Title: Oken v. State

State: maryland

Issuer: Maryland Supreme Court

Document:

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF MARYLAND
Misc. No. 16
September Term, 2001
STEVEN HOWARD OKEN
                 v.
   
          
          STATE OF MARYLAND
          
Bell, C.J.
Eldridge 
    Raker
     Wilner
     Cathell
Harrell
Battaglia,
 
 JJ.
       O R D E R
   Wilner and Harrell, JJ. concur; 
        Cathell, J. dissents
Filed: February 6, 2002
 
STEVEN HOWARD OKEN
*
In the
* 
Court of Appeals
     
v.
*
of Maryland
*
Misc. No. 16
STATE OF MARYLAND
*
September Term, 2001
O R D E R
The Court having considered the Petitioner’s motion for stay 
of warrant of execution, the response in opposition to the motion 
and the Petitioner’s reply to the response, it is this 6th day 
of February, 2002,
ORDERED, by the Court of Appeals of Maryland, that the 
motion for stay of warrant of execution be, and it is hereby, 
GRANTED, and the warrant of execution issued by the Circuit Court 
for Baltimore County (Turnbull, J.) on January 15, 2002, is 
stayed pending the timely filing in the Supreme Court of the 
United States of a petition for a writ of certiorari and the
disposition of this case by the Supreme Court 
of the United States.
______________________________
CHIEF JUDGE
IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF MARYLAND
Misc. No. 16
September Term, 2001
______________________________________
STEVEN HOWARD OKEN
v.
STATE OF MARYLAND
______________________________________
Bell, C.J.
Eldridge
Raker
Wilner
Cathell
Harrell
Battaglia,
   JJ.
______________________________________
Concurring Opinion by Wilner, J., in which          
Harrell, J., joins on Granting of Stay
______________________________________
Filed:   February 6, 2002
I have agreed to this stay of the Circuit Court’s warrant only because, under the law,
Oken has until early April to file a petition for certiorari with the United States Supreme Court
and the warrant calls for his being put to death a month earlier.  Although I do not believe that
his case has any substantive merit, the Apprendi issue that he wishes to raise in the Supreme
Court is not a frivolous one.  This Court was split four-to-three on the issue and the Supreme
Court, in granting certiorari in Arizona v. Ring, 25 P.3d 1139, cert. granted, 2002 U.S. LEXIS
409 (1/11/02), has apparently agreed to consider the application of its Apprendi decision to
a death penalty statute.  Although Judge Cathell does not believe that a decision by the Supreme
Court in Ring will affect this case, and he may well be right, no one knows for certain at this
point, and Oken ought to have the full opportunity provided by law for seeking relief in the
Supreme Court.  I regard it as at least implicit that the Circuit Court is free to issue another
warrant, promptly and without further leave of this Court, should (1) Oken fail to file a timely
petition for certiorari in the Supreme Court, or (2) the Supreme Court deny any petition for
certiorari filed by him.
Judge Harrell joins in this opinion.
IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF MARYLAND
Misc. No. 16
September Term, 2001
STEVEN HOWARD OKEN
v.
STATE OF MARYLAND
Bell, C. J.
Eldridge
Raker
Wilner
Cathell
Harrell
           Battaglia,
JJ.
Dissent to the Granting of a Stay by Cathell, J.
Filed:   February 6, 2002
I would deny the stay.
First, to be honest, if I were a member of the legislative branch of government, I would
probably vote to abolish the death penalty.  I would not vote in that fashion because of any
constitutional or moral principle.  I would so vote because it is clear to me that because of the
way the death penalty system works, it simply is not worth the aggravation it costs throughout
the body politic.  Two years ago, while working on a personal project, I had occasion to
examine more fully the costs of the death penalty system.  At that time, some statistics I
examined indicated that, on average, there were approximately 270 persons sentenced to death
throughout the country each year.  With the extensive efforts made to insure that innocent
persons are not subjected to the ultimate penalty, the cost and time to process a death penalty
case is exorbitant.  It was estimated in some of the studies that to process a death penalty case
and to maintain a death penalty defendant in death row security, costs $400,000 over and above
what it would normally cost to process, and then maintain a prisoner serving a life sentence.
