Wallace v. State

• Decision Date: 13 February 2003
• Docket Number: No. 57,57
• Citation: 373 Md. 69,816 A.2d 883
• Parties: Thomas Clifford WALLACE v. STATE of Maryland.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

816 A.2d 883

373 Md. 69

Thomas Clifford WALLACE v. STATE of Maryland.

No. 57, Sept. Term, 2002.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

February 13, 2003.

Peter F. Rose, Assistant Public Defender (Stephen E. Harris, Public Defender, on brief), Baltimore, for petitioner.

Gary E. Bair, Solicitor General (J. Joseph Curran, Jr., Attorney General of Maryland, on brief), Baltimore, for respondent. Argued Before BELL, C.J., and ELDRIDGE, RAKER, WILNER, CATHELL, HARRELL and BATTAGLIA, JJ.

CATHELL, J.

Thomas Clifford Wallace, petitioner, seeks review of a judgment of the Maryland Court of Special Appeals affirming a trial judge's dismissal of petitioner's motion to suppress evidence as the fruit of an alleged illegal seizure. Judge John H. McDowell of the Washington County Circuit Court held a suppression hearing on August 24, 2000.¹ Judge McDowell denied the motion to suppress on all grounds on September 15, 2000, and, in reference to the issue in this case, he found that petitioner had no expectation of privacy in the seized clothing.²

On November 27-30, 2000, petitioner was tried and convicted by a jury in the Circuit Court for Washington County on charges of first and second degree murder, first degree assault and the unlawful taking of a motor vehicle. On March 8, 2001, Judge McDowell sentenced petitioner to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole on the first degree murder conviction³ and to a concurrent five-year term of imprisonment for the unlawful taking of a motor vehicle conviction.

Petitioner filed a timely appeal to the Court of Special Appeals. On May 9, 2002, the Court of Special Appeals affirmed the trial court's rulings and issued an unpublished opinion. In that opinion, the intermediate appellate court upheld the trial court's denial of petitioner's motion to suppress holding that petitioner had no reasonable expectation of privacy in the property stored in the police property room, relying on the reasoning in Holland v. State, 122 Md.App. 532, 713 A.2d 364, cert. denied, 351 Md. 662, 719 A.2d 1262 (1998), and, in the alternative, that the property would have inevitably been discovered pursuant to a facially valid warrant. That court also ruled in favor of the State on other issues not before this Court when it affirmed the trial court in its denial of petitioner's motion to suppress petitioner's statements, his motion to suppress photographic array identifications, his contention that DNA evidence should not be admitted, his motion to dismiss for speedy trial violations and his claim that the evidence was insufficient to support the convictions. Petitioner then filed a timely Petition for Writ of Certiorari to this Court.

On August 22, 2002, this Court granted petitioner's Petition for Writ of Certiorari involving the sole issue of petitioner's motion to suppress evidence stemming from an alleged illegal seizure of his clothing which was stored in a police property room pursuant to petitioner's arrest on an unrelated drug charge. Wallace v. State, 370 Md. 268, 805 A.2d 265. Petitioner presents one question for our review:

"Whether the Court of Special Appeals' decision in Holland v. State, [122 Md.App. 532, 713 A.2d 364,] permitting warrantless searches and seizures incident to arrest to occur later upon arrival at the jail, applies to a seizure of clothing from the jail pursuant to an unrelated investigation ten days after an arrest on an unrelated charge." [Alteration added.] [Footnote omitted.]

The essence of petitioner's question is not limited to the applicability of Holland v. State; petitioner is essentially asking this Court to determine if the trial judge's denial, and the Court of Special Appeals' subsequent affirmation of that denial, of petitioner's motion to suppress evidence stemming from the alleged improper seizure of his clothing were correct. We hold that this evidence was admissible and thus affirm the Court of Special Appeals' holding that petitioner had no reasonable expectation of privacy in clothing legally obtained by law enforcement officials, stored in the jail's property room, moved to another area in the facility by an officer for safekeeping and later returned to the booking area of the jail facility and searched. The stains on clothing were analyzed after the execution of a valid search warrant.

