State v. Sample
| Decision Date | 11 May 2020 |
| Docket Number | No. 54, Sept. Term, 2019,54, Sept. Term, 2019 |
| Citation | 228 A.3d 171,468 Md. 560 |
| Parties | STATE of Maryland v. Hayes SAMPLE |
| Court | Court of Special Appeals of Maryland |
Argued by Peter R. Naugle, Asst. Atty. Gen. (Brian E. Frosh, Atty. Gen. of Maryland of Baltimore, MD) on brief, for Petitioner.
Argued by Rachel Marblestone Kamins, Asst. Public Defender (Paul B. DeWolfe, Public Defender of Maryland of Baltimore, MD) on brief, for Respondent.
Argued before: Barbera, C.J.; McDonald, Watts, Hotten, Getty, Booth and Biran, JJ.
It is axiomatic that for a trial court to admit evidence, there must be sufficient indicia that the evidence is authentic—i.e. , that the evidence "is what its proponent claims." Md. R. 5-901(a). A party can sufficiently authenticate evidence through "[c]ircumstantial evidence, such as appearance, contents, substance, internal patterns, location, or other distinctive characteristics, that the offered evidence is what it is claimed to be." Md. R. 5-901(b)(4).
On two prior occasions, this Court has addressed authenticating social media1 evidence through circumstantial evidence under Maryland Rule 5-901(b)(4). In Griffin v. State, 419 Md. 343, 357, 19 A.3d 415, 423-24 (2011), this Court held that a trial court abused its discretion in admitting alleged printouts of the defendant's girlfriend's MySpace profile, as the same had not been sufficiently authenticated through circumstantial evidence under Maryland Rule 5-901(b)(4) as belonging to the girlfriend. In Sublet v. State, 442 Md. 632, 672-73, 675-77, 113 A.3d 695, 719, 720-22 (2015), in an opinion that consolidated three cases, this Court applied Maryland Rule 5-901(b)(4) and held that the trial courts did not abuse their discretion in admitting or excluding certain social media evidence. This Court concluded that, to admit social media evidence, a trial court "must determine that there is proof from which a reasonable juror could find that the evidence is what the proponent claims[.]" Id. at 678, 113 A.3d at 722.
This case requires us to apply Maryland Rule 5-901(b)(4) and the "reasonable juror" test to determine whether a trial court abused its discretion in allowing a detective to testify that, the day after a defendant and his accomplice allegedly participated in an attempted armed robbery—during which the defendant's accomplice was fatally shot—the defendant unfriended2 his accomplice on Facebook.
In the Circuit Court for Baltimore County, the State, Petitioner, charged Hayes Sample, Respondent, with attempted robbery with a dangerous weapon and other crimes. At trial, the State offered evidence that Sample and his accomplice, Claude Mayo, using guns, attempted to rob a liquor store. The liquor store's owner had a gun too, and used it to shoot Mayo, who died a short distance outside the liquor store. Sample fled the scene.
While investigating the attempted armed robbery, a detective searched Facebook for a profile associated with the name Claude Mayo. Ultimately, the detective requested from Facebook, and received, "Facebook Business Records" regarding two Facebook profiles—"claude.mayo.5"3 and "SoLo Haze"—as well as a "Certificate of Authenticity of Domestic Records of Regularly Conducted Activity[.]" The Facebook Business Records regarding the SoLo Haze Facebook profile indicated that the e-mail address "mrsample2015@gmail.com" was registered to that profile. The SoLo Haze Facebook profile identified Baltimore as the "current city," and listed Edmondson-Westside High School and Towson University as the user's "[c]onnections[.]" The owner of the SoLo Haze Facebook profile was friends with the owner of a Facebook profile named "Skky DaLimit Lynn[.]" Prior to trial, Sample's counsel advised the circuit court that a Skkyla Lynn would be called as a defense witness.
The Facebook Business Records regarding the claude.mayo.5 Facebook profile also listed Baltimore as the "current city," and listed Patterson High School as the user's "[c]onnection[.]" The owner of the claude.mayo.5 Facebook profile was friends with the owner of a Facebook profile named "Shantell Richardson[.]" Shantell Richardson is Mayo's mother's name.
Significantly, the Facebook Business Records regarding the SoLo Haze profile indicate that, the day after Sample and Mayo allegedly attempted to rob the liquor store and Mayo was fatally shot, the claude.mayo.5 profile was unfriended from the SoLo Haze profile. During the seventeen-day period to which the Facebook Business Records pertained, the claude.mayo.5 profile was the only one, of 175 profiles with which the SoLo Haze profile was friends, to have been unfriended.