If those statistics are accurate, governments throughout our country, by permitting the
imposition of the death penalty, collectively obligate themselves for an expenditure of a
hundred million dollars each year above what they would ordinarily expend if such defendants
had been sentenced to life imprisonment.  Even if the extra costs were only $40,000,
governments would obligate themselves each year for future spending of over $10,000,000.
Based on the sum of $7,000 (which is the approximate level of in-state tuition at our State
universities), a year’s tuition for tens or even hundreds of thousands of students at state
universities could be funded by the extra costs we incur to process and maintain 270 people
per year, however deserving, in the death penalty system.  A relevant question, it seems to me,
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is whether the country would be better served by using the money for education, or for other
aspects of need in this country than it is now being served by the process we put ourselves
through putting a few murderers to death? 
Additionally, the process imposes upon the system huge administrative and procedural
burdens.  It is also a system that lends itself to attacks in individual cases that are both
principled and unprincipled at the same time.  Attorneys take an oath that imposes upon them
an ethical duty not to engage in frivolous actions or actions engaged in for the sole purposes
of delay.  Yet, at least partially due to the draconian aspects of the death penalty, some
participants may look the other way in death cases because they have professional and
conflicting ethical obligations towards the client, and, also, because they question the moral
principles inherent in the imposition of death by a civilized society.  Throughout the country,
there are laymen and lawyers who, because of their professional obligations to clients and their
own personal beliefs in respect to the death penalty, participate in obstructive tactics in an
effort to delay the imposition of the death penalty in the hope that during the delay the
Supreme Court, or the respective state legislative bodies, will abolish the penalty altogether.
What results is the use of extraordinary steps or tactics throughout the process to
forestall the imposition of the penalty imposed.  The process must appear to those outside the
system to be a game played by lawyers and judges, rather than the serious process it should be.
This case is but one of many cases where defendants are resisting the imposition of death
penalties, by presenting issues, that, in my opinion, are not worthy of further consideration. 
With all of that said, and with the understanding that the Supreme Court has held the
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death penalty itself to be constitutional, and with the further understanding that the legislative
branch of Maryland government has made the policy decision that the death penalty is
appropriate in Maryland under certain circumstances, and that policy decision is its to make,
and, when made, binding on the courts, let us examine whether the stay should be granted in this
case.  This case involves a defendant who has been described elsewhere (correctly, in my view)
even by those opposed in principle to the death penalty  as a “poster man for the death penalty.”
In prior cases, this Court, as to the facts of the murder here involved, found:
“At midnight on Sunday, November 1, 1987, Keith Douglas Garvin
arrived at the United States Navy base in Oceana, Virginia.  Mr. Garvin, who had
a pass from his naval superiors, had just spent the weekend with his wife, Dawn
Garvin, at their apartment in the Baltimore County community of White Marsh
and was returning to his station in Oceana.  Upon his arrival at the base, Mr.
Garvin attempted to call his wife to notify her that he had arrived safely.
Although the telephone rang at their White Marsh apartment, there was no
answer.  After making several additional unsuccessful attempts to call his wife,
Mr. Garvin became worried and telephoned his father-in-law, Frederick Joseph
Romano.  Because Mr. Romano lived in close proximity to the Garvins’
apartment, Mr. Garvin asked Mr. Romano to check on his wife.  Mr. Romano
agreed, and attempted to telephone his daughter twice.  Both times there was no
answer.  Concerned about the fact that numerous calls to his daughter had gone
unanswered, Mr. Romano decided to drive to his daughter’s apartment.
When Mr. Romano arrived at his daughter’s apartment, he found the front
door to the apartment ajar, all the lights in the apartment turned on, and the
television blaring.  Sensing that something was wrong, Mr. Romano rushed into
the apartment and found his daughter, Dawn, in the bedroom lying on the bed
nude with a bottle protruding from her vagina.  While attempting to give her
cardiopulmonary resuscitation (‘CPR’), Mr. Romano observed that there was
blood streaming from her forehead.  He immediately called for assistance, and
paramedics arrived shortly thereafter.  A paramedic then began to administer
CPR, but his efforts were in vain.  Dawn Marie Garvin was dead.
