Tyler v. State
| Citation | 105 Md.App. 495,660 A.2d 986 |
| Decision Date | 01 September 1994 |
| Docket Number | No. 862,862 |
| Parties | Jerry S. TYLER v. STATE of Maryland |
| Court | Court of Special Appeals of Maryland |
George E. Burns, Asst. Public Defender (Stephen E. Harris, Public Defender, on the brief), Baltimore, for appellant.
David P. Kennedy, Asst. Atty. Gen. (J. Joseph Curran, Jr., Atty. Gen., Baltimore, and Alexander Williams, Jr., State's Atty. for Prince George's County, Upper Marlboro, on the brief), for appellee.
Argued before WILNER, C.J., and MOYLAN, BISHOP, ALPERT, BLOOM, WENNER, FISCHER, CATHELL, DAVIS, HARRELL, MURPHY, HOLLANDER and SALMON, JJ.
The critical issue on this appeal involves us in what Nance v. State, 331 Md. 549, 552, 629 A.2d 633 (1993), referred to as "the classic evidentiary problem of the turncoat witness." The appellant is Jerry S. Tyler, who was convicted by a Prince George's County jury, presided over by Judge Arthur M. Ahalt, of murder in the first degree and other related offenses. The turncoat witness was Gerald Eiland, the erstwhile codefendant with Tyler for the same murder.
On this appeal, Tyler has raised eight contentions:
1) that Judge Ahalt erroneously admitted the prior testimony of Eiland given at Eiland's earlier trial;
2) that Judge Ahalt erroneously granted an eighteen-day continuance in an effort to compel Eiland to testify;
3) that the evidence was not legally sufficient to sustain the convictions;
4) that Judge Ahalt erroneously instructed the jury that the appellant could be convicted as an aider and abetter;
5) that Judge Ahalt committed plain error in instructing the jury on first-degree murder;
6) that Judge Ahalt committed plain error in not instructing the jury that its verdict must be unanimous;
7) that Judge Ahalt erroneously admitted irrelevant and prejudicial testimony from the witness Michael McCutchen; and
8) that Judge Ahalt erroneously excluded testimony from the appellant's mother.
On the afternoon of December 4, 1990, in what turned out to be a highly publicized murder case, James "Jay" S. Bias, III, the younger brother of former University of Maryland basketball star Len Bias, was senselessly gunned down in cold blood as he was leaving the Prince George's Plaza Mall. In Eiland and Tyler v. State, 92 Md.App. 56, 64-66, 607 A.2d 42 (1992), rev'd on other grounds, Tyler and Eiland v. State, 330 Md. 261, 623 A.2d 648 (1993), this Court recited fully the evidence leading up to the shooting of Jay Bias:
Jay Bias worked at the Hyattsville Branch of the Sovran Bank. On the afternoon of December 4, 1990, two of his coworkers, Andre Campbell and Tydus Mathis, decided to drive to the nearby Prince George's Plaza Mall during their lunch hour. Hearing their plans, Bias asked to accompany them. He had recently purchased from Kay Jewelers, located in the mall, a ring, which was being sized for him and which he wanted to show to his coworkers. The three drove to the mall in Mathis's car. While Mathis went off to browse in another part of the mall, Bias and Campbell went to Kay Jewelers, where they were waited on by Shaunelle Tyler, an employee of the store and the wife of the appellant Jerry Tyler. Bias spoke to Shaunelle Tyler about the ring and showed it to Campbell.
At approximately the same time ... Jerry Tyler and Gerald Eiland, arrived at the mall in a green Mercedes Benz, owned by Tyler's father but driven by Eiland. The two of them headed directly for Kay Jewelers. As Bias and Campbell were leaving the jewelers, Jerry Tyler entered. He apparently believed that his wife had been flirting with Jay Bias. A turbulent argument ensued between Tyler and his wife, culminating in Tyler's hurling a stapler at her. The manager of Kay Jewelers thought it prudent to end the dispute by escorting Tyler out of the store.
Bias and Campbell, now rejoined by Tydus Mathis, were standing just outside when Tyler was escorted to the exit. Visibly agitated, Tyler turned to Bias and said, "You can have her." Bias replied "that he didn't want [Tyler's] girl" and that "he was just buying a ring." Tyler, his agitation persisting, challenged Bias to "[c]ome on outside, we can take care of this outside." Bias initially started toward Tyler but was stopped by Mathis. During the entire verbal encounter ... Eiland was standing just two to three steps away from Tyler.
