Title: Abruquah v. State

State: maryland

Issuer: Maryland Supreme Court

Document:

Circuit Court for Prince George’s County 
Case No. CT12-1375X 
 
 
 
IN THE COURT OF APPEALS 
 
OF MARYLAND 
 
 
No. 34 
 
 
September Term, 2020 
 
 
 
          
KOBINA EBO ABRUQUAH 
 
 
v. 
 
 
STATE OF MARYLAND 
 
     
 
 
Barbera, C.J., 
McDonald 
Watts  
Hotten 
      
Getty 
Booth 
Biran,   
 
 
 JJ. 
 
 
 
PER CURIAM ORDER 
Watts and Hotten, JJ., dissent. 
 
 
 
Filed: October 27, 2020 
 
 
 
Pursuant to Maryland Uniform Electronic Legal 
Materials Act 
(§§ 10-1601 et seq. of the State Government Article) this document is authentic. 
 
 
 
 
 
Suzanne C. Johnson, Clerk 
2020-10-27 13:35-04:00
KOBINA EBO ABRUQUAH 
 
 
* 
IN THE 
 
        
 
 
 
 
 
* 
COURT OF APPEALS 
 
 
 
 
 
 
* 
OF MARYLAND 
v. 
 
 
 
 
 
* 
COA-REG-0034-2020 
 
* 
No. 34 
 
STATE OF MARYLAND 
 
  
* 
September Term, 2020 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
PER CURIAM ORDER 
 
                            
 
The Court having considered and granted the petition for a writ of certiorari in the 
above-captioned case, it is this 27th day of October, 2020, 
 
 
ORDERED, by the Court of Appeals of Maryland, that the judgment of the Court 
of Special Appeals is vacated and the case is remanded to that Court with direction to 
remand the case to the Circuit Court for Prince George’s County, pursuant to Maryland 
Rule 8-604(d)(1) without affirming or reversing the judgment of the Circuit Court, in order 
for the Circuit Court to consider whether, in light of this Court’s decision in Rochkind v. 
Stevenson, No. 47 (September Term, 2019), the Circuit Court would reach a different 
conclusion concerning the admission of firearm and toolmark identification testimony 
based on the extensive hearing already conducted by the Circuit Court and such further 
proceedings, if any, that the Circuit Court deems necessary.  Costs to be paid by Petitioner. 
 
/s/ Mary Ellen Barbera 
     Chief Judge 
 
 
 
IN THE COURT OF APPEALS 
 
OF MARYLAND 
 
No. 34 
 
September Term, 2020 
______________________________________ 
 
KOBINA EBO ABRUQUAH 
 
v. 
 
STATE OF MARYLAND 
______________________________________ 
 
Barbera, C.J. 
McDonald 
Watts 
Hotten 
Getty 
Booth 
Biran, 
 
JJ. 
______________________________________ 
 
Dissenting Opinion by Watts, J.,  
which Hotten, J., joins. 
______________________________________ 
 
Filed: October 27, 2020 
 
Circuit Court for Prince George’s County 
Case No. CT12-1375X  
 
Respectfully, I dissent from the Majority’s decision to grant the petition for a writ 
of certiorari, vacate the Court of Special Appeals’s judgment, and remand (“GVR”) for 
reconsideration in light of Stanley Rochkind v. Starlena Stevenson, ___ Md. ___, ___ A.3d 
___, No. 47, Sept. Term, 2019, 2020 WL 5085877, at *2 (Md. Aug. 28, 2020), 
reconsideration denied (Sept. 25, 2020).  In short, the GVR that the Majority orders is a 
waste of judicial resources because the circuit court has already conducted an extensive 
hearing over the course of six days on a motion in limine to exclude firearm or toolmark 
identification testimony filed by Petitioner, and the issue concerning the application of 
Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharm., Inc., 509 U.S. 579 (1993), is not preserved for appellate 
review.  In this case, Petitioner’s line of attack on the State’s expert opinion was based on 
the contention that the method that the expert used to tie him to the murder—firearms 
toolmark examination—was no longer generally accepted, i.e., failed to pass muster under 
the Frye-Reed1 standard, and Petitioner questioned the reliability of the expert’s 
methodology.  As the Court of Specials noted, the Circuit Court for Prince George’s 
County “declin[ed] to hold a Frye-Reed hearing[,]” Kobina Ebo Abruquah v. State, No. 
2176, Sept. Term, 2018, 2020 WL 261722, at *6 (Md. Ct. Spec. App. Jan. 17, 2020), but 
nonetheless conducted an extensive evidentiary hearing, see id. at *1-2.  During the 
hearing, the circuit court heard testimony from expert witnesses for Petitioner and the State 
and admitted documents concerning firearms examination into evidence.  Following the 
hearing, the circuit court issued a written opinion and order denying Petitioner’s motion in 
 
1See Frye v. United States, 293 F. 1013 (D.C. Cir. 1923); Reed v. State, 283 Md. 
374, 391 A.2d 364 (1978). 
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part and granting it in part.  In the opinion, the circuit court determined that toolmark 
examination remains generally accepted and reliable “under the Frye-Reed standard” and 
ruled that the expert could give an opinion as to whether bullets recovered from the victim 
could be attributed to a gun recovered from Petitioner, but could not state the opinion in 
terms of “absolute or scientific certainty[.]”2   
In sum, both the circuit court and the Court of Special Appeals determined that the 
expert’s testimony was admissible despite Petitioner’s arguments otherwise.  As a result of  
this Court’s GVR, the circuit court, and potentially the Court of Special Appeals, will need 
to spend time and effort determining whether in light of this Court’s decision in Rochkind 
it “would reach a different conclusion concerning the admission of firearm and toolmark 
identification testimony” and assessing entirely different grounds for possibly excluding 
the expert’s testimony than those advanced initially in the circuit court, and ones that 
Petitioner never raised as a challenge—namely, whether firearms toolmark examination in 
general, or the expert’s testimony about it in particular, satisfies Daubert.  The question in 
this case that both the circuit court and the Court of Special Appeals addressed is whether 
toolmark examination is generally accepted in the relevant scientific community and 
whether the methodology used by the expert was reliable.  It appears that nothing in the 
record in this case indicates that there would be any further basis for a Daubert challenge 
to the expert’s testimony or to firearms toolmark examination.  The GVR in this case would 
 