I. Facts

Petitioner's charges stem from the homicide of Darrius Fetterhoff, who was found alive, floating in Conococheague Creek on August 25, 1997, after being missing since August 20, 1997. On August 28, 1997, three days after being found, Mr. Fetterhoff died.⁴ On August 20, 1997, the same day Mr. Fetterhoff disappeared and several days prior to the discovery of Mr. Fetterhoff floating in the creek, petitioner was arrested for an unrelated drug offense and was held at the Washington County Detention Center (WCDC). After petitioner was incarcerated on this charge, his personal belongings, including his clothing, were taken from him, inventoried and then stored in the WCDC property room. At the hearing on petitioner's motion to suppress the use, at trial, of this clothing and any evidence derived from it, Corporal Douglass Moore, the supervisor of intake and release of detainees at WCDC, testified regarding the taking and storing of detainees' personal property at WCDC. While not specifically recalling petitioner's intake on August 20, 1997, Corporal Moore described the "fairly standardized procedure" of seizing detainees' property during the intake process at WCDC. The relevant portions of the jail's policy manual were also admitted into evidence. He stated that, according to WCDC's policy manual, "All property is handled by all officers the same way." Detainees' small personal belongings are taken immediately, inventoried, sealed in a bag and placed in the property room. Before the prisoners are moved into the general population, their clothes are removed, placed by the prisoner into a labeled bag and stored in the property room by the detention center's staff. Each prisoner is issued a jump suit. Only uniformed personnel have access to the stored property; inmates do not have access to their belongings, including their clothing, once the inmates are moved into the general population. Corporal Moore also testified that there was no evidence that petitioner's intake was any different than that of the standard intake he described.

Inmates, however, may release their property to another individual, e.g., a family member, etc., by filling out a "request slip" and having the property officer make arrangements for a clothing exchange. Most exchanges of clothing between inmates and visitors occur on weekends, but, generally, only when a request is properly submitted. Petitioner did not fill out a request to exchange clothing from August 30, 1997 to September 2, 1997, the time period in which the alleged Fourth Amendment violation took place.

Corporal Roy Harsh, the investigating officer in the Fetterhoff murder, received the accounts of the witnesses who had seen Mr. Fetterhoff's vehicle. Those witnesses gave a description of the victim and two others, a woman and a man associated with that vehicle.⁵ The man's appearance was similar to that of petitioner. During a conversation with a sergeant in the drug task force that arrested petitioner on August 20, 1997, Corporal Harsh recited the description of the suspect male in the homicide to the sergeant. After hearing the suspect's description, the sergeant gave petitioner's name to Corporal Harsh.⁶ Corporal Harsh then assembled a photo array including petitioner's picture and at least two witnesses identified petitioner as the suspect who had been seen in connection with the car.

After petitioner potentially was linked to the crime by the witnesses, Corporal Harsh went to WCDC in order "to verify what clothing items [petitioner] was wearing when he had been arrested on the 20th." Corporal Harsh first reviewed the inventory sheet record of petitioner's items in the property room and found descriptions of items similar to those furnished by the witnesses, including a pair of dark blue shorts. Realizing the evidentiary potential of petitioner's clothing, Corporal Harsh received permission from a jail side deputy, Deputy Russell, to move the clothing to the patrol side property room. Corporal Harsh stated that he moved the property "to the patrol side for safekeeping, due to the fact that it was a weekend and that the inmates generally receive visitors on the weekend and that they are allowed to release their personal items during visitation." Corporal Harsh removed a black tee shirt, dark blue shorts and a plastic bag with personal items because of their possible evidentiary value. Once on the patrol side, he separated the clothing from the plastic bag and, while folding the clothing, noticed stains on petitioner's shorts. No analysis was done on the stains at that time; the items were placed in bags, recorded on the patrol side property record and placed in the secure property room of the patrol area. Other than putting the items in separate bags, petitioner's belongings remained in the same condition as they were before their transfer to the patrol side property room.

Corporal Harsh spoke to an attorney at the State's Attorney's Office on the following Tuesday morning, September 2, 1997, the day after the Labor Day holiday, in order to inform that office of the events regarding the investigation of petitioner's clothing and to receive advice on future actions. Corporal Harsh testified that he "was advised to take the items back over to the booking area and to obtain a search warrant to obtain those items."⁷ Later that day, Corporal Harsh returned the items to the booking area of the jail, applied for a search warrant, in which he included his August 30th observations upon moving the clothing to the patrol side property room, and presented the application to Judge R. Noel Spence, who issued the warrant....