State v. Giles

• Decision Date: 13 July 1965
• Docket Number: No. 443,443
• Citation: 239 Md. 458,212 A.2d 101
• Parties: STATE of Maryland v. James V. GILES and John G. Giles.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

Page 458

239 Md. 458

212 A.2d 101

STATE of Maryland v. James V. GILES and John G. Giles.

No. 443.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

July 13, 1965.

Robert J. Martineau, Asst. Atty. Gen. (Thomas B. Finan, Atty. Gen., Baltimore, and Leonard T. Kardy and James J. Cromwell, State's Atty., and Deputy State's Atty., respectively, for Montgomery County, Rockville, on the brief), for appellant.

Joseph Forer and Hal Witt, Washington, D. C., for appellees.

Before HAMMOND, HORNEY, MARBURY, SYBERT, OPPENHEIMER, and BARNES, JJ., and J. DeWEESE CARTER, Special Judge.

CARTER, J.

This is the third time the appellees, James V. Giles and John G. Giles, have been before this Court in connection with matters pertaining to their convictions for rape. In Giles v. State, 229 Md. 370, 183 A.2d 359 (1962), appeal dismissed 372 U.S. 767, 83 S.Ct. 1102, 10 L.Ed.2d 137 (1963), we affirmed convictions for rape committed by the appellees on a sixteen year old girl in Montgomery County on July 20, 1961. We subsequently affirmed the denial of a motion for a new trial based on newly discovered evidence in Giles v. State, 231 Md. 387, 190 A.2d 627 (1963). The case at bar is an appeal by the State from the action of the Circuit Court for Montgomery County in granting the appellees a new trial on the rape charge under the provisions of the Post Conviction Procedure Act after it had ruled as a preliminary matter that the appellees were authorized to take depositions in post conviction proceedings. The new trial was awarded following the finding of the lower court that the prosecution had suppressed and withheld evidence from the appellees in violation of their constitutional right to due process.

On this appeal the State raises two questions. First, it contends that because the rules relating to the taking of depositions in civil proceedings are not applicable to proceedings under the P.C.P.A., it was error to permit the taking of depositions. The primary contention of the State, however, is that the new trial was improperly granted for two reasons. One, that the failure of the prosecution to turn over to the defense information it had pertaining to an alleged rape complaint, concerning an incident involving the prosecutrix (but not the appellees) that occurred after the rape for which the appellees were convicted but before the trial of their case, and, two, that the neglect to inform the defense of an alleged suicide attempt by the prosecutrix following the alleged rape incident, also before the trial of the charges against them, did not deny the appellees their right to due process under the facts and circumstances of this case.

Aside from the questions presented by the State, the appellees, without having filed a cross-appeal, raise two questions decided adversely to them at the hearing below. They contend that Rule 759 a, together with Rule 567 a, requiring motions for a new trial in a criminal case to be filed within three days after verdict is a denial of due process; and that the admission into evidence at the trial of the original case of statements made by them when they were prime suspects, without advising them of their right to remain silent, and at a time when they were without counsel, was also a violation of due process. While the new trial was granted on the basis of the suppression of evidence relating to the alleged rape complaint and alleged suicide attempt the appellees would have us review all evidence concerning the sexual promiscuity of the prosecutrix, her claimed near probation status at the time of the rape, and her mental condition and health on the theory that evidence pertaining to these matters was also suppressed.

The undisputed and disputed facts surrounding the incident of July 20, 1961, which led to the convictions for rape were set forth in Giles v. State, supra, 229 Md. 370, 183 A.2d 359. That case disclosed that on July 20, 1961, Joyce Roberts (the prosecutrix) and Stewart Foster were approached by three young colored males as they sat in an automobile in a secluded spot in Montgomery County. An argument ensued which resulted in the smashing of the automobile windows by the intruders and the unlocking of the doors of the vehicle. Stewart tried to ward off the attack but was knocked unconscious. Joyce got out of the vehicle and fled into the woods where, after a short distance, she tripped and fell. She hid in the underbrush but shortly thereafter was discovered by the three youths. She claimed that all three then had intercourse with her against her will and without her consent and that she put up little resistance because it appeared obvious to her it was futile to do so. John Giles claimed that after he found the prosecutrix she insisted he have intercourse with her but he declined. James Giles testified that the prosecutrix invited all three of them to have intercourse with her and that she specified the order in which they were to do so, and when his act was interrupted by lights from a police car all three fled the scene. Both of the Giles brothers testified that the prosecutrix told them she would have to say she had been raped if they were caught in the woods because 'she was on a year's probation' or 'was in trouble.' Subsequent to their arrest, the appellees gave statements to the police in which James admitted he had intercourse with the girl but John denied such an act.

