Urbanski v. State

• Citation: 256 Md.App. 414,286 A.3d 626
• Decision Date: 07 December 2022
• Docket Number: 1318, Sept. Term, 2020
• Parties: Sean URBANSKI v. STATE of Maryland
• Court: Court of Special Appeals of Maryland

256 Md.App. 414

286 A.3d 626

Sean URBANSKI

v.STATE of Maryland

No. 1318, Sept. Term, 2020

Court of Special Appeals of Maryland.

December 7, 2022

Argued by: Michael E. Lawlor (Gwendolyn R. Waters, John M. McKenna, William C. Brennan, Brennan, McKenna & Lawlor, Chtd., Greenbelt, MD) all on the brief, for Appellant.

Argued by: Brian Kleinbord (Brian E. Frosh, Atty. Gen. on the brief) Baltimore, MD, for Appellee.

Panel: Berger, Arthur, Reed, JJ.

Reed, J. Sean Urbanski ("Appellant") stabbed and killed Second Lieutenant Richard Collins, III ("Lt. Collins") at a bus stop on the University of Maryland ("UM") campus on May 20, 2017. Appellant was charged with first- or second-degree murder ("Count One") and a hate crime under Maryland Criminal Law § 10-304 ("Count Two"). During trial, the State of Maryland ("State") introduced evidence of racially offensive memes¹ stored on the Appellant's cell phone and Appellant's membership in a white supremacist Facebook group named "Alt-Reich Nation"² (hereinafter, "contested evidence"). During trial, Nicholas Clampitt ("Clampitt"), a friend, former high school classmate, co-worker of the Appellant who is also a member of the Facebook group stated that the group was based on the "Third Reich" of Nazi Germany.³ Clampitt testified that the racist memes that were admitted into evidence were consistent with materials that were posted on the Alt-Reich Nation Facebook group.

On December 17, 2019, Appellant was acquitted by the Circuit Court of Prince George's County of Count Two charging the hate crime because, as the hate crime statute was written, the crime must have been "because of"⁴ the victim's race and the court stated the State had not met this high evidentiary burden. However, the court believed that the admitted evidence was relevant to Appellant's motive in Count One charging Murder. The following day, the jury was instructed on the remaining first- and second-degree murder charges. On December 19, 2019, a jury found Appellant guilty of first-degree murder and Appellant was sentenced to life imprisonment with the possibility of parole.

In bringing his appeal, Appellant presents two questions for appellate review, rephrased for clarity:⁵

I. Did the circuit court err in admitting the racially offensive evidence in violation of the First Amendment?

II. Did the circuit court err in denying Appellant's motion for a mistrial?

For the following reasons, we answer both questions in the negative and affirm the circuit court's holdings.

FACTUAL & PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

On May 20, 2017, Appellant stabbed and killed Lt. Collins, a Bowie State University student and Reserve Officers’ Training Corps candidate, at a bus stop on the UM campus. During the stabbing, Blake Bender ("Bender") and Amanda Lee ("Lee") (collectively, "eyewitnesses")⁶ were at the bus stop with Lt. Collins. Both Bender and Lee testified to witnessing Appellant murdering Lt. Collins.

Prior to the incident, Bender was out with Lt. Collins at the local bars near UM and ended up at a bus stop where Lee was also waiting for the bus but, because of the late hour, proceeded to call a taxi-car rideshare. At some point, Bender recalled hearing angry screaming coming from "in the woods, further up the walk" from the bus stop. Shortly after hearing the screaming, Appellant approached the group at the bus stop and ordered each person to "step left, if you know what's best for you," "step left, step left if you know what's good for you." Lt. Collins said "what?" asking Appellant what he was talking about and Appellant repeated himself. Bender and Lee stepped out of Appellant's way.

Appellant moved forward with the blade of the knife drawn in his hand. Appellant approached Lt. Collins. Bender testified that Lt. Collins was not threatening, nor did he act aggressively in any manner to Appellant. Lt. Collins responded, "no," to Appellant's orders. Appellant stabbed Lt. Collins in the chest.

The first officer on the scene, Michael Thomas ("Ofc. Thomas"), found Lt. Collins lying on his back suffering from a stab wound to the chest and unresponsive to questioning at approximately 3:04 a.m. Ofc. Thomas identified individuals depicted on the surveillance footage, including Appellant, Lt. Collins, and the two eyewitnesses. Ofc. Thomas noticed Appellant sitting at the bus stop while Lt. Collins was loaded into an ambulance. Appellant was arrested at the bus stop where the stabbing occurred.

