Watkins v. State
| Decision Date | 01 September 1991 |
| Docket Number | No. 57,57 |
| Citation | 328 Md. 95,613 A.2d 379 |
| Parties | Eric Lorenzo WATKINS v. STATE of Maryland. , |
| Court | Maryland Court of Appeals |
Jennifer P. Lyman, Assigned Public Defender, Washington, D.C., for petitioner.
Mary Ann Ince, Asst. Atty. Gen. (J. Joseph Curran, Jr., Atty. Gen., both on brief), Baltimore, for respondent.
Argued before MURPHY, C.J., and ELDRIDGE, RODOWSKY, McAULIFFE, CHASANOW, KARWACKI and ROBERT M. BELL, JJ.
Eric Lorenzo Watkins was convicted by a jury in the Circuit Court for Prince George's County of two counts each of unlawful shooting with intent to disable, use of a handgun in the commission of a crime of violence, and battery in connection with a shooting in which Melvin and Ronald Brown were wounded. The Court of Special Appeals affirmed in an unreported opinion, holding that the trial court did not err when it prohibited defense counsel from questioning State's witnesses regarding either their probationary status or the fact that there were criminal charges pending against them at the time of the shootings. We granted certiorari, and we affirm.
This case grew out of an early morning altercation which occurred when the defendant and Marlin Marshall encountered a group consisting of Ronald, Melvin, and Kelvin Brown, and Demetrius "Tony" Fultz. The defendant does not deny that he shot Melvin and Ronald. He contends, rather, that he shot them in self-defense. According to the defendant, the meeting was called to resolve a dispute over the quality of drugs which Marshall had delivered to Fultz earlier that evening. All other participants in the meeting denied that drugs were in any way involved.
The defendant testified that Fultz called Marshall's pager at about midnight and that Marshall returned the call. The defendant said that Marshall and Fultz were arguing about the quality of the drugs Marshall had delivered to Fultz, and that at some point during the conversation the defendant took the telephone from Marshall and spoke briefly to Fultz and then to one of the Brown brothers. The defendant stated that following the telephone conversation he and Marshall went to meet Fultz and, as it turned out, the Brown brothers, to discuss what was to be done.
On the way to that meeting, Marshall told the defendant to take a gun from under the floor mat of the vehicle in which they were riding and to carry it to the meeting. The defendant said that after the parties met, he fired his weapon in self-defense because the Brown brothers and Fultz, whom he believed to be drug dealers and therefore probably armed, were walking toward him after expressing irritation that he had interjected himself into a conversation between Marshall and Fultz.
The defendant argues that the trial judge improperly restricted his cross-examination of Fultz and of the Brown brothers. With respect to Fultz, the defendant sought to introduce evidence that Fultz had been convicted of unlawfully carrying a handgun on March 9, 1989, six days before the incident involved in this case. The defendant offered documentary evidence of this conviction because Fultz had, on cross-examination, denied that he had a gun on March 9. Although the trial judge initially ruled that the evidence was inadmissible, he did permit further cross-examination of Fultz out of the presence of the jury. Fultz then admitted he had been in possession of a handgun on March 9, stating that he had originally been confused concerning the date. The trial judge then permitted additional cross-examination of Fultz in the presence of the jury, and Fultz again admitted to possession of the handgun on the day in question. Thus, the fact sought to be elicited was ultimately placed before the jury, and there was no error in connection with the court's ruling concerning the cross-examination of Fultz.
During the cross-examination of Ronald Brown, defense counsel approached the bench to seek leave of court to question the witness concerning a pending theft charge. The entire discussion of this matter consisted of the following:
(In open court.)
DEFENSE ATTORNEY: That's all I have.
Defense counsel clearly accepted the prosecutor's statement that no "deal" had been made with the witness, and acquiesced in the court's ruling. Accordingly, there is no basis for appeal from this ruling.