2In the circuit court, Petitioner was convicted of first-degree murder and use of a 
handgun in the commission of a crime of violence and sentenced to life imprisonment plus 
twenty years. 
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require the circuit court, and/or the Court of Special Appeals, to readdress matters that have 
already been decided and to entertain a Daubert challenge that Petitioner never made, and 
that the record does not appear to give a basis for. 
Any issue as to whether the circuit court was required to conduct a Daubert hearing, 
and/or engage in a Daubert analysis, is not preserved for appellate review because it was 
neither “raised in [n]or decided by the [circuit] court[,]”3 Md. R. 8-131(a), and none of the 
three questions that Petitioner presented in the petition for a writ of certiorari pertain to 
Daubert.  Instead, in a footnote in the petition for a writ of certiorari, Petitioner stated that, 
if this Court replaced the Frye-Reed standard with the Daubert standard in Rochkind, here, 
“it could evaluate the reliability of the methodology using Daubert.”  (Citing Savage v. 
State, 455 Md. 138, 175 n.1, 166 A.3d 183, 204 n.1 (2017) (Adkins, J., concurring)). 
In Rochkind, 2020 WL 5085877, at *18, this Court reasoned that its holding would 
apply to “any other cases that [were] pending on direct appeal when [the] opinion [was] 
filed, where the relevant question ha[d] been preserved for appellate review.”  (Cleaned 
up).  This Court also stated: “In this context, the ‘relevant question’ is whether a trial court 
erred in admitting or excluding expert testimony under Maryland Rule 5-702 or Frye-
Reed.”  Rochkind, 2020 WL 5085877, at *18.  As explained in the dissent: 
 
3In his opening brief in the Court of Special Appeals, Petitioner mentioned Daubert 
by quoting the following language from Sissoko v. State, 236 Md. App. 676, 707-08, 182 
A.3d 874, 892, cert. denied, 460 Md. 1, 188 A.3d 917 (2018): “[O]ur jurisprudence . . . has 
‘drift[ed]’ toward the Daubert standard, in that the Court of Appeals 1) has used the Frye-
Reed test ‘not only to evaluate scientific methods, but also to assess scientific conclusions’; 
and 2) has applied the Frye-Reed test to established, as well as novel, scientific methods.”  
(Quoting Savage v. State, 455 Md. 138, 187, 180-81, 166 A.3d 183, 212, 208-09 (2017) 
(Adkins, J., concurring)) (second alteration in original). 
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In Griffith v. Kentucky, 479 U.S. 314, 322 (1987), the Supreme Court held 
that not applying a newly announced constitutional rule to criminal cases 
pending on direct appeal is not consistent with basic principles of 
constitutional adjudication.  In light of the Supreme Court’s holding in 
Griffith, in some instances, this Court has given the application of new 
holdings to cases that were pending on appeal, where the new holding 
involved an issue of constitutional significance in criminal law.  See, e.g., 
Hackney v. State, 459 Md. 108, 119, 184 A.3d 414, 421 (2018); State v. 
Daughtry, 419 Md. 35, 77 n.26, 18 A.3d 60, 85 n.26 (2011).  Neither the 
holding in Griffith concerning the application of a newly announced 
constitutional rule nor the application of Griffith in Kazadi v. State, 467 Md. 
1, 47, 223 A.3d 554, 581 (2020), and Daughtry would apply to a change of 
the evidentiary standard for use under Maryland Rule 5-702. 
 
Rochkind, id. at *29 n.6 (Watts, J., dissenting). 
Although the Majority determined otherwise—i.e., that its holding in Rochkind 
would apply to cases that were pending on appeal where the relevant question is 
preserved—this does not mean that the Majority is required to automatically apply its 
holding to any such case.  The Majority should still exercise discretion in determining 
whether to GVR and, in my view, should not do so where the case involves a determination 
by the trial court after a thorough and lengthy hearing and an affirmance by the Court of 
Special Appeals, where no real issue exists with respect to the application of Daubert.  
More troubling, the GVR order issued by this Court vacates the judgment of the Court of 
Special Appeals and remands the case to the circuit court “without affirming or reversing 
the judgment of the Circuit Court,” and tasks the circuit court with considering whether it 
would reach a different decision about the admissibility of the expert testimony in light of 
Daubert.  This order provides no guidance to the circuit court as to what proceedings to 
conduct in order to determine whether it would now change its ruling.  For example, is the 
circuit court to seek memoranda or input of any kind from the parties, conduct an 
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evidentiary or non-evidentiary hearing, or make a decision based on the existing record?  
And, after the circuit court determines the manner in which it will proceed, in what form 
should its determination be rendered, and will its determination be immediately 
appealable?  Although the order may sound appropriate and thoughtful, it is an unusual 
order with no clear path to be followed.  Aside from the obvious problems with the GVR 
order, because the issue concerning the applicability of Daubert was not raised at trial, and 
the circuit court has already conducted a lengthy and detailed hearing concerning the 
admissibility of the expert testimony at issue, the GVR that the Majority orders is 
unwarranted. 
For the above reasons, respectfully, I dissent. 
Judge Hotten authorizes me to state that she joins in this dissent.