Title: Fields v. State

State: maryland

Issuer: Maryland Supreme Court

Document:

In the Circuit Court for Prince George’s County
Case No. 03-0677X
IN THE COURT OF APPEALS
OF MARYLAND
No. 34
September Term, 2006
SATURIO GROGRIEO FIELDS
v.
STATE OF MARYLAND
Bell, C.J.
Raker
Wilner
Cathell
Harrell
Battaglia
Greene,
JJ.
Opinion by Raker, J. 
Filed:   December 8, 2006
We granted certiorari in this case to consider whether the Court of Special Appeals
erred in holding that petitioner’s nickname, “Sat Dog,” which was displayed on a televison
monitor above a bowling lane, was not hearsay.  Because we shall hold that even if the court
erred with respect to the evidentiary issue, the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt,
we do not reach the issue.
Petitioner, Saturio Grogrieo Fields, was indicted by the Grand Jury for Prince
George’s County on one count of first degree murder, two counts of attempted murder, and
two counts of first degree assault.  He proceeded to trial before a jury and was convicted of
first degree murder and two counts of first degree assault.  He was sentenced to the Division
of Corrections for the first degree murder charge to life without parole, for first degree
assault, twenty years to be served consecutively with his sentence for life without parole, and
for the second first degree assault charge, to an additional twenty years, to be served
consecutively with his sentence of life without parole.
Petitioner’s convictions stem from the shootings of three men on the night of May 16-
17, 2003.  The three victims, Tyneal Bussey, Early Eborn, and Rozier Davis, were among a
group of employees from a local supermarket who had gone bowling at the AMF bowling
alley in Clinton, Maryland.  Bussey was shot in the chest and died.  Eborn was shot in the
abdomen and Davis was shot in the arm; Eborn and Davis survived.  The State’s evidence
showed that, on the night in question, petitioner became involved in an altercation with
Bussey inside the bowling alley and asked Bussey to step outside.  Petitioner, Bussey, and
several other supermarket employees went outside.  Two witnesses, Jermaine Bowlding and
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Christine Chandler, testified that outside of the bowling alley, petitioner reached into a white
car with side panel advertisements and displayed a rifle.  When Bussey reached the doorway,
petitioner fired the weapon, killing Bussey and seriously injuring Davis and Eborn.
Detectives displayed photographic arrays to Bowlding and Chandler.  Out of an array
of six black and white photographs, Jermaine Bowdling selected the photograph of petitioner
and stated, “That’s the shooter.”  Mr. Bowdling also identified petitioner at trial as the
shooter.  He testified that he remembers facials because as a person who works in security,
“I am a very observant person when I am in a public place.  So I always looked around and
check my environment out.”
Two detectives displayed two photographic arrays to Christine Chandler.  One was
an array of black and white photographs; the second contained color photographs.  Ms.
Chandler selected photographs of petitioner from both arrays, stating: “This is the guy that
went to the car and got the gun and offered Tyneal outside to fight.”  Ms. Chandler also
identified petitioner in court, saying that she had no doubt about the identification.
In the course of their investigation, the police seized physical evidence linking
petitioner to the shootings.  Police recovered two shell casings at the scene of the crime and
a bullet from the clothing of one of the victims.  The night after the shootings, police seized
a rifle from under the bed of petitioner’s friend, Melody Holmes.  Ms. Holmes testified that
petitioner placed the rifle under her bed on the night of the shootings.  Another witness,
Tiffany Silas, was at Holmes’ apartment on the night of the shootings, and testified that she
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was in the room when petitioner entered with the rifle and placed it under the bed.  Police
also recovered a sweater and shoes at the AMF bowling alley which belonged to petitioner.
Ms. Holmes testified that the sweater and shoes recovered from the bowling alley belonged
to petitioner.
Ms. Holmes and Ulysses Moody, petitioner’s employer at the time of the shootings,
testified that petitioner drove a white Honda Accord, similar to the car described at the scene
of the shootings.  Both noted that petitioner’s car displayed insignias on the sides advertising
his place of employment.
Gary Phillips, a ballistics expert, testified on behalf of the State that the gun recovered
from Holmes’ apartment was a Winchester carbine short-barreled rifle, model 94, and that
the bullet recovered from the victim’s clothing could have been fired from the weapon.  He
stated that based on the firearms examination and test firings he conducted, that the shell
casings found at the crime scene were definitively fired from that gun.
The State conducted DNA analysis on evidence recovered from the sweater found at
the bowling alley.  Julie Kempton, the DNA analyst, testified that although the sweater
contained more than one source of DNA, petitioner was a major source of the primary DNA
found on the sweater.
The evidentiary issue which was the subject of the appeal before the Court of Special
Appeals was that petitioner used the nickname “Sat Dogg” and that the name “Sat Dogg”
appeared on a monitor above one of the lanes at the AMF bowling alley on the night of the
1 Ulysses Moody, petitioner’s employer at the time of the shootings, refuted this