At 2:30 a.m., on November 2, Detective James Roeder of the Baltimore
County Police Department arrived at the Garvins’ apartment to inspect the scene
-4-
of the murder.  Detective Roeder testified that when he entered the Garvins’
apartment he saw no signs of forced entry.  Once inside, he observed a brassiere,
a pair of pants, tennis shoes, a shirt, and a sweater on the floor near the sofa in
the living room.  The brassiere was not unhooked, but instead, was ripped on the
side.  The pants were turned inside out.  Roeder also noticed a small piece of
rubber on the floor near the television set.  In the bedroom, Roeder found two
spent .25 caliber shell casings on the bed, one of which was lying on top of a
shirt.  The shirt was blood stained and had what Roeder believed to be a bullet
hole in it. 
An autopsy of Ms. Garvin’s body revealed that she had died as the result
of two contact gunshot wounds; one of the bullets entered at her left eyebrow
and the other at her right ear. 
The last person to see Dawn Garvin before she was fatally attacked was
her brother, Frederick Anthony Romano.  At 8:30 p.m. on November 1, Mr.
Romano stopped by his sister’s apartment to pick up a set of keys to Keith
Garvin’s car.  Mr. Garvin had left the car at the White Marsh apartment so that
it could be repaired during the week.  Mr. Romano only stayed at his sister’s
apartment for about five minutes.  When he left the apartment, Ms. Garvin was
preparing to walk her dog. . . .
.     .     .
At 9:00 a.m. on the morning of November 16, 1987, approximately two
weeks after Dawn Garvin’s murder, Sergeant Sidney Branham of the Baltimore
County Police Department was patrolling the White Marsh area when he
received a dispatch of a ‘suspicious condition’ concerning a missing person at
62 Stillwood Circle, a townhouse which was the residence of Oken and his wife,
Phyllis Hirt Oken.  Sergeant Branham went to that address and was met by four
individuals standing outside of the home.  One of those individuals, a Ms.
Danielle Jones, informed Sergeant Branham that ‘she had reason to believe that
her sister, Patricia Hirt, was missing and that some harm had come to her, and
she came to 62 Stillwood Circle to locate her sister.’  Jones also told Sergeant
Branham that when she arrived at this address, she found the door to the
residence partially ajar  and entered.  Jones  related that while inside the house,
she had noticed that it was in disarray and that there was blood on the floor near
the front entrance. 
On the basis of Jones’s story, Sergeant Branham decided that he and
Lieutenant Harvey should enter the house ‘to see if there was anyone injured in
-5-
the house, [and] to look for any suspect.’ Once inside the house, Sergeant
Branham made certain observations.  He saw blood smeared on the floor in the
foyer and on the door post, a towel lying on top of a trash can in the kitchen with
what appeared to be dried blood stains on it, and articles of women’s clothing
strewn about the floor in the living room.  When Sergeant Branham left the
house, he posted an officer at the front door to secure the premises until a
search warrant could be obtained. 
Later that same morning, at about 10:00 a.m., Detective Charles Naylor
of the Baltimore County Police Department received a telephone call asking him
to proceed to an area near Interstate 95 and White Marsh Boulevard in Baltimore
County where the body of a dead woman had been found by the Maryland State
Police.  Detective Naylor went to this area to investigate.  Approximately one
hour later, the body of the dead woman was identified as Patricia Hirt.4
_________________________________________
4  Subsequent to his conviction and sentence in the instant case, Oken pleaded
guilty to the murder of Patricia Hirt. 
_________________________
After the discovery of the dead woman’s identity, Detective Naylor was
sent to 62 Stillwood Circle where he met with Sergeant Branham.  Sergeant
Branham informed Detective Naylor of his observations inside the home.  Based
on these observations and the discovery of Patricia Hirt’s body, Detective Naylor
prepared an affidavit and application for a search and seizure warrant for Oken’s
home at 62 Stillwood Circle.  A warrant was signed by Judge A. Gordon Boone,
Jr., and Detective Naylor returned to 62 Stillwood Circle to execute the warrant.
During the search, Detective Naylor seized a .25 caliber handgun from a dresser
drawer in the master bedroom.  This gun was later determined to be the weapon
that was used to kill Dawn Garvin. 
.     .     .