Appellant was taken into custody. Appellant agreed to a blood test for alcohol and drugs. Appellant surrendered his cell phone and consented to its search. The folding knife that was used to stab Lt. Collins was found in Appellant's pocket after being taken into custody.

At trial, the eyewitnesses to the stabbing testified and identified the Appellant as the perpetrator. Next, a stipulation was read into the record that a deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) analysis and comparison showed that the DNA from the blade of the knife found in the Appellant's pocket matched Lt. Collins's DNA. The medical examiner testified that the stab wound was approximately three-and-a-half inches deep and the location indicated that the knife cut through Lt. Collins's pulmonary artery and caused severe internal bleeding.

During the trial, the State argued that Appellant stabbed Lt. Collins as a result of his bigoted views. In support of that theory regarding Appellant's motive, the State introduced, inter alia, memes into evidence that the Appellant saved on his cell phone and evidence of Appellant's membership to a racist Facebook group title "Alt-Reich Nation," based on Adolf Hitler's Third Reich. The circuit court admitted thirteen racially offensive memes from the Appellant's cellphone into evidence. The memes used racially offensive language with accompanying pictures, such as: 1) a trading card that was altered to say, "Hines Heist: The card allows the player to nab 200 life points from the other player when the n...a ain't looking," 2) a black and white photograph of children playing under a sign that says "Hit the N...r Baby" with an accompanying caption reading, "Remember back when games used to have a great plot," 3) a picture of television personality and scientist, Bill Nye stating, "Consider the Following" with pictures of a noose, a handgun, and poison, and 4) a picture uses the literary character, Harry Potter's, logo and says, "Harry Potter and the Final Solution: You're a Grand Wizard, Harry."⁷

Michael Waski ("Waski"), a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) computer forensic examiner's expert, testified that 4,000 out of 17,000 pictures on the Appellant's phone were stored in the digital camera image folder (DCIM). Waski stated images stored in the DCIM must be manually saved in the DCIM folder and cannot be saved in the folder by mistake. Waski explained that the user must "interact with the image somehow," either by "taking pictures with your camera or saving them from a text message, or e-mail, or web browser." The memes were all saved within five months of the murder.

Another crime analyst testified that a screenshot of the Appellant's Facebook page from the date of the stabbing listed him as a member of the group "Alt-Reich Nation." As previously mentioned, Clampitt, testified that the group was based on the "Third Reich" of Nazi Germany. Clampitt also testified that he was a member of the "Alt-Reich Nation" Facebook group and that the memes submitted in evidence are consistent with the material posted on the Facebook group's member page. A crime analyst for the UM Police Department testified that the "Alt-Reich Nation" Facebook group had been taken down approximately forty-four hours after it was discovered on Appellant's phone. At the end of the State's case, Appellant made a motion for judgment of acquittal and the circuit court denied the motion for both Count One and Count Two. The court stated,

[I]n this case there is evidence that the defendant had on his phone manually, took manual action to save these memes. I think it would be fair to call these memes racist. The memes in question are of (sic) particularly addressed to [B]lack people. Clearly the defendant is white. We have the death of Lieutenant Collins. The question is are these two related.

At this juncture the State has rested and the court takes the evidence in the light most favorable to the State. So with that regard I will deny the defense motion with regard to the hate crime. I will also deny it with regard to the murder.

However, the circuit court later granted the Appellant's motion for a judgment of acquittal for Count Two, citing the construction of the statute as written. Maryland's hate crime statute under § 10-304 at the time of Appellant's trial stated:

Because of another's race, color..., a person may not:

(1)(i) commit a crime or attempt to commit a crime against that person. ... or

(2) commit a violation of item (1) of this section that:

(i) except as provided in item (ii) of this item, involves a separate crime that is a felony; or

(ii) results in the death of the victim.

Md. Code Ann., Criminal Law, § 10-304 (West 2019) (emphasis added).

In granting the motion in this case the court stated the following:

I analyze the evidence in the case and I find out whether the State has met their burden, and whether a trier of fact, the jury in the case, could find the defendant guilty in these cases.

With regard to the murder cases, it is very clear that certainly the State has met their burden.

The focus on the court would be with the hate crime charges. [sic] Now, I also think it is important to read the statute. 10-304 says because of another person's race, it is race in this case, because of another person's race a person may not commit or attempt to commit a crime against that person. It says because of that person, meaning because of that person's race, meaning that was the sole cause of what happened.

In this case we have some evidence of the defendant's ideology or belief as it pertains to [B]lack p

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