Heeding Mathis's advice of restraint, Bias, with Campbell and Mathis, walked toward the mall exit leading to the rear parking lot. [Eiland and Tyler] were making their way toward another exit, leading to the front parking lot, when [one of the two] again yelled to Bias to "step outside," adding, "I've got something for you outside; I'll cap you." At that time, Eiland was still standing within two to three feet of Tyler.
As they prepared to leave the parking lot, Mathis was in the driver's seat of his car, Campbell was in the rear passenger compartment, and Bias sat in the front passenger seat. As they approached the exit leading onto Toledo Terrace, they came to a stop in a left-turn lane as they waited for two cars in front of them to make a left turn. At that point, Mathis noticed a green Mercedes "speed" toward them from the opposite side of the parking lot. As the Mercedes pulled abreast of them in the lane to their immediate right, Mathis noticed that Eiland was driving the car and that Tyler was sitting in the front passenger seat. Because the flow of traffic on Toledo terrace was heavy, Mathis was not able to proceed immediately to exit the parking lot. Indeed, when the Mercedes first pulled abreast of Mathis's Toyota, the Toyota was "stacked up" behind two other cars waiting to make a left-hand turn. The right-hand lane was free, however, and there was nothing to impede the Mercedes, driven by Eiland and occupied by Tyler, from going forward. Eiland, nonetheless, brought the Mercedes to a stop parallel with Mathis' Toyota. When, a few seconds later, the Toyota was able to "inch" forward one automobile length before stopping again, Eiland moved the Mercedes proportionately forward to maintain the parallel relationship between the two cars.
Mathis noticed that the left front window of the Mercedes was open. He saw Eiland press backward against the driver's seat as Tyler stretched across in front of him and yelled out the window. As Eiland pressed his body back against his seat, allowing Tyler to lean across in front of him, his hands were on the low arc of the steering wheel. The testimony was clear that they were not high on the steering wheel or even at midpoint but were as low as they could be without actually releasing the wheel. Campbell, who also observed this, noticed that Tyler had his right hand placed below his knee. Tyler initially appeared "scared" but then became very angry. Because the windows of the Mathis vehicle were closed, neither Mathis nor Campbell could hear the words being yelled by Tyler. As the Mathis vehicle moved slightly forward toward the intersection, Eiland kept the Mercedes parallel with it. As Campbell was briefly turning his head away from the direction of the Mercedes, between seven and ten bullets were fired into the right side of the Mathis vehicle. Two of those bullets struck and mortally wounded Jay Bias.
The Mathis vehicle made an immediate left-hand turn onto Toledo Terrace and drove toward the Leland Memorial Hospital, where Bias was rushed to the emergency room. Shortly thereafter, Bias was pronounced dead by the hospital's attending physicians. Immediately after the shooting, Eiland drove the Mercedes away in an opposite direction from that taken by the Toyota. (Footnote omitted.)
In several regards, Andre Campbell's testimony at the trial now under review was slightly stronger than it had been in the original version. The last remark shouted at Jay Bias as the first confrontation broke up and all parties began to leave the inside of the mall for the parking lot was, "I'll cap you," meaning "I'll shoot you." Although not looking in the direction from which the shout came, Campbell testified that the voice resembled the voice of Tyler.
Campbell was also slightly more precise about Tyler's actions immediately prior to the shooting:
A Okay. At that point, you can see Tyler reaching down towards his leg on the right side, and--
Q Were you looking down into the car?
A Yes.
A And, as I saw him reaching, I told him I think he had a gun.
. . . . .
THE WITNESS: Before I could get the word gun out, that's when the shooting began.
Notwithstanding their motions to have their trials severed, Eiland and Tyler were tried together and were both convicted by a Prince George's County jury of murder. Tyler was convicted of murder in the first degree and of the use of a handgun in the commission of a felony. He was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder and to a consecutive term of twenty years for the handgun violation. Eiland was convicted of murder in the second degree and of the use of a handgun in the commission of a felony. He was sentenced to a term of thirty years for the murder, ten of which were suspended, and to a consecutive term of twenty years for the handgun violation, ten of which were also suspended, for a total of thirty years to be served.
At that first trial, neither Eiland nor Tyler took the stand in his own defense. Their separate attorneys, however, effectively asserted their respective defenses. Tyler's attorney argued forcefully that their positions in the Mercedes, from which the shots were fired, and the position of the Mercedes vis-a-vis the Toyota, in which the victims were riding, made it highly probable, based on the law of physics, that Eiland, the driver closest to the Toyota, had to be the gunman and that Tyler, therefore, was a mere passive passenger.
Eiland's lawyer, on the other hand, argued equally forcefully that it was Tyler who had the motive, Tyler who was...
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