Opinion ID: 1488269
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Victim participation

Text: Code (1957, 1982 Repl.Vol.) Art. 27, § 413(g)(2) provides that a mitigating factor shall be that [t]he victim was a participant in the defendant's conduct or consented to the act which caused the victim's death. Huffington contends that Hudson was a participant in the conduct leading to his death and hence Huffington was entitled as a matter of law to this mitigating factor. Art. 27, § 413(g), enacted by Ch. 3 of the Acts of 1978, is modeled after § 210.6(4)(c) of the Model Penal Code. The latter states relevant to mitigating factors, The victim was a participant in the defendant's homicidal conduct or consented to the homicidal act. There are no relevant cases, annotations, or legislative references concerning either section which we have been able to find. Accordingly, the commentary note to the Model Code provision is of importance. II Model Penal Code and Commentaries, § 210.6 (1980) states: Paragraph (c) addresses the case where the victim is partially responsible for his own death. This circumstance obtains chiefly in two kinds of situations. First, there are occasions in which the defendant and his victim are engaged jointly in an activity highly dangerous to each. If each person's participation depends upon the cooperation of the other, a murder conviction may lie for the death of one actor, even though both share responsibility. An example may be the case of Russian roulette, at least where the defendant actually fires the shot that kills his partner. A second situation within the scope of Paragraph (c) is the true mercy killing. There the defendant's homicidal act may not have occurred had the victim not consented to it. In either of these contexts, the conduct of the victim in bringing about his own death deserves consideration as a mitigating factor in assigning a death sentence. Id. at 140-41. Huffington contends: Hudson's activity falls within the first situation. Accompanying known drug dealers to a rural area in the middle of the night has much in common with `Russian roulette'  the chance of becoming a victim of crime in that circumstance is probably better than one in six. Hudson's activity was illegal, foreseeably dangerous, and very much a part of Appellant's conduct. Absent the victim's participation in this illegal and dangerous activity, there would have been no murder. The mitigating factor should have been returned and considered. (Emphasis in original.) Kanaras testified as to Hudson's death: Ah, I parked the car, and where the car was parked it wasn't too much room on each side of the road, it was like a slight embankment on one side and an embankment on the other side, so two people really couldn't fit together coming out of the car, so I got out of the driver's side of the car and Joe Hudson got out of the passenger side of the car, and we met at the  the back of the car, and John Huffington was right behind too, about three or four steps, and as we walked up to the house, that's when I heard these shots  four or five shots rang out, and I saw Joe Hudson fall  fall to the ground to his  on his side, and he rolled  he rolled over.... This was the evidence before the jury. It does not make Hudson out as a participant in Huffington's conduct which caused Hudson's death. According to the testimony Hudson and Huffington were joint participants and co-conspirators in an alleged drug sale. The conduct which caused Hudson's death related to Huffington's carrying and concealing a loaded pistol and the firing of such pistol at Hudson's back. It is beyond the stretch of anyone's imagination to say that Hudson participated in this conduct. We have recently stated, It is the accused's burden to prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, the existence of a mitigating circumstance. [Section] 413(g); Tichnell v. State, 287 Md. 695, 730, 415 A.2d 830, 848-49 (1980). Stebbing v. State, 299 Md. 331, 361, 473 A.2d 903, 918 (1984). In the case at bar Huffington failed to carry his burden concerning proof of the mitigating factor that Hudson participated in the acts causing his death. Moreover, the issue was not presented to the trial court. Hence, it is deemed waived. Rule 885.