Stevens v. State
| Decision Date | 30 August 2021 |
| Docket Number | 193-2020,249-2020 |
| Parties | Ronald Stevens v. State of Maryland Brady M. Latham v. State of Maryland |
| Court | Court of Special Appeals of Maryland |
Circuit Court for Baltimore City Case Nos.: 119113021 & 119113022
OPINION [*]
On the evening of February 24, 2019, an armed man, Kenny Truxon, entered the Baltimore City house where Ronald Stevens, Brady Latham, and others were living. A struggle ensued, and Mr. Truxon was beaten and stabbed to death. Mr. Stevens buried Mr. Truxon in a nearby wooded area and hid incriminating evidence. The next day, Mr. Stevens and Ms. Latham made statements to the Baltimore City Police Department about their involvement in Mr. Truxon's death.
After a joint trial in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City, the jury found Mr. Stevens and Ms. Latham guilty of voluntary manslaughter and openly wearing and carrying a dangerous weapon with the intent and purpose of injuring an individual in an unlawful manner. The jury also found Mr. Stevens guilty of the improper disposal of a body.
The circuit court sentenced Mr. Stevens to ten years' imprisonment for voluntary manslaughter, three years for wearing and carrying a dangerous weapon, and one year for the improper disposal of a body, all to be served concurrently. The court sentenced Ms. Latham to eight years for voluntary manslaughter and three years for wearing and carrying a dangerous weapon, to be served concurrently.
Mr. Stevens and Ms. Latham filed timely appeals and moved to consolidate the cases for consideration by the same panel. We granted the motion to consolidate. We shall affirm the convictions.
Brady Latham, Ronald Stevens, and others lived in a house on Whistler Avenue in Baltimore City with Ms. Latham's three children, aged six, seven, and 13, and at least two adult men.[1] On February 24, 2019, at approximately 9:30 p.m., Ms. Latham's daughters ran upstairs to tell her that an unidentified man with a gun had taken away their phone. Before Ms. Latham could ascertain what was happening, a man, whom she did not recognize, started up the stairs, startling her dog. The man fired his gun three times, striking Ms. Latham's dog and grazing Ms. Latham's neck. The dog ran down the stairs, towards the man. As the man turned towards the dog, Ms. Latham kicked the man, causing him to fall to the bottom of the stairs. She told her daughters to go into their room and then went downstairs after the man.
Mr. Stevens, who had been walking his dogs, entered the house and heard "a big bang" followed by "two more bangs afterwards." He started towards the stairs, where he saw the bloodied dog and a man holding a gun. The man pointed his gun at Mr. Stevens and asked "[w]here the money at?" Ms. Latham told Mr. Stevens that the man had shot her dog.
Mr. Stevens began fighting with the man and "wrestling over the gun." Mr. Stevens called on the two other men (Michael and "Money") to help, and they joined in the fight. In the struggle, Mr. Stevens was able to gain control of the intruder's arm so that the gun was pointed at the intruder, but the intruder continued to hold the gun. As the men fought, Mr. Stevens reached into his pocket, pulled out his pocketknife, and began to stab the intruder with his knife.
Meanwhile, Ms. Latham went into the kitchen, grabbed a "big knife," and stabbed the intruder at least two or three times. The tip of the knife broke off into the intruder on the third stab.
Ms. Latham continued to "bang[] the man with anything that was available." Eventually, he went limp and let go of the gun.
After the intruder had been immobile for five to seven minutes, Mr. Stevens wrapped him in a quilt and put his body into a wheeled trash can. Mr. Stevens rolled the trash can to a wooded area across the street from the house. He dug a hole and buried the intruder approximately 60 feet into the wooded area.
Mr. Stevens then began to dispose of the items used during the fight. He buried the gun in the same wooded area; threw the trash can and quilt into the Patapsco River Extension; tossed his pocketknife out the window while driving down Hollins Ferry Road; and hid his bloodied clothes, including his jeans, coat, and thermal bottoms, in a sewer near his house. He put the big kitchen knife into a garbage bag and put the garbage bag in the trash can outside of the house. After he finished, he returned to the house and found that the house had been cleaned up.
