Sutton v. State

• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals
• Writing for the Court: Argued before ORTH; GILBERT; Warren; Levin
• Citation: Sutton v. State, 25 Md.App. 309, 334 A.2d 126 (Md. App. 1975)
• Decision Date: 18 March 1975
• Docket Number: No. 643,643
• Parties: Clarence James SUTTON, the younger, v. STATE of Maryland.

Page 309

25 Md.App. 309

334 A.2d 126

Clarence James SUTTON, the younger, v. STATE of Maryland.

No. 643.

Court of Special Appeals of Maryland.

March 18, 1975.

Michael S. Libowitz, Assigned Public Defender, for appellant.

Gilbert Rosenthal, Asst. Atty. Gen., with whom were Francis B. Burch, Atty. Gen., Milton B. Allen, State's Atty. for Baltimore City and Walter Balint, Asst. State's Atty. for Baltimore City on the brief, for appellee.

Argued before ORTH, C. J., and MOYLAN and GILBERT, JJ.

GILBERT, Judge.

Clarence James Sutton, appellant, was indicted by the Grand Jury for Baltimore City for the murder of John Herring and for the assault with intent to murder of Tommie Graham. A petit jury, in the Criminal Court of Baltimore, convicted appellant of the lesser charges of manslaughter in the Herring slaying and assault and battery upon Tommie Graham. The trial judge imposed terms of ten years and five years respectively upon appellant with the latter sentence to be served consecutively to the former. Sutton has appealed to this Court.

Appellant has unleashed a nine pronged attack upon the judgments of the Criminal Court of Baltimore, but because we are compelled to reverse the case, we shall deal with only those issues as are necessary, or we deem advisable to discuss.

THE FACTS

On September 20, 1973, at approximately 4 P. M., Tommie Graham entered the house in which he resided. The premises is designated as 1309 East Federal Street, Baltimore City, and appears from the record to be a rooming house. Graham, John Herring, J. C. Sutton, the appellant's brother, William Moore and the appellant all resided in the house. The roomers shared the living room, dining room and kitchen facilities.

There is evidence that Graham was brutally beaten by the appellant and an unidentified person described simply as 'big man'. The record is unclear as to whether 'big man' is a description of the individual or his nickname. During the assault upon Graham, Herring injected himself into the matter by suggesting that appellant and 'big man' cease their beating of Graham. At that point appellant, according to Graham, told Herring to '. . . (S)hut up or we will kill you.' Herring told the next door neighbor, his landlady's daughter, Frieda Anderson, about the on-going beating of Graham. She went into 1309 East Federal Street in what proved to be an aborted attempt to stop the fray. She was told by appellant, 'You had better get . . . out of here or we will fuck you up, too.' Shortly afterwards both of Graham's assailants left the house. Graham was dispatched in an ambulance to a hospital. Herring accompanied him. According to Graham, before appellant and 'big man' departed the scene, appellant told Herring, 'Nigger, shut up. You are talking too motherfucking much.' Appellant then said, 'I'm going to kill you, nigger.'

Later the same date Herring told Frieda Anderson that he 'was afraid to go back over there' to his room in 1309 East Federal Street. He said he was fearful that appellant 'would kill him.' Another daughter of the landlady testified that during the night she heard 'a whole lot of noise going on . . . next door (at 1309) . . ..' It sounded to her as if furniture was being moved and there was 'moving around in the room.' The deceased occupied the second floor front of 1309, and the witness had been seated in the corresponding room in the abutting house.

In the early morning hours of September 21, 1973, William Moore returned to 1309 where he discovered the room of Herring to be in shambles. He found Herring's dead, badly beaten and cut body in the third floor room that had been rented by Graham. The police were called, and a warrant was subsequently obtained for appellant's arrest. The arrest was cosummated in Columbus, Georgia, on November 20, 1973.

I.

'The court erred in not granting a severance of the two charges against the appellant.'

Appellant argues that the two separate indictments should not have been called to trial at the same time, and that the trial judge abused his discretion in not ordering a severance. Appellant asserts that there was no link between the assault upon Graham and the killing of Herring. Furthermore, appellant finds something insidious in the fact that the indictment charging the Herring slaying was handed down on December 12, 1973, while the indictment arising from the Graham assault did not occur until April 12, 1974.

