Thomas v. State
| Decision Date | 25 May 2006 |
| Docket Number | No. 398, September Term, 2004.,398, September Term, 2004. |
| Citation | 899 A.2d 170,168 Md. App. 682 |
| Parties | Garrison THOMAS v. STATE of Maryland. |
| Court | Court of Special Appeals of Maryland |
Geraldine K. Sweeney (Nancy S. Forster, Public Defender, on the brief), Baltimore, for appellant.
Diane E. Keller (J. Joseph Curran, Jr., Attorney General, on the brief), Baltimore, for appellee.
Panel: HOLLANDER, KENNEY and KRAUSER, JJ.
Appellant, Garrison Thomas, was convicted of murder and robbery, and sentenced to life in prison. He presents two questions on appeal:
1. Did the trial judge err in ruling that the State had not committed a discovery violation when it disclosed to the defense counsel, one week before the beginning of the second trial, the existence of a statement allegedly made by Appellant to the arresting officer during processing?
2. Under the facts of this case, did the trial judge err in ruling that testimony that Appellant resisted attempts to draw his blood was admissible as evidence of "consciousness of guilt"?
For the following reasons, we shall affirm the judgment of the circuit court.
This case arises from the murder of Beverly Renee Mitchell ("the victim") in March 1995. In June 1999, appellant was tried and convicted of the victim's murder and robbery. We affirmed his conviction in an unreported opinion. The Court of Appeals reversed, however, holding that "the trial court erred in admitting the testimony regarding petitioner's refusal to submit to blood testing to show consciousness of guilt." Thomas v. State, 372 Md. 342, 349, 812 A.2d 1050 (2002) ("Thomas I"). In February 2004, appellant was again tried and convicted of the victim's murder and robbery. The following facts were gleaned from the record of the second trial.
On March 22, 1995, Ann Porter, the victim's aunt, called Marva Mitchell, the victim's mother, from West Virginia, and asked her to bring some money to her husband, James Porter. Mitchell stopped at the Porter house in Southeast Washington, D.C., on her way home from work that evening, and told Mr. Porter that the victim would likely bring him some money that night. Appellant, who was living in the basement of the Porters' house, was present during the conversation.
The victim left her mother's house around 9:00 p.m. March 22, stating that she was going home after going to the Porters' house to give the money to Mr. Porter. According to Porter, she arrived at his house around 9:30 p.m. She woke him when she came into the house. She gave him $10, and they spoke briefly. He stated that he watched from a window as she drove away.
When the victim had not returned to her apartment by 10:00 a.m. on March 23, 1995, her roommate reported to the police that she was missing. Later that afternoon, a passerby found the victim's body in a field near a wooded area in La Plata. He reported his finding to the Charles County Sheriff's Office. According to Dr. James Locke, the Assistant State Medical Examiner who performed the autopsy, the victim died from "strangulation and blunt force injuries of the head." In his opinion, the manner of death was homicide.
On March 24, 1995, a woman who had heard a news story describing the victim's vehicle, a white Mitsubishi, informed the Metropolitan Police that she had seen the vehicle. She directed the police to the 1100 block of 10th Street, S.E., in Washington, D.C., where they located the car. According to Detective Robert Saunders, it appeared that someone had tried to set fire to the inside of the car, but "it was just smoked out." The inside of the car had a strong smell of gasoline, and police found a plastic jug containing liquid. A witness informed Detective Saunders that the person who had been driving the car could be found at 917 Potomac Avenue.