Sometime after the affirmance of the rape convictions we had before us the appeal by the appellees from a denial of a motion for a new trial based on newly discovered evidence. The claimed newly discovered evidence primarily involved the testimony of Stewart Foster at the criminal trial and extrajudicial statements made by him to a girlfriend concerning the person or persons responsible for provoking the attack on the automobile in which Foster and the prosecutrix were sitting prior to the rape. Based on the rule requiring motions for a new trial in criminal cases to be made within three days after verdict we affirmed the denial of the motion. Subsequent to this the death sentences imposed on the appellees were commuted to life imprisonment. Thereafter relief was sought by the appellees under the P.C.P.A. which resulted in this appeal by the State from the granting of the relief sought.

At the hearing in the post conviction proceeding it was shown that about September 1961 a member of the Montgomery County Bar was appointed to represent the appellees as indigent defendants. He made an investigation of the case which included a discussion of the matter with the State's Attorney for Montgomery County and an examination of the prosecution's entire file, including the police report. While counsel for the appellees was prohibited from discussing the case with Joyce Roberts by her mother, he knew the facts surrounding the alleged consent of the prosecutrix from his discussions with the Gileses. Although he tried to examine the records of the juvenile courts in Montgomery and Prince George's Counties, the attorney was not permitted to see those records.

The most pertinent evidence adduced at the post conviction hearing involved an alleged suicide attempt by the prosecutrix and an alleged false rape claim. It was shown that on August 26, 1961, about five weeks after the rapes by the appellees and Joseph Johnson, the prosecutrix went to a party in Prince George's County and that when she entered a bathroom a boy followed her and had intercourse with her against her will. The extent of her resistance was to remove his hands from her body several times. Shortly thereafter another boy had intercourse with her in the yard of the premises where the party was being held which was against her will, but she offered no resistance to this act. On previous occasions the prosecutrix had had intercourse with one of the boys and would have consented to both acts on this occasion but for the fact she was fearful they would tell other boys at the party and they would all want to do the same thing. The following morning Joyce was admitted to the Prince George's General Hospital after having taken an overdose of bufferin tablets and sleeping pills in what was diagnosed as an attempted suicide. The above facts were brought out at the post conviction hearing by the testimony of Sgt. Wheeler of the Prince George's County police who interviewed the prosecutrix in the hospital on August 30, 1961, after he had received a complaint from Joyce's father that she had been raped at the party on August 26, 1961. Joyce Roberts was not called as a witness at the post conviction hearing.

While the prosecutrix was in the hospital for having taken the overdose of pills she was visited by a boyfriend who asked her why she had taken the pills. She told him she had been raped and that this was her reason for taking the pills. Without Joyce's knowledge the boy informed her mother of the incident of August 26 as related to him by Joyce. The prosecutrix' father then made a complaint of the alleged rape to Lt. Whalen of the Montgomery County police. The officer told Joyce's father to contact the Prince George's County police since the alleged rape had taken place in that county. Lt. Whalen made no investigation of the complaint nor of the facts surrounding the overdose of pills taken by Joyce of which he was also informed. He was never affirmatively informed that Joyce had attempted suicide. Although Lt. Whalen was aware of the fact that Joyce's mother had at one time taken her to see a psychiatrist, he did not have any information that Joyce was mentally disturbed or mentally ill. Aside from not pursuing any of the facts surrounding the incident of August 26th and the taking of the overdose of pills, Lt. Whalen did not make any investigation into the character of the prosecutrix when he was investigating the rape complaint of July 20, 1961.

It was after being advised by Lt. Whalen to report the incident of August 26th to the Prince George's County police that...