theory, stating that petitioner drove his white Honda Accord to work the day after the
shooting.
2 On May 25, 2005, the Court of Special Appeals, in an unreported opinion, affirmed
the judgment of the Circuit Court.  This Court granted petitioner’s petition for writ of
certiorari, and summarily remanded the case to the Court of Special Appeals for
reconsideration in light of Bernadyn v. State, 390 Md. 1, 887 A.2d 602 (2005).  Fields v.
State, 390 Md. 513, 889 A.2d 1025 (2006).
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shootings.  Detective Ismael Canales recorded information located on the scoring monitors
at each of the bowling lanes at the AMF alley.  One of the monitors displayed the name “Sat
Dogg.”  Both Holmes and Moody testified that petitioner used the nickname “Sat Dogg” or
“Sat.”  Pre-trial, petitioner moved in limine to exclude the evidence that the name Sat Dogg
appeared above the bowling lanes on the grounds that it was inadmissible hearsay.  The court
denied the defense’s motion to exclude the evidence.  At trial, the State entered into evidence
a picture of a tattoo on petitioner’s arm, showing a dog topped by the word “Sat.”
Petitioner’s defense at trial was that the State did not prove his guilt beyond a
reasonable doubt and his theory was that he was not involved in the crime.  Petitioner’s
fiancee, Natasha Williams, testified that she had assisted petitioner when his car broke down
and that the car was inoperable at the time of the shootings.  In closing argument, defense
counsel argued that petitioner’s car could not have been at the bowling alley because it had
broken down the week preceding the shootings.1
Petitioner was convicted and noted a timely appeal to the Court of Special Appeals.2
The Court of Special Appeals, on remand from this Court, considered whether the Circuit
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Court erred in admitting into evidence the notes about names displayed on television screens
above the bowling alley lanes.  Fields v. State, 168 Md. App. 22, 895 A.2d 339 (2006).  The
majority of the panel held that the evidence was not hearsay because it “was not an implied
assertion of the factual proposition that the appellant was present at the bowling alley.”  Id.
at 38, 895 A.2d at 348.  The court noted that the nickname had probative value as
circumstantial evidence because “it had a tendency to show that the appellant was a bowler
at the bowling alley that night, and therefore was present at the location of the shootings.”
Id.  The court concluded that because the evidence was not an “assertion” under Maryland
Rule 5-801(a), it was not a “statement” under that subsection and was therefore not hearsay
under M aryland Rule 5-801(c).  Id.
In dissent, Judge Kenney would have reversed.  He stated that based on Bernadyn v.
State, 390 Md. 1, 887 A.2d 602 (2005) and Stoddard v. State, 389 Md. 681, 887 A.2d 564
(2005), petitioner’s nickname on a television monitor could not “be treated merely as
circumstantial evidence from which a fact finder might conclude that appellant was present
at the bowling alley on the night of the incident, a fact that appellant denies.”  Fields, 168
Md. App. at 49, 895 A.2d at 355 (Kenney, J. dissenting).  Judge Kenney concluded that the
nickname served no other “purpose except to assert that appellant was obviously present and
bowling . . . on the night in question.”  Id. at 50, 168 Md. App. at 355.
We granted petitioner’s second petition for writ of certiorari.  Fields v. State, 393 Md.
245, 900 A.2d 751 (2006).  We need not determine whether the testimony of Detective
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Canales was inadmissible based on Bernadyn, or even if the evidence is distinguishable,
because even if it was hearsay and not admissible, any error was harmless beyond a
reasonable doubt.  In Maryland, an error is harmless if “a reviewing court, upon its own
independent review of the record, is able to declare a belief, beyond a reasonable doubt, that
the error in no way influenced the verdict.”  Dorsey v. State, 276 Md. 638, 659, 350 A.2d
665, 678 (1976).  See also, State v. Logan, 394 Md. 378, 388, 906 A.2d 374, 380 (2006).
The collective effect of the other evidence in this case so outweighs any possible prejudice
resulting from the admission of the questioned evidence that there is no reasonable possibility
that the jury would have reached a different result had that evidence been excluded.
Aside from evidence of petitioner’s nickname on the bowling alley screen, the State
established, beyond a reasonable doubt, that petitioner was present at the bowling alley on
the night in question, and that he was the person who killed Bussey and injured Eborn and
Davis.  Two additional witnesses testified that petitioner hid the murder weapon under
Holmes’ bed, a location where police found it the following day.  Ballistics reports matched
that weapon to two shell casings recovered at the crime scene.  DNA evidence proved that
petitioner’s DNA was the major source on a sweater recovered from the bowling alley on the
night in question.  Other witnesses testified that petitioner’s car matched the description of
the one seen at the bowling alley on the night of the shootings.
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Even if we were to assume that evidence of petitioner’s nickname on a television
monitor at the bowling alley constituted inadmissible hearsay and that its admission was
error, the error was most certainly harmless.
JUDGMENT OF THE COURT OF
SPECIAL 
APPEALS 
AFFIRMED.
C O S T S  
T O  
B E  
P A I D  
B Y
PETITIONER.