Opinion ID: 1926022
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Denial of Motion to Preclude Death Penalty Proceeding

Text: Appellant argues that the trial court erred in denying his motion to preclude the State from seeking the death penalty based on alleged prosecutorial misconduct that resulted in the reversal of his conviction in Ware I. [15] Appellant filed two pre-trial motions addressed to the capital sentencing proceeding: a motion to dismiss the death notice due to prosecutorial misconduct and a motion to bar subsequent prosecution of the case. Both motions were based entirely on the alleged misconduct of the prosecutor before and during Ware's first trial as it relates to Edward Anderson and any State's promise of leniency for his testimony. The trial judge denied the motions, ruling as follows: As to the motions, the three motions that [defense counsel] argued, the first was the motion to dismiss the death notice due to prosecutorial misconduct, the court denies. As to the motion to bar subsequent prosecution because of prosecutorial misconduct, the court denies. And as to the motion to preclude the testimony of prospective witness Anderson, the court denies that.[ [16] ] All of those motions were predicated on prosecutorial misconduct, and if there is to be any sanctions along the lines that the defense is urging, it will have to come from the Appellate Courts, not from this court. So for those reasons, the court denies these motions. Appellant's argument is two-fold before this Court. He argues that fundamental fairness requires that the State be precluded from again seeking the death penalty. He also argues that Maryland's common law of double jeopardy bars the State from seeking the death penalty. The essence of his argument is that a genuine sanction for serious prosecutorial overreaching is necessary, beyond that of a reversal of the conviction and new trial, to create strong incentive for prosecutors to play by the rules. [17] Both arguments fail. The Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution [18] protects against successive prosecution as well as cumulative punishment and is applicable to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment. See State v. Griffiths, 338 Md. 485, 489, 659 A.2d 876, 878 (1995); Brown v. Ohio, 432 U.S. 161, 166, 97 S.Ct. 2221, 53 L.Ed.2d 187 (1977); Benton v. Maryland, 395 U.S. 784, 793, 89 S.Ct. 2056, 23 L.Ed.2d 707 (1969). Even though the Maryland Constitution has no express double jeopardy provision, there is protection against it under Maryland common law. See Gianiny v. State, 320 Md. 337, 347, 577 A.2d 795, 799 (1990); Pugh v. State, 271 Md. 701, 705, 319 A.2d 542, 544 (1974); State v. Barger, 242 Md. 616, 619, 220 A.2d 304, 306 (1966). The aspect of double jeopardy law that we are concerned with in this case is retrial following reversal upon a defendant's successful appeal. [19] A retrial following a reversal has always been permitted, see e.g., Lockhart v. Nelson, 488 U.S. 33, 38, 109 S.Ct. 285, 102 L.Ed.2d 265 (1988); Ball v. United States, 163 U.S. 662, 16 S.Ct. 1192, 41 L.Ed. 300 (1896), with the exception of a reversal based upon the insufficiency of the evidence. See United States v. DiFrancesco, 449 U.S. 117, 130, 101 S.Ct. 426, 66 L.Ed.2d 328 (1980); Burks v. United States, 437 U.S. 1, 11, 98 S.Ct. 2141, 57 L.Ed.2d 1 (1978); Mackall v. State, 283 Md. 100, 113, 387 A.2d 762, 769 (1978); Fields v. State, 96 Md.App. 722, 744, 626 A.2d 1037, 1048 (1993). Appellant looks to the mistrial/retrial species of double jeopardy as support for his argument that retrial should be barred as a sanction for prosecutorial misconduct. He seeks not only an application of the principles of Oregon v. Kennedy, 456 U.S. 667, 102 S.Ct. 2083, 72 L.Ed.2d 416 (1982), but an extension of the principles articulated in that case. Kennedy dealt only with the species of federal double jeopardy where a mistrial is declared at the request of the defendant. In the mistrial/retrial situation, the general rule is that the protection against double jeopardy is waived when a defense-requested mistrial is granted, see United States v. Scott, 437 U.S. 82, 93, 98 S.Ct. 2187, 57 L.Ed.2d 65 (1978), and Cornish v. State, 272 Md. 312, 318, 322 A.2d 880, 884 (1974), unless, under the very narrow exception set out in Kennedy, the mistrial motion was precipitated by judicial overreaching or deliberate prosecutorial misconduct intended to provoke or goad the defendant into making the motion. In Kennedy, the Supreme Court held that the circumstances under which such a defendant may invoke the bar of double jeopardy in a second effort to try him are limited to those cases in which the conduct giving rise to the successful motion for a mistrial was intended to provoke the defendant into moving for a mistrial. 