At that address, the police met Novella Harris. According to Harris, in the early morning hours on March 23, 1995, a man wearing a dress and a wig, and calling himself "Cookie," came to Harris's house and asked about purchasing cocaine. Harris had seen him before, but on the previous occasion he had been dressed as a man and called himself "David." Cookie had arrived in a white Mitsubishi, which he later refused to drive. Harris, Cookie, and others smoked crack cocaine throughout the day and the following night. At one point in the evening, Cookie attempted to wipe his fingerprints from the interior of the car. Concerned that he had not successfully removed his fingerprints, he decided to burn the vehicle. He and Harris went to a gas station, where he filled a plastic jug with gasoline. Later that night, Harris watched from a window as Cookie started a fire in the car and ran away from it. Shortly thereafter, she saw him throw a key on the ground, and discard a set of keys in a trash can. He left Harris's house around 8:00 a.m. on March 24. Harris directed police to the trash can, where they found a set of keys, and to a field, where they found a Mitsubishi key. It was later verified that the white Mitsubishi near Harris's house was the victim's car. Investigators discovered a hair from a wig in the vehicle. They also found two sets of fingerprints inside. One belonged to the victim. The other could not be identified.
Detectives encountered appellant at the Porters' house on March 24, 1995, while they were interviewing James Porter. In their view, appellant fit Harris's description of Cookie. In response to police questioning, appellant said that he was alone on the evening of March 22, 1995, and that he had spent the night in a bus station. Nevertheless, there were several indications that appellant and Cookie are the same person, including Harris's identification of a photograph of appellant as "Cookie," and statements by the victim's cousin and appellant's former wife that they had seen him dressed in women's clothing. Additionally, police found an identification card on appellant's person that listed his gender as "F."
It is unclear why the police did not arrest appellant in 1995. The lead detective on the case was promoted in June 1996, and no longer worked on the investigation. In the fall of 1997, Detective Shane Knowlan of the Charles County Sheriff's Office was placed in charge of the case. He was assisted by a "Cold Case Homicide Squad" comprised of agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and detectives from the District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department. According to Detective Knowlan, after he "reviewed the case file," he "felt there was some things that could be done with the case." He "[i]dentified some additional witnesses, spoke to them, got some additional information[,][r]eaddressed or re-interviewed some of the witnesses involved and examined physical evidence for possible testing." Detective Knowlan's investigation led to appellant's arrest in December 1998.
After a three-day trial in February 2004, the jury convicted appellant of first degree felony murder, second degree specific intent murder, and robbery. On February 19, 2004, the court sentenced him to life imprisonment. He noted an appeal to this Court on March 3, 2004. Additional facts will be presented as necessary in our discussion of the issues raised in this appeal.
Appellant argues that the State committed a discovery violation when it did not inform the defense until a week before the second trial of an alleged statement by appellant to a federal law enforcement officer in December 1998. Prior to the trial, appellant moved to suppress testimony by Bradley Purscell. Purscell, an FBI agent who was a member of the "Cold Case Homicide Squad," assisted in appellant's arrest in December 1998. In a pretrial hearing, he testified that after his arrest appellant engaged him in a brief exchange:
Then, as we were transporting him, and I want to say we were walking down a hallway, [appellant] asked me if I had found Jesus and if I was a Christian, to which I replied I was. He then stated to me, God has already forgiven me. And my response to him was, that's nice because the State of Maryland hasn't.
Agent Purscell testified that he did not write a report of the conversation in 1998, that he had not been subpoenaed for the first trial, and that he only informed the State's Attorney of appellant's statement shortly before the hearing:
According to the State, the State's Attorney's office disclosed Agent Purscell's statement to defense counsel the same day they received it.
On cross-examination, Agent Purscell acknowledged that appellant had made no reference to the charges against him, but merely stated that God had forgiven him. Asked by defense counsel whether appellant's statements could have been an attempt to convert Agent Purscell to Christianity, he responded:
Defense counsel argued that the timing of the State's disclosure of the statement resulted in a discovery violation. The State responded that it met its obligation to promptly inform the defense of new information, and that it was within the court's discretion to allow the testimony. The court concluded:
Based on these circumstances and what I've heard, I do not find there's a discovery violation. There's no indication that this statement was known to the State prior to a week ago. There's no bad faith on the part of the State. So, as far as that goes, I find that the State promptly reported to defense counsel its...
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