Opinion ID: 2357814
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: The Application of the Law to the Facts

Text: The forelady first announced the verdicts of the jury to be not guilty of the murder and robbery charges and guilty of the weapon charge. On the first poll of her, she verified (albeit not without uncertainty) that the verdicts as she had announced them were her verdicts. On the poll of the other eleven jurors, each of them said that his verdict was not guilty on the murder charge and on the robbery charge. But on the weapon charge, five of the eleven jurors gave a verdict of not guilty and five of them gave a verdict of guilty. The remaining juror initially said that his verdict was not guilty but then promptly changed it to guilty. When the forelady was polled a second time because she was hesitant on the first poll, she declared her verdict to be guilty on each of the three charges. Smith asserts that his appeal turns upon whether once the first poll had been concluded verdicts of not guilty had been rendered on the first two counts, which we take to mean the murder charge and the armed robbery charge. He then looks to Givens as holding that once the assent of the jury is expressed by a poll, the verdict of the jury is perfected, and to Pugh as holding that when the verdict is so perfected it is final and the defendant cannot later be retried on or found guilty of the same charge. He claims that these cases support his conclusion that he could not be retried on either the charge of murder or armed robbery. [12] It is perfectly obvious that the jury did not reach a unanimous final verdict on any of the three charges before them. The verdicts which were initially announced by the forelady as being the verdicts of the jury were never even hearkened, and, in any event, were undermined by the subsequent polling. The verdicts with respect to the murder charge and the armed robbery charge, which as given on the first polling were unanimous (the verdict on the weapon charge was in total disarray), were never accepted as the verdicts of the jury, and, on the second polling of the forelady, proved not to be the agreement of all twelve jurors. We find no error on the part of the judge in permitting the forelady to be polled a second time at the request of the State. We first note that the forelady, upon inquiry by the judge, indicated that she wanted to be polled again and that defense counsel interposed no objection. The forelady's response to the first poll was not entirely free of equivocation, ambiguity and evasiveness. The judge was in a position of assessing this initial response of the juror, giving due consideration to her demeanor, appearance and tone of voice. The judge apparently believed that the first poll did not reflect the forelady's true intent, and we cannot say that allowing the second polling was an abuse of judicial discretion. We observe that there is not the slightest indication that the judge in any way did anything amounting to coercion or tending to influence the verdict. The short of it is that, in the circumstances, the verdicts were in the province of the jury until the jury were discharged upon their inability to agree. The trial judge has a wide discretion in the conduct of a trial. The exercise of that discretion will not be disturbed unless it has been clearly abused. Poole v. State, 295 Md. 167, 180, 453 A.2d 1218 (1983); Wilhelm v. State, 272 Md. 404, 413, 326 A.2d 707 (1974). There was an aura of confusion hovering over the entire attempt to receive the verdicts of the jury. The judge did not abuse her judicial discretion when she sent the jury back to the jury room for further deliberation. The verdicts of the jury as presented to the trial court did not reflect an actual agreement of the jury and did not represent a final acquittal on any of the charges. It follows that Smith was not placed twice in jeopardy by the retrial which came about by reason of the jury's failure to agree on their verdicts. See Cornish v. State, 272 Md. 312, 318, 322 A.2d 880 (1974). JUDGMENT OF THE COURT OF SPECIAL APPEALS AFFIRMED. COSTS TO BE PAID BY PETITIONER.