Oken’s Arrest in Maine on November 17, 1987 
At approximately 1:00 p.m. on November 16, 1987, the same day the
Maryland State Police discovered Patricia Hirt’s dead body, Oken checked into
the Coachman Motor Inn (‘Coachman’) in Kittery, Maine.  According to the
general manager of the motel, Diana Ott, Oken stated that he only wanted the
room for one night.  After filling out the registration form which indicated that
he was driving a white Ford Mustang with Maryland registration plates, Oken paid
for his room in advance with a Visa credit card.  As Ott handed Oken the keys to
-6-
room 48, the telephone rang.  Ott answered, and as she was talking on the
telephone, she realized that she still had Oken’s credit card in her hand.  Ott
telephoned Oken in his room and asked him to come back to the desk and get his
card at his convenience.  At 2:30 p.m., Ott’s shift at the registration desk ended.
She was replaced by Lori Ward.  Since Oken had not returned to claim his card
at the time Ott and Ward changed shifts, Ott informed Ward that Oken might be
coming to the desk for his card.  Ott then went home. 
Later that evening, at approximately 6:00 p.m., Ott telephoned the
registration desk to check on Ward.  There was no answer to her call.  Ott
continued to call Ward but received no answer.  She then telephoned the motel’s
maintenance man and asked him to check on Ward.  The maintenance man
returned Ott’s telephone call about ten minutes later.  He informed Ott that Ward
had been found murdered.5  Ott immediately left for the motel.  She
______________________________
5 Prior to his trial for the murder of Dawn Garvin, Oken was convicted in Maine
of the murder of Lori Ward. 
_______________________________
arrived at the motel around 6:30 p.m. and stayed there until 12:30 a.m.  During
that time she did not see Oken or his Mustang. 
On that same day, Oken drove to Freeport, Maine, which is approximately
a one hour drive from the Coachman.  At 7:54 p.m., Oken checked into the
Freeport Inn.  According to the desk clerk, Katherine Jones, Oken paid in cash
for one night’s stay in room 250.  As Oken was walking away from the desk,
Jones observed blood on the back of his head.  Jones brought this fact to Oken’s
attention, but Oken indicated that he was ‘okay.’  Sometime between 10:00 a.m.
and 10:30 a.m. on the following morning, November 17, 1987, Oken paid for an
additional night’s lodging at the Freeport Inn.  Oken never checked out of the
Coachman. 
.     .     .
The police began their investigation of Ward’s murder by knocking on the
doors of every motel room in the Coachman, including Oken’s room, Room 48.
There was no response at Room 48. . . . 
.     .     .
At 8:00 a.m., on November 17, the Kittery police arrived [again] at the
Coachman. . . .  There was no answer at Room 48, so the police unlocked the
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door and entered the room.  Once inside Room 48, the police discovered a bottle
of vodka, a half-gallon of orange juice, a few small pieces of rope, a pair of
socks, a shirt with blood stains on it, and blood smudges on the wall in the
bathroom.  There were no toilet articles, personal belongings, luggage, or any
kind of bags in the room, and the bed had not been turned down. 
After discovering these articles in Room 48, the police went to Ott, and
asked her who was the last person to stay in Room 48.  She checked her records
and informed the police that Oken was the last individual to occupy Room 48.
She also gave them the license tag number for the vehicle he was driving.  When
the police sought information by teletype about the registration of that
automobile, they learned that Oken was wanted in connection with two murders
in Maryland and that the car he was driving had been stolen the previous day in
Maryland. 
At approximately 5:10 p.m., on November 17, 1987, Oken was arrested
at the Freeport Inn.  Upon his arrest, the police seized the tennis shoes that he
was wearing along with all his personal belongings and his car.  During the guilt
or innocence stage of Oken’s trial, one of the tennis shoes seized was matched
with the piece of rubber found in Dawn Garvin’s apartment on the night of her murder.”
Oken v. State, 327 Md. 628, 634-49, 612 A.2d 258, 261-68 (1992) (some alterations in
original). 
There was additional evidence discovered that indicated that Oken had planned his serial
criminal activity.  A note in his handwriting was discovered in his home, that, in relevant part,
stated:
“[G]auze pads; 5 by 11 inches by 4 inches, chloroform, N25B, gag; sock and
adhesive tape, two inches by five inches by five yards; surgical gloves from the
store, camera, come, [sic] film and flash; store; panty hose, dark color to cover
hair and face; reading glasses; dildos; vibrators; et cetera, possible capsules,
glass covers, store.”
