Justia Maryland Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

These three cases, consolidated for the purposes of this opinion, involved the same legal issues arising out of the Court of Appeals’ opinion in Griffin v. State, in which the Court addressed the admissibility of a screenshot of a MySpace page. This appeal addressed Griffin’s application to the authentication of screenshots of messages allegedly sent through social networking websites. In the three cases, the messages were sent via a Facebook timeline, on Twitter through direct messages and public tweets, and through Facebook messages. The Court of Appeals held that, “in order to authenticate evidence derived from a social networking website, the trial judge must determine that there is proof from which a reasonable juror could find that the evidence is what the proponent claims it to be.” Accordingly, the Court held that, in each of the cases, the trial court did not err in (1) excluding the admission of the four pages of the Facebook conversation; (2) admitting the “direct messages” and “tweets” in evidence; and (3) admitting the Facebook messages authored by the defendant. View "Sublet v. State" on Justia Law

Defendant was charged with robbery with a dangerous weapon, conspiracy to commit robbery and first degree assault. During voir dire, the trial judge failed to accede to Defendant’s request that he be brought to the bench for conferences during voir dire. During one of those conferences, a juror who was questioned at the bench without Defendant’s presence was selected to serve on the jury. The Court of Special Appeals reversed Defendant’s conviction, concluding that his exclusion from bench conferences during voir dire was not harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. The Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that the judge’s error in failing to bring Defendant to the bench for conferences during voir dire was not harmless where the juror who was questioned at the bench without Defendant’s presence was selected to serve. View "State v. Yancey" on Justia Law

The State charged Petitioner with first-degree murder and other crimes. Petitioner moved to suppress a pretrial identification on the grounds that the identification was hearsay and inadmissible under the Confrontation Clause. The identification was made by the victim (“declarant”) two years before his death. The circuit court granted the motion to suppress, determining that the declarant’s identification of Defendant fell under the “dying declaration” exception to the rule against hearsay but was testimonial and inadmissible under the Confrontation Clause. The Court of Special Appeals reversed, concluding that the declarant made a dying declaration and that the Confrontation Clause does not apply to dying declarations. The Court of Appeals affirmed, holding (1) the State may appeal from a trial court’s exclusion of intangible evidence based on a determination that the evidence’s admission would be a constitutional violation; (2) the circuit court was correct in determining that the declarant’s identification of Defendant was a dying declaration; and (3) the Confrontation Clause is not applicable to dying declarations, and therefore, the Court need not address whether the declarant’s identification of Defendant was testimonial or non-testimonial. View "Hailes v. State" on Justia Law

After a retrial, Petitioner was found guilty of attempted second degree arson. Petitioner appealed, arguing that the prosecutor’s opening statement violated his privilege against self-incrimination guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment, Article 22 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights, and Md. Code Ann. Cts. & Jud. Proc. 9-107. Specifically, Petitioner asserted that the prosecutor violated his right to protection from adverse comment on his decision not to testify at trial by referring in opening statement to what Petitioner “will tell” the jury. The Court of Special Appeals affirmed. The Court of Appeals reversed, holding that the prosecutor’s remarks ran afoul of the prohibition against making an adverse comment upon a defendant’s failure to testify, and the error was not harmless. Remanded for a new trial. View "Simpson v. State" on Justia Law

After a bench trial, Defendant was convicted of five counts of theft by deception and two counts of conspiracy to commit theft by deception. The convictions arose from various construction and remodeling contracts Defendant entered into in a two-year period with several homeowners. The Court of Special Appeals reversed, concluding that the evidence concerning Defendant’s intent to deprive the homeowners of their property was insufficient to sustain a conviction for theft by deception. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that there was sufficient circumstantial evidence to support a reasonable inference that Defendant had the specific intent to deprive each homeowner of their property by deception. View "State v. Manion" on Justia Law

In 2002, Petitioner was found guilty but not criminally responsible of robbery and use of a handgun in commission of a felony or a crime of violence. In 2006, the circuit court released Petitioner conditionally. In 2009, Petitioner was re-committed to inpatient medical treatment. In 2010, the circuit court released Petitioner conditionally for the remaining duration of the 2006 order. In 2011, five days before Petitioner’s conditional release was to expire, the Department filed an application seeking to extend the terms of the conditional release for an additional four years. The next month, the circuit court granted the Department’s application. Petitioner filed a motion to alter or amend, asserting that the circuit court’s jurisdiction over him ended at the expiration of the 2006 order of conditional release, and therefore, the order extending his conditional release was invalid. The circuit court denied the motion. The Court of Appeals affirmed, holding (1) the circuit court retained jurisdiction for a reasonable time to decide the timely-filed application to extend the 2006 order of conditional release; and (2) the circuit court did not delay for an unreasonable time before ruling on the State’s application for an extension on Petitioner’s conditional release. View "Harrison-Solomon v. State" on Justia Law