In the circuit court, Sample filed a motion in limine and a memorandum in support thereof, contending that the State would not be able to sufficiently authenticate the Facebook Business Records. The circuit court denied the motion. At trial, over Sample's counsel's objection, the prosecutor elicited testimony from the detective concerning information from the Facebook Business Records, including the circumstance that the Facebook Business Records regarding the SoLo Haze Facebook profile showed that, the day after the attempted armed robbery, the claude.mayo.5 Facebook profile had been unfriended.
The jury found Sample guilty of attempted robbery with a dangerous weapon and other crimes. Sample appealed, and the Court of Special Appeals reversed the convictions and remanded the case for a new trial, reasoning that the circuit court abused its discretion in admitting the Facebook-related testimony. See Hayes Sample v. State, No. 1715, Sept. Term, 2017, 2019 WL 3451812, at *4-5 (Md. Ct. Spec. App. July 31, 2019). The State filed a petition for a writ of certiorari , which this Court granted. See State v. Sample, 466 Md. 310, 219 A.3d 526 (2019).
Before us, the State contends that there was sufficient circumstantial evidence for a reasonable juror to find that the SoLo Haze Facebook profile belonged to Sample, that the claude.mayo.5 Facebook profile belonged to Mayo, and that Sample used his profile to unfriend the claude.mayo.5 profile. According to the State, Sample had a motive to distance himself from Mayo immediately after the crime and did so before his status as a suspect in the attempted armed robbery became publicly known. Sample responds that, despite there being evidence that he created the SoLo Haze Facebook profile, there was insufficient evidence that he was the person who used the profile to unfriend the claude.mayo.5 profile.
We hold that the circuit court did not abuse its discretion in admitting the Facebook-related evidence, as there was sufficient circumstantial evidence under Maryland Rule 5-901(b)(4) for a reasonable juror to find that the SoLo Haze Facebook profile belonged to Sample, that the claude.mayo.5 Facebook profile belonged to Mayo, and that Sample used the SoLo Haze profile to unfriend the claude.mayo.5 profile the day after the shooting. We conclude that the standard of proof for authenticating social media evidence is the preponderance of evidence standard, i.e. , there must be sufficient circumstantial evidence for a reasonable juror to find that it is more likely than not that the social media evidence is what it is purported to be. Here, the circumstantial evidence supporting the conclusion that the profiles belonged to Sample and Mayo consists of evidence that the SoLo Haze and claude.mayo.5 Facebook profiles listed Baltimore City as their current cities and the connections listed in the profiles included schools in Baltimore City and the Towson area. The profiles’ lists of friends included people who were either a friend or relative of Sample and Mayo. Moreover, the SoLo Haze Facebook profile name consists of a homophone of Sample's first name "Hayes," the "mrsample2015@gmail.com" e-mail address registered for the SoLo Haze Facebook profile contains Sample's last name, and the SoLo Haze profile had been identified as a friend on the claude.mayo.5 profile. Without more, the evidence indicating that the SoLo Haze profile belonged to Sample and the claude.mayo.5 profile belonged to Mayo indicates that Sample used the SoLo Haze profile to unfriend the claude.mayo.5 profile.
There are, moreover, additional circumstances surrounding the unfriending that establish that a reasonable juror could find more likely than not that Sample was the person who unfriended the claude.mayo.5 profile. Those circumstances include the temporal proximity of the attempted armed robbery to the unfriending, and that Sample had a motive to distance himself from Mayo. Indicative of a motive to distance himself from Mayo, while speaking with detectives, Sample did not acknowledge being friends with Mayo despite surveillance video that showed Sample and Mayo walking together approximately fourteen minutes before the crime occurred and cellular telephone records that showed that there was a call made by Sample to Mayo approximately an hour before the crime. And, importantly, during the seventeen-day period after the attempted armed robbery, of 175 Facebook profiles listed as friends on the SoLo Haze Facebook profile, the claude.mayo.5 profile was the only one that was unfriended.
On July 24, 2017, Sample raised his opposition to the Facebook evidence during a pretrial hearing. During the hearing, Sample's counsel advised that he had provided the circuit court with a copy of a letter in which he had informed the prosecutor that he planned to object to certain Facebook-related evidence based on foundation. Sample's counsel stated that the letter included requests that the prosecutor provide additional information about the Facebook-related evidence and call an employee of Facebook as a witness at trial. The circuit court and Sample's counsel discussed whether the request for the prosecutor to call a Facebook employee as a witness at trial was timely. Sample's counsel contended that the Facebook-related evidence included irrelevant hearsay that was not...
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...reviews for abuse of discretion a trial court's determination as to whether evidence was sufficiently authenticated. See State v. Sample, 468 Md. 560, 588, 228 A.3d 171, 189 (2020); Sublet v. State, 442 Md. 632, 676, 113 A.3d 695, 721 (2015); Griffin, 419 Md. at 357, 19 A.3d at 423; Dep't o......