Oken, 327 Md. at 664, 612 A.2d at 276.  At sentencing, a psychiatrist testified that Oken
related to him the actual details of the murder of Mrs. Garvin:
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“I was told by Mr. Oken that he approached the victim outside the
apartment, asked if he could use the phone, made his way into her apartment,
looked about, shut the door, took out a gun and asked that she get undressed.  He
asked her to begin masturbating.  He masturbated.  At the same time he then
asked her to get up and perform oral sex on him.  He then pushed her back.  He
got on top of her, he tried to have intercourse, he did this in different positions,
including anal sex.  He got up at some point, went into the kitchen, brought back
a bottle, Durkee’s hot sauce bottle, which he said he inserted into her vagina.  He
made her take the bottle in and out.  He was masturbating at the same time.  He
became angry because he couldn’t reach climax and then he killed her.”
Oken, 327 Md. at 679, 612 A.2d at 283.
I now examine the present procedural status of the case.  After our resolution of the
direct appeal arising out of his trial court conviction and sentencing that I have referred to
above, Oken sought review of his case by the United States Supreme Court.  His Petition for
Certiorari was denied in 1993.  Oken v. Maryland, 507 U.S. 931, 113 S. Ct. 1312, 122 L. Ed.
2d 700 (1993).  He then filed a Petition for Post Conviction Relief with the trial court in
which he raised over fifty questions as to the lawfulness and constitutionality of his conviction
and sentence.  He was denied relief by the trial court in 1994.  Oken then sought leave to appeal
the decision of the trial court, which we granted.  We, however, found no error in the decision
of the trial court and affirmed its decision.  Oken v. State, 343 Md. 256, 681 A.2d 30 (1996).
Oken again sought to have the Supreme Court of the United States review his case.  That Court
declined to review it.  Oken v. Maryland, 519 U.S. 1079, 117 S. Ct. 742, 136 L. Ed. 2d 681
(1997).  Oken then filed a motion for this Court to reconsider our prior decision.  We declined
to do so.
In 1997, ten years after the body of Oken’s first victim was found, Oken filed a petition
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for habeas corpus relief with the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland.  Oken v.
Nuth, 30 F. Supp. 2d 877 (D. Md. 1998).  The United States District Court denied him any
relief.  Oken v. Nuth, 64 F. Supp. 2d 488 (D. Md. 1999).  Oken appealed that decision to the
United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.  That Court affirmed the District Court
decision denying relief to Oken.  Oken v. Corcoran, 220 F.3d 259 (4th Cir. 2000).  Oken then
sought review by the United States Supreme Court and that Court again declined to hear his
petition.  Oken v. Corcoran, 531 U.S. 1165, 121 S. Ct. 1126, 148 L. Ed. 2d 992 (2001).  In
February of 2001, Oken filed two motions in the circuit court.  One was to reopen his post-
conviction case and the other alleged that his sentence was illegal and that he should, therefore,
be awarded a new sentencing hearing.  The last motion was based upon his counsel’s
interpretation of the United States Supreme Court case of Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S.
466, 120 S. Ct. 2348, 147 L. Ed. 2d 435 (2000).  The trial court declined to grant him any
relief pursuant to these two motions.  He then filed a Motion for a New Trial alleging his
conviction was improper because of irregularity in the indictment that had been handed down
more than fifteen years before.  This motion was also based upon his counsel’s interpretation
of the Apprendi case.  His motion for new trial was denied by a different trial court judge.
Oken then appealed (in one fashion or another) the decisions below denying him relief on his
varying motions. 
His appeal was heard during the same period as the hearing in the case of Borchardt v.