We know of no rule of law that requires the State to seek all indictments against a particular accused at the same time, and we are unpersuaded that there is no link between the two crimes with which appellant was charged. The State's evidence shows that the Herring killing arose directly from Herring's attempt to play the role of the 'Good Samaritan' during the beating of Graham, and thus the two crimes were to that extent, at least, interrelated. The case against appellant is built solely on circumstantial evidence, and thus it was necessary for the State to demonstrate a motive or intent on the part of the appellant to kill Herring. That motive or intent is clearly found within the factual situation surrounding the assault upon Graham, the threats emanating therefrom and even, to an extent, the degree of that particular assault.

Md.Rule 734 provides that:

'The court may order two or more indictments tried together if the offenses and the defendants, if there be more than one, could have been found in a single indictment.'

One of the factors to be considered in the trial judge's determination of whether to grant a severance is the saving of the time and the expense that unnecessary separate trials would entail. Mason v. State, 18 Md.App. 130, 305 A.2d 492 (1973); Peterson v. State, 15 Md.App. 478, 292 A.2d 714 (1972). Moreover, the decision as to whether to order separate trials is vested in the sound discretion of the trial judge. Maloney v. State, 17 Md.App. 609, 304 A.2d 260 (1973). If it appears that the facts to be proved in one case are substantially the same as those in the other or that they are so closely related that the evidence necessary to show one crime is intertwined with the other, there is no reason to order a severance unless the joinder is prejudicial. We observe no prejudice to appellant, and conclude that the trial judge properly denied the severance motion.

II.

'The court erred in failing to disclose Grand Jury testimony to the appellant or to examine the prior testimony in camera.'

The appellant proffered that Frieda Anderson, William Moore and two other persons had appeared before the Grand Jury. The appellant then asked the court for the right to examine the Grand Jury minutes in order to ascertain whether those 'statements contained exculpatory evidence', or in the alternative, that the court examine in camera the minutes of the Grand Jury so that the court might determine whether any of the witnesses's testimony before the Grand Jury was of an exculpatory nature. The State informed the court that there was nothing in the Grand Jury minutes that was exculpatory. The trial judge refused to allow the examination of the minutes and declined to view them in camera.

The Supreme Court in Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963) held that there is a violation of due process of law where the prosecution suppresses evidence favorable to the accused, irrespective of whether such suppression was made in good or bad faith by the prosecution, but such holding did not give rise to a per se right to examine Grand Jury minutes. Later in Dennis v. United States, 384 U.S. 855, 86 S.Ct. 1840, 16 L.Ed.2d 973 (1966) the Court stated that an accused in a criminal case may be allowed to view the minutes of the Grand Jury when he demonstrates a 'particularized need' to do so. See Avery v. State, 15 Md.App. 520, 292 A.2d 728 (1972); Silbert v. State, 12 Md.App. 516, 280 A.2d 55 (1971); Grimm v. State, 6 Md.App. 321, 251 A.2d 230 (1969). It is apparent from a reading of the record that appellant sought to conduct an egregious fishing trip into the minutes of the Grand Jury in the fervent hope that he might possibly stumble across something that would be beneficial to him. The mere hope that Grand Jury minutes may possibly contain some exculpatory evidence is not enough to demonstrate the 'particularized need' to which either the Supreme Court alluded in Dennis, supra, or to which this Court referred in Grimm v. State, supra. In the light of the appellant's failure to exhibit a 'particularized need' the trial judge did not abuse his discretion in denying the appellant's motion to examine the Grand Jury minutes, nor did the judge err in refusing to conduct an in camera examination of the minutes.

III.

'The trial court erred in allowing the State to cross-examine the appellant in regard to a prior statement without first showing the voluntariness of that statement.'

After appellant was taken into custody he was advised of his rights under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966). According to a detective, whose testimony the State offered in its case in chief, the appellant elected to exercise his Miranda rights and specifically requested an attorney. Notwithstanding the appellant's employment of Miranda, the police thereafter engaged appellant in what was characterized by the detective as 'general conversation'. ¹ The State then sought to introduce into evidence the content of that 'general conversation', but the trial judge, at a hearing out of the presence of the jury, suppressed it on the ground that Miranda expressly forbade its introduction. After the appellant had testified in his own behalf, the State based part of its cross-examination of the appellant upon the 'general conversation'. The appellant's counsel objected to the State's use of the conversation for cross-examination purposes, but the trial judge ruled that 'any inconsistent prior statement is admissible (for impeachment...