After a jury trial, Defendant was convicted of, among other charges, attempted first-degree murder, attempted robbery with a dangerous weapon, and two convictions for use of a handgun in the commission of a crime of violence. The Court of Special Appeals affirmed, concluding (1) the circuit court correctly sentenced Defendant to separate consecutive sentences for the two convictions for use of a handgun in the commission of a crime of violence, and (2) the sentence was not illegal even where the sentencing court was required to impose a minimum sentence of five years’ imprisonment but only imposed a one-year sentence in this case. The Court of Appeals affirmed in part and reversed in part, holding (1) imposition of separate consecutive sentences for two convictions of use of a handgun in the commission of a crime of violence or any felony is permissible where a defendant uses one handgun to commit two separate crimes of violence or felonies against one victim in one criminal action; and (2) this case should be remanded for re-sentencing because the trial court did not impose a sentence that was consistent with Md. Code Ann. Crim. Law 4-204. View "Garner v. State" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of felony murder, kidnapping, and robbery, among other crimes. The circuit court court sentenced Defendant to life imprisonment for felony murder, a term of twenty years concurrent for kidnapping, and a term of ten years concurrent for robbery. The Court of Special Appeals vacated the sentences for the convictions for kidnapping and robbery, concluding that the rule of lenity required merger for sentencing purposes of those convictions with the felony murder conviction because it was unclear which felony was the predicate felony for the felony murder conviction. The Court of Appeals reversed insofar as the Court of Special Appeals vacated the sentence for robbery and otherwise affirmed, holding (1) a conviction for only one predicate felony merges for sentencing purposes with the felony murder conviction, and applying the rule of lenity does not result in merger of additional convictions for predicate felonies; (2) the predicate felony with the greatest maximum sentences merges for sentencing purposes with the felony murder conviction, and the defendant may be separately sentenced for any remaining predicate felonies; and (3) because the kidnapping offense carries the greater maximum sentence, that conviction merges for sentencing purposes with the felony murder conviction, and the sentence for robbery shall remain as imposed by the circuit court. View "State v. Johnson" on Justia Law

Defendant was charged in a seventeen-count indictment with crimes stemming from an incident in which Defendant allegedly shot at Travis Green. Defendant filed a motion to suppress Green’s identification of him, arguing that the identification was blighted by an impermissibly suggestive photographic array as a result of the elongated appearance of the other men in four of the six photographs presented to Green. The trial judge denied the motion. During trial, the trial judge admitted the recorded statement of Elmer Duffy, a witness to the shooting who was later murdered, about seeing Defendant shoot Green, even though another man had been charged for Duffy’s murder. After a trial, Defendant was convicted of attempted first degree murder and other crimes and sentenced to life imprisonment plus ten years. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) the elongation of the face and torso of four of the photographs did not render the photo array impermissibly suggestive; (2) the Court’s jurisprudence provides suitable means to assay an extrajudicial eyewitness identification; and (3) Duffy’s statement was properly admitted under Md. Code Ann. Cts. & Jud. Proc. 10-901 and Maryland Rule 5-805(b)(5)(B) because there was substantial evidence connecting Defendant to Duffy’s killing. View "Smiley v. State" on Justia Law

Appellant was charged with and convicted of possession of a regulated firearm by a person with a disqualifying drug conviction. The statute under which Appellant was convicted carries a mandatory minimum sentence of five years incarceration. Following his sentencing under that statute, Appellant appealed, arguing that his sentence was illegal because, on the same facts, he could have been charged and convicted under a different statute that carries a more lenient sentence. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) the State’s Attorney had discretion to charge Appellant with a violation of either statute at issue in this case, and the decision was not subject to judicial oversight as to whether the statute carrying the mandatory minimum sentence or the statute with the more lenient penalty should have been charged; and (2) there was no need to apply the rule of lenity in these circumstances because there was no unresolvable ambiguity in the statute in question. View "Oglesby v. State" on Justia Law