State,______Md. _____,___A.2d ____, 2001 Md. LEXIS 941 (December 13, 2001).  Oken’s
counsel was also counsel for Borchardt.  The filing of this Court’s opinion in the Borchardt
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case (and the filing of the Court’s opinion in the case sub judice) was delayed for over five
months, partially because the Court wanted to consider a case presented by the defense in the
Oken case that had been proffered as applicable in the two cases.  Once the applicability of that
case was resolved, we filed the Court’s opinion in Borchardt, and then filed the Court’s
opinion in the instant case, adopting our reasoning in Borchardt.  As I indicated above, one of
the reasons for the delay in the filing of the opinions in the instant case and in the Borchardt
case, was created by counsel bringing to the Court’s attention a case counsel proffered was
applicable.  The Court ultimately found the case referred at that late date, to be inapplicable to
both cases.
Counsel has now referred another inapplicable case to this Court as the basis for further
delay by way of a stay of execution in this case.  That inapplicable case is the case of  Arizona
v. Ring, 200 Ariz. 267, 25 P.3d 1139, cert. granted, 2002 U.S. LEXIS 409 (January 11,
2002).  The Apprendi issue in Ring is whether the sentencing method in Arizona, where the
judge, not a jury, determines the sentence in a death penalty case, remains constitutional under
Apprendi’s holding.  The Supreme Court had previously held in Walton v. Arizona, 497 U.S.
639, 110 S. Ct. 3047, 111 L. Ed. 2d 511 (1990), that Arizona’s judge sentencing scheme was
constitutional.  The actual question upon which certiorari was granted in Ring is represented
to be:
“Should Walton v. Arizona be overruled in light of this court’s
subsequent holding, in Apprendi v. New Jersey, that for [the] legislature to
remove from jury assessment of facts that increase [the] prescribed range of
penalties to which [a] criminal defendant is exposed violates defendant’s Sixth
Amendment right to jury trial?”
-11-
Oken was tried and sentenced by a jury.  We do not have in Maryland, in death cases,
a sentencing scheme where the imposition of sentence is always by a judge.  It is the
defendant’s choice to be sentenced by a jury or a judge.  
Additionally, Ring’s argument in his petition is summarized by him as:
“This Court’s recent decisions place the continued viability of Walton
in grave doubt . . . .  There can be no serious question that this issue, which goes
to the constitutionality of the capital sentencing schemes currently in place in
nine States, is one of substantial public importance. . . .  Walton must and should
be reexamined promptly . . . .”
It is clear that Ring is a case limited to the constitutionality of state statutes where
sentencing in capital cases is limited to judges.  The capital sentencing scheme at issue in Ring
applies only in nine jurisdictions.  Maryland is not among those jurisdictions.  Every argument
made in the Petition for Writ of Certiorari in Ring is specifically referenced to the Walton
holding that found constitutional the Arizona capital sentencing scheme where judges, and only
judges, are permitted to impose the death sentence and in the process required to make factual
findings, a scheme completely unlike Maryland’s.  The arguments in Ring’s petition include:
“Furthermore, a number of State and federal courts, including the Arizona Supreme Court in
this case, have noted the irreconcilability of Walton and Apprendi.”  “It is plain that the
continued viability of Walton is in grave doubt . . . .”  “Moreover, the question of Walton’s
continued viability directly governs the constitutionality of the capital sentencing schemes in
effect not only in Arizona, but also in Montana, Idaho, Nebraska, Colorado, Florida, Alabama,
Indiana, and Delaware.”  (Footnotes omitted.)  “As long as Walton remains unexamined by this
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Court, every death sentence imposed, and every death sentence carried out, . . . [in] Arizona,
the eight other States enumerated above, . . . will be under a heavy cloud of constitutional
doubt.”  “Apprendi held that with the exception of the fact of prior conviction, every finding
of fact that raises the maximum punishment to which a defendant may be subjected must be
made by a jury.”  (Some emphasis added.)   “Arizona’s capital sentencing scheme provides that
the maximum penalty to which a criminal defendant is exposed may be increased on the basis
of factual findings made unilaterally by a judge.”   (Emphasis added.) 
It is clear that Ring concerns only the constitutionality of a capital sentencing scheme
where only a judge is permitted to determine the sentence, and in that process is permitted to
make factual findings. Under the system in Maryland, when a defendant, such as Oken chooses
to be sentenced by a jury, the judge is not involved, pre-sentencing, in any factual
determinations. Ring, in my view, simply does not address any determinative issue present in
the Maryland capital sentencing scheme and the purported reliance on it by Oken is merely an
assertion that is being used solely for purposes of delay.  
