an unreported opinion and remanded the case to the circuit court. The State petitioned this Court for writ of certiorari on April 17, 1998, and respondent filed a cross-petition on April 22, 1998. We granted both petitions to address an important issue raised in this matter. As rephrased by the State in its brief before this Court, petitioner presents question one for our review and respondent presents question two:

1. Did the Court of Special Appeals err in holding that the issue of territorial jurisdiction presented a question of fact for the jury to resolve?

2. Did the trial court properly admit evidence of Butler's prior conviction for armed robbery during the prosecutor's cross-examination?

We shall affirm the judgment of the Court of Special Appeals as to the first question. Because respondent's convictions are reversed and remanded, we need not address the second question.

I. Facts

We shall set forth the relevant facts in this case as described by the Court of Special Appeals in its opinion below:

Appellant was charged and convicted of the murders of Marvis Willis, his former girlfriend, her brother Raynard, and her three-year-old son Donnell. The bodies were discovered in Raynard's leased car in northwest Washington, D.C., when the D.C. Fire Department was called to investigate a vehicle fire. All three bodies were wrapped in bedding that had been secured with cellophane tape. The bodies of Donnell and Raynard were found in the passenger compartment of the car, while Marvis's body was discovered in the trunk. Police investigators determined that the fire had been set deliberately with flammable liquid and an open flame.

Autopsies performed on the three bodies revealed that Marvis and Raynard had been shot to death; Donnell was asphyxiated. Marvis's body was burned after death and the other two bodies suffered heat damage from the vehicle fire. A .38 caliber revolver with an unusual "top break" barrel was found with the bodies. At trial, the State presented testimony by a firearms expert who stated that the bullets extracted from the bodies were consistent with, but not conclusive as, having been fired from that weapon. Marvis and Raynard's mother testified that the items of bedding in which the bodies were wrapped were articles that she had given to Marvis on previous occasions.

The State produced testimony by a neighbor, Terry Lee Flowers, who stated that he had seen appellant leave Marvis's apartment in a burgundy rental car on the evening of December 2, 1991. When he saw the car on a later news broadcast and recognized it as the one appellant was driving, he attempted unsuccessfully to call a crime report hotline. Flowers also testified that he had seen appellant with the top-break handgun found with the bodies and remembered talking to appellant about the unusual gun in November 1991.

The State also produced testimony by the homicide investigator who canvassed the neighborhood where the burned car was found on the night of the fire. The investigator reported having seen a man wearing a tam and a fur coat in a doorway just two doors down from the location of the vehicle fire. He later chose appellant's likeness from an array of photographs and also identified appellant from the witness stand. Several prosecution witnesses testified that appellant and Marvis had been having relationship difficulties related to appellant's involvement with other women. Appellant himself testified that they had agreed to end their relationship and to live separately because appellant was not ready for marriage.

Appellant testified in his own defense, denying that he committed the murders, that he was present on P Street on the night of the vehicle fire, that he drove Raynard's car on that evening, or that he ever showed Flowers a top-break handgun.

II. Discussion and Analysis

In the case before us, the question is if a dispute exists as to whether the crime for which the defendant is accused occurred within Maryland, is such a determination an issue of law for the court to decide or is it a factual determination to be made by the trier of fact? This Court has never addressed this issue squarely.

The State argues to this Court, as it did to the Court of Special Appeals, that when a criminal defendant challenges a court's territorial jurisdiction, that issue should be raised prior to trial and determined by the trial judge. The State proffers several reasons for this conclusion. First, the State claims a challenge to a court's territorial jurisdiction strikes at the very "foundation of the court's authority," and therefore should be determined by the court as a matter of law. Second, the State argues, territorial jurisdiction is a threshold issue that should be challenged prior to trial. In that vein, the State analogizes territorial jurisdiction to the determination of venue, which is normally decided by the court upon a mandatory pretrial motion to dismiss pursuant to Maryland Rule 4-252. Finally, the State argues that even if this Court were to determine that a challenge to the trial court's territorial jurisdiction need not be made prior to trial, the issue is one of law to be decided by the trial court and not a factual determination to be made by the trier of fact.

Respondent, on the other hand, argues that when facts relating to the location of the crime are in dispute, the matter should be resolved by the trier of fact. Second, contrary to the State, respondent argues venue and territorial jurisdiction are not analogous and should not be treated similarly. Respondent also contends that the majority of states and the federal circuits submit the issue of territorial jurisdiction to the trier of fact. Finally, respondent argues that when the issue of territorial jurisdiction is submitted to the trier of fact, the State must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that criminal conduct occurred in Maryland.

The Court of Special Appeals, relying on Burral v. State, 118 Md.App. 288, 702 A.2d 781 (1997), cert. granted, 349 Md. 105, 707 A.2d 90 (1998), held that the "question of territorial jurisdiction was a question of fact for the jury and that the State had the burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that the crimes were committed in Maryland." Therefore, the intermediate appellate court held, the trial court erred in failing to instruct the jury to resolve the issue of territorial jurisdiction.

Territorial jurisdiction describes the concept that only when an offense is committed within the boundaries of the court's jurisdictional geographic territory, which generally is within the boundaries of the respective states, may the case be tried in that state. The roots of the territorial jurisdiction requirement lie in the Sixth Amendment: "[T]he Sixth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, made applicable to state judicial proceedings by the Fourteenth Amendment, requires that `in all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a ... trial, by an impartial jury of the State ... wherein the crime shall have been committed....'" Trindle v. State, 326 Md. 25, 38, 602 A.2d 1232, 1238 (1992) (Eldridge, J., dissenting in part and concurring in part) (quoting U.S. CONST. amend. VI). We said in Bowen v. State, 206 Md. 368, 375, 111 A.2d 844, 847 (1955), that "an offense against the laws of the State of Maryland is punishable only when committed within its territory. A person cannot be convicted here for crimes committed in another state." See also Martel v. State, 221 Md. 294, 299, 157 A.2d 437, 440,

cert. denied, 363 U.S. 849, 80 S.Ct. 1628, 4 L.Ed.2d 1732 (1960). Commentators are in accord with this description. See, e.g., Annotation, Comment Note—Necessity of Proving Venue or Territorial Jurisdiction of Criminal Offense Beyond Reasonable Doubt, 67 A.L.R.3d 988, § 10, at 1004 (1975) ("The judicial power to hear and determine a criminal prosecution, as between the forum and other states, federal districts, or countries, on the basis of the offense having occurred within the territorial limits of the forum state or federal district, is what is referred to by the term `territorial jurisdiction.' "). Venue, then, pertains to the county in which a case can be tried; territorial jurisdiction concerns whether the offense was committed within the boundaries of the State.

We are bound as to the issue of territorial jurisdiction by the restraints of common law. This Court has noted that "under the common law ... a state may punish only those crimes committed within...