State v. Christian
Decision Date | 26 October 2018 |
Docket Number | No. 0392,0392 |
Parties | STATE OF MARYLAND v. MARK EDMUND CHRISTIAN, II |
Court | Court of Special Appeals of Maryland |
Circuit Court for Harford County
Case No. 12-K-11-000887
UNREPORTED
Opinion by Meredith, 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 State of Maryland, appellant, appeals the postconviction order of the Circuit Court for Harford County that granted Mark Edmund Christian, II, appellee, a new trial.
In March 2012, a jury sitting in the Circuit Court for Harford County found Christian guilty of first degree murder, attempted armed robbery, conspiracy to commit armed robbery, and use of a handgun in the commission of a felony or crime of violence. He was sentenced to life plus 30 years' incarceration. On direct appeal to this Court, we affirmed his convictions, and the Court of Appeals denied certiorari review. Mark Christian, II, v. State of Maryland, No. 636, September Term, 2012 (filed Sept. 23, 2013) (unreported), cert. denied, Christian v. State, 434 Md. 312 (2013) (Table).
On January 14, 2016, Christian filed a petition in the Circuit Court for Harford County seeking postconviction relief. The court held a hearing, and on March 24, 2017, the court granted Christian's petition in part and ordered a new trial. After timely filing a Motion for Leave to Appeal, the State then filed a Motion to Reconsider the postconviction court's order which was denied by the circuit court. We granted the State's Motion for Leave to Appeal on September 27, 2017, and the case was transferred to the regular appeal docket.
The State presents the following questions for our review:
Because we do not find that the postconviction court abused its discretion, we shall affirm.
After Christian's trial, he filed a direct appeal and presented the following four questions for review:
We affirmed the trial court's judgments and held the following:
On December 30, 2015, Christian filed a petition for postconviction relief and claimed that his convictions were in violation of his Sixth and Fourteenth Amendment rights for two reasons. First, he alleged that his counsel had "an actual conflict ofinterest" because Christian was represented by the Office of the Public Defender at the same time Christian's co-defendant, Brown, was also represented by the Office of the Public Defender on violation of probation proceedings, which, Christian argued, were related to the victim's murder. The postconviction court denied this claim.
Second, Christian claimed ineffective assistance of counsel because of his attorney's failure to do the following:
On March 24, 2017, the postconviction court granted Christian a new trial based on three of the asserted claims of ineffective assistance of counsel, holding:
The relief requested shall be granted as to that Petitioner's claims of ineffective assistance of counsel regarding the "anti-CSI" voir dire question, the Unger jury instruction, the missing evidence instruction, and the cumulative ineffectiveness of counsel.
On April 21, 2017, the State filed in this Court a Motion for Leave to Appeal. On June 5, 2017, the State filed in the circuit court a Motion to Reconsider Post-ConvictionRelief, alleging that the official transcript's quotation of the jury instruction alleged to be in violation of Unger was inaccurate, and that the actual instruction the judge gave at trial did not include the offending language. The postconviction court denied the State's Motion to Reconsider, explaining that only a defendant may seek to reopen a postconviction proceeding, and that, in any event, under Maryland Code (1973, 2013 Repl. Vol.), Courts and Judicial Proceedings Article ("CJ"), § 12-308, the court was "divested of jurisdiction" over the matter because the State had filed an application for leave to appeal. The postconviction court observed that the State might be able to "seek leave to correct the record" on appeal.
We granted the State's application for leave to appeal on September 27, 2017, and transferred the case to our regular docket.
"The review of a postconviction court's findings regarding ineffective assistance of counsel is a mixed question of law and fact." Newton v. State, 455 Md. 341, 351 (2017). In State v. Gross, 134 Md. App. 528, 558-59 (2000), aff'd, 371 Md. 334 (2002), we described appellate review of a postconviction court's rulings as follows:
(Citations omitted; emphasis supplied).
Within a year after Strickland was decided, Judge Orth, writing for the Court of Appeals, in Harris v. State, 303 Md. 685, 698 (1985), set out the process to be followed by a court conducting appellate review:
[I]n making our independent appraisal, we accept the findings of the trial judge as to what are the underlying facts unless he is clearly in error. We then re-weigh the facts as accepted in order to determine the ultimate mixed question of law and fact, namely, was there a violation of a constitutional right as claimed. Walker v. State, 12 Md. App. 684, 691-95, 280 A.2d 260 (1971)[.]
See also State v. Thomas, 328 Md. 541, 559 (1992); State v. Purvey, 129 Md. App. 1, 10 (1999); Cirincione v. State, 119 Md. App. 471, 485 (1998).
In her dissent in Syed v. State, 236 Md. App. 183, 287-88 (2018) (Graeff, J., dissenting), Judge Graeff explained our application of the Strickland standards on appellate review as follows:
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