While Mr. Stevens had been disposing of the body, Ms. Latham helped her children get ready to leave the house. After they left, Ms. Latham went upstairs to care for the injured dog. At 11:00 p.m. or midnight, Ms. Latham went downstairs and found that the body was no longer in the house. She went back upstairs and, at approximately 2:30 a.m., left the house and went to her boyfriend's brother's home.
That same night, at 9:30 p.m., the Baltimore City Police had been dispatched to a trailer parked across the street from Mr. Stevens and Ms. Latham's house. When they arrived, they talked to Michael Finch, who had been living in the trailer. Mr. Finch told the police that he heard "a bunch of gunshots" and that he saw a man standing behind a truck parked up the road. The man pointed his gun towards the trailer when he saw Mr. Finch. Mr. Finch went back inside the trailer, closed the door, and told his children to get onto the floor. The police were on the scene for approximately 45 minutes, but did not enter the Whistler Avenue house and were not contacted by anyone inside the house.
The next day, February 25, 2019, the attorneys for Ms. Latham and Mr. Stevens arranged for them to give statements to the Baltimore City Police. Ms. Latham and Mr. Stevens arrived at police headquarters and were interviewed by two detectives. In their recorded interviews, Ms. Latham and Mr. Stevens recounted the events described above. While giving his statement, Mr. Stevens told the police that he "is known for selling marijuana and speed pills," but that he "only sells drugs to people he knows."
On February 26, 2019, a police technician located the body of the victim, identified as Kenny Truxon, in the wooded area off Whistler Avenue.[2] After the body was recovered from the gravesite, the medical examiners performed an autopsy and found that Mr. Truxon had suffered 70 sharp-force injuries, including 43 stab wounds and 27 cutting wounds, as well as 20 to 25 blunt-force injuries. One of the stab wounds (probably one of the wounds inflicted by Ms. Latham) had "transected" (cut across) Mr. Truxon's aorta and inferior vena cava, the large blood vessels that transport blood to and from the lower part of the body. The medical examiner concluded that the cause of death was sharp- and blunt-force injury. The medical examiner found that Mr. Truxon had suffered from petechial hemorrhage in the facial area, or a rupture of small blood vessels caused by asphyxiation. She testified that the petechial hemorrhage could have been caused by strangulation, but that a CT scan indicated that Mr. Truxon had sediment in his airway. The medical examiner explained that the sediment in the airway indicated that Mr. Truxon "may have inhaled some sediments when he was being buried . . . meaning that he may have been alive when he was buried."
Mr. Stevens and Ms. Latham were indicted for first-degree murder under Md. Code , § 2-201 of the Criminal Law Article ("Crim. Law") and openly wearing and carrying a dangerous weapon with the intent to injure an individual under Crim. Law § 4-101. Mr. Stevens was also indicted for the improper disposal of a body in violation of Md. Code , § 5-514 of the Health General Article ("HG").
A joint jury trial was held in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City in December 2019. At trial, Ms. Latham and Mr. Stevens claimed to have acted in self-defense.
The court granted Ms. Latham's and Mr. Stevens's motion for judgment of acquittal as to the first-degree murder charge. The court denied the motions for judgment of acquittal as to the other charges, including voluntary manslaughter. The jury found Mr. Stevens and Ms. Latham guilty of voluntary manslaughter and openly wearing, carrying, or transporting a dangerous weapon with intent to injure another. The jury also found Mr. Stevens guilty of the improper disposal of a body.
Mr. Stevens and Ms. Latham filed this timely appeal. They present the following questions, which we have reordered:
As we perceive no prejudicial error or abuse of discretion in the circuit court's rulings, we shall affirm the judgments.
Mr. Stevens and Ms. Latham argue that the circuit court committed legal error in denying their request to amend the pattern jury instructions for openly carrying a dangerous weapon with intent to injure and in delivering jury instructions on flight.
Under Md. Rule 4-325(c), the court, upon a party's request "shall[] instruct the jury as to the applicable law." In general, a court must give a requested instruction if "(1) the instruction is a correct statement of law; ...
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