Oken, in responding to the State’s answer to his request for a stay, proffers that two
other cases have since been petitioned to the Supreme Court.  Neither of these two cases,
Harris v. United States, 243 F.3d 806 (4th Cir. 2001), cert. granted in part, ___ U.S. ___,
122 S. Ct. 663, 151 L. Ed. 2d 578, 2001 U.S. LEXIS10961 (2001) and United States v.
Cotton, 261 F.3d 397 (4th Cir. 2001), cert. granted, ___ U.S. ___, ___ S. Ct. ___, ___ L. Ed.
2d ___, 2002 U.S. LEXIS 9 (January 4, 2002) are death penalty cases and thus are not subject
to the Supreme Court’s clear statement in Apprendi that Apprendi does not apply to capital
-13-
sentencing schemes.  In an opinion written by Judge Diana Gribbon Motz, Harris was convicted
for carrying a handgun while drug trafficking.  She held that “brandishing” was a sentencing
factor, not an element of the offense.  The question presented to the Supreme Court is, “Given
that a finding of ‘brandishing’, as used in 18 U.S.C. Sec. 924(c)(1)(A), results in an increased
mandatory minimum sentence, must the fact of ‘brandishing’ be alleged in the indictment and
proved beyond a reasonable doubt?”  Oken does not involve mandatory minimum sentencing,
nor does the Maryland procedure questioned in Oken increase the statutorily established
maximum penalty of death.  Moreover, there is no penalty in this world beyond death.
Cotton was a case in which the State failed to allege in the indictment the amount of
narcotics involved when it was prosecuting an aggravated drug case.  The Fourth Circuit Court
of Appeals found that, as a result, he was convicted of an offense for which he had not been
charged.
Even if the defendants in Harris and Cotton prevail, I can see no impact on the case sub
judice.
It is true that Oken has until early April to file a Petition for Certiorari with the
Supreme Court, but he can file it at any time.  In fact, if this Court were to decline to issue a
stay, I have absolutely no doubt that a Petition would be filed with the Supreme Court before
the date Oken’s sentence is to be executed, along with the filing of a petition for stay of
execution.  He does not have to wait until the deadline to file his petition, although, with the
granting of this Court’s stay by the majority, I anticipate that he will wait, understandably, until
the last day in order that the execution of his sentence will be further delayed even if the
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Supreme Court declines to hear his case.  It is not like the Apprendi issue is new to his
counsel.  His counsel, in this and other death penalty cases, has been litigating Apprendi issues
in this Court for a year.  He can, should he choose to do so, now or post-petition to that Court,
request the Supreme Court to issue a stay.  That Court is in a better position than is this Court
to know whether it intends to address the Apprendi issue in a non-Ring context.
It has been over fifteen years since this serial murderer was first convicted of this
murder and sentenced to death.  His victims’ families have been waiting for the process to end
for more than a decade.  Now, because of a case out of Arizona that has only a remote
connection, if any at all, to the present case, this Court grants a stay of the execution of the
sentence.  This is twice in the last ten months that this case has been delayed by the claim that
some other case has pointed out an Apprendi issue impacting this case.  By the time the claim
of Ring is rejected as to the Maryland sentencing scheme and the claims of Harris and Cotton
are disposed of, some other state in some other, or even similar, manner will publish still
another case with Apprendi issues.  At that point, Oken will be back before this Court
requesting another stay.  I suppose he will find the votes for the granting of stays, ad infinitum.
The present members of this Court will ourselves be dead and gone and creative lawyers will
still be presenting foreign Apprendi cases, albeit to our successors.
I have great respect for my colleagues on the Court and acknowledge that the position
they have taken is one with which they are legally comfortable and is a position they feel is
dictated by their ethical and professional responsibilities.  Nonetheless, it is my feeling of
obligation to what I believe is my ethical and professional responsibility that compels me to
-15-
note that, after four trial court decisions decided against him, one United States District Court
decision against him, one Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals decision decided against him, four
unfavorable decisions by Maryland’s highest Court (counting a denial of a motion to
reconsider), and three occasions when the Supreme Court has declined to review the case, and,
not the least, after fifteen years, there comes a point, even in death penalty cases, when judges
should say that enough is enough.