The defendant attempted to show that Melvin and Kelvin Brown were on probation. This effort was grounded solely 1 on the belief that Davis v. Alaska, 415 U.S. 308, 94 S.Ct. 1105, 39 L.Ed.2d 347 (1974), compels the admission of evidence that any State's witness is on probation for any crime, if that evidence is offered by the defendant. The trial judge did not believe Davis painted with such a broad brush, and neither do we.
Concededly, some of the language of Davis is broad in scope, and appears to support the interpretation that evidence of the probationary status of a State's witness is always admissible.
The accuracy and truthfulness of [the witness's] testimony were key elements in the State's case against petitioner. The claim of bias which the defense sought to develop was admissible to afford a basis for an inference of undue pressure because of [the witness's] vulnerable status as a probationer, ... as well as of [the witness's] possible concern that he might be a suspect in the investigation.
Id. at 415 U.S. 317-18, 94 S.Ct. at 1110-11 (citation omitted). The facts of Davis, and other language in the Court's opinion, suggest, however, that the holding of that case was narrower.
In Davis, the evidence showed that a bar in Anchorage had been broken into and a safe weighing several hundred pounds had been removed. On the afternoon of the break-in the safe was discovered 26 miles from the site of the burglary, near the home of Richard Green. Green testified that at about noon on the day in question he had seen two individuals near where the safe was later found. He identified Davis as one of those two individuals. Although there was some evidence tending to show that the safe may have been transported in a vehicle that had been rented by Davis, Green's eyewitness testimony was critical to the success of the State's case.
At the time of trial and at the time of the events in question, Green was on probation by order of juvenile court after having been adjudicated a delinquent for burglarizing two cabins. Before any testimony was taken at trial, the prosecutor requested a protective order to prohibit any reference to Green's earlier adjudication or the fact that he was on probation. The trial judge granted the prosecutor's request, citing an Alaska statute which generally barred the admission of juvenile adjudications. Davis objected, contending that because Green was on probation for burglary and the safe was found near his home, Green would have a special motive to identify someone else in order to divert suspicion from himself. Davis' counsel also argued that simply being on probation made Green more vulnerable to police suggestion, and more obliging to the State.
Bound by the protective order, Davis' counsel nevertheless sought to disclose Green's state of mind at the time Green discovered that the stolen safe had been found near his home. Green claimed to be unconcerned that the safe had been found on his property, although he admitted it had crossed his mind that the police might think he had something to do with the crime. In the course of his cross-examination of Green, Davis' counsel also inquired about the police interrogation of Green. During the course of that line of questioning, Davis' counsel asked Green: "Had you ever been questioned like that before by any law enforcement officers?" Green replied, "No."
In holding that it was error to deny Davis the right to inquire into Green's prior adjudication and probationary status under these circumstances, the Supreme Court said:
Since defense counsel was prohibited from making inquiry as to the witness' being on probation under a juvenile court adjudication, Green's protestations of unconcern over possible police suspicion that he might have had a part in the Polar Bar burglary and his categorical denial of ever having been the subject of any similar law-enforcement interrogation went unchallenged. The tension between the right of confrontation and the State's policy of protecting the witness with a juvenile record is particularly evident in the final answer given by the witness. Since it is probable that Green underwent some questioning by police when he was arrested for the burglaries on which his juvenile adjudication of delinquency rested, the answer can be regarded as highly suspect at the very least. The witness was in effect asserting, under protection of the trial court's ruling, a right to give a questionably truthful answer to a cross-examiner pursuing a relevant line of inquiry; it is doubtful whether the bold "No" answer would have been given by Green absent a belief that he was shielded from traditional cross-examination. It would be difficult to conceive of a situation more clearly illustrating the need for cross-examination.
Id. 415 U.S. at 313-14, 94 S.Ct. at 1108-09.
In the case before us, there was no suggestion that Melvin or Kelvin Brown had committed any offense for which the defendant was charged. Rather, the defendant wished to show that the meeting of the...
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