456 U.S. at 679, 102 S.Ct. 2083. The Court was careful to point out that retrial following reversal on appealthe situation presented in the instant caseis governed by a different principle. This Court has consistently held that the Double Jeopardy Clause imposes no limitation upon the power of the government to retry a defendant who has succeeded in persuading a court to set his conviction aside, unless the conviction has been reversed because of the insufficiency of the evidence. Id. at 676 n. 6, 102 S.Ct. 2083. Kennedy provides no support for the proposition that barring capital re-prosecution is an appropriate response to the State's failure to disclose exculpatory evidence in violation of its obligation under Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963). Appellant has not identified any case where the United States Supreme Court has extended Kennedy to situations where convictions have been reversed on appeal due to prosecutorial misconduct and the retrial has been barred by double jeopardy. The short answer is that the standard announced in Kennedy has nothing to do with this case. Appellant concedes that his capital re-sentencing proceeding was not barred by the Double Jeopardy clause of the United States Constitution. No motion for mistrial based on prosecutorial misconduct was ever made, nor was a mistrial declared. Instead, Appellant was convicted and sentenced to death, followed by a reversal on appeal. He is asking this Court to mold Maryland's law of double jeopardy under common law principles [to hold that] ... where as here the State violates the rules in a manner potentially leading to the execution of a human being, the appropriate sanction is to preclude the possibility that the accused will be put to death as a result of subsequent proceedings in the same case. Appellant's brief at 65. Thus, we must decide whether Maryland common law double jeopardy principles bar a capital re-sentencing proceeding when the defendant never asked for a mistrial on the ground of prosecutorial misconduct. Appellant urges this Court to adopt, as a matter of common law, a stricter approach to double jeopardy than that taken in Kennedy, in order to sanction prosecutorial misconduct, at least in death penalty cases. To punish a prosecutor for creating grounds for reversal by violating the precepts of Brady, however, is not among the purposes of double jeopardy protection. [T]o require a criminal defendant to stand trial again after he has successfully invoked a statutory right of appeal to upset his first conviction is not an act of governmental oppression of the sort against which the Double Jeopardy Clause was intended to protect. United States v. Scott, 437 U.S. 82, 91, 98 S.Ct. 2187, 57 L.Ed.2d 65 (1978). As we stated in Tichnell v. State, 297 Md. 432, 440-41, 468 A.2d 1, 5 (1983): [Judicial misconduct] is significant for purposes of double jeopardy when a mistrial is declared at the behest of the defendant.... When a defendant's trial is completed and his conviction later reversed on appeal, different rules pertain. With some exceptions, the defendant who successfully challenges his conviction may be retried, under the rationale that the defendant wiped the slate clean and the parties may start anew. Jones v. State, 288 Md. 618, 625, 420 A.2d 1241, 1244 (1980), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 1115, 101 S.Ct. 928, 66 L.Ed.2d 845 (1981). Cf. Booth v. State, 301 Md. 1, 481 A.2d 505 (1984) (holding that pretrial prosecutorial misconduct does not result in double jeopardy bar unless intentionally calculated to result in mistrial); Bell v. State, 286 Md. 193, 205-06, 406 A.2d 909, 915-16 (1979) (holding that, even when prosecutorial misconduct results in mistrial, double jeopardy does not bar retrial unless misconduct committed intentionally to force mistrial). Although we do not condone the actions of the prosecutor in Ware I, we believe that Appellant was accorded the relief to which he was entitledreversal of his conviction on appeal. Under the circumstances presented herein, Maryland common law principles of double jeopardy do not bar the State from seeking the death penalty at re-sentencing. We find no error in the trial court's denial of the motion to preclude re-prosecution of the death penalty. A Brady violation has been treated consistently as a violation of an accused's due process right to a fair trial where the failure undermined confidence in the trial's outcome. Ex Parte Mitchell, 977 S.W.2d 575, 578 (Tex.Ct.Crim.App. 1997). The remedy for a Brady /due process violation is the reversal of the judgment of conviction and remand of the case for further proceedings, including retrial. See Kyles v. Whitley, 514 U.S. 419, 115 S.Ct. 1555, 131 L.Ed.2d 490 (1995); United States v. Bagley, 473 U.S. 667, 105 S.Ct. 3375, 87 L.Ed.2d 481 (1985); Brady, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215. We see no sound reason to impart a different standard. Other state courts similarly have declined to extend state law so as to bar, on double jeopardy grounds, retrials following reversals based on prosecutorial misconduct. See e.g. Fugitt v. State, 253 Ga. 311, 319 S.E.2d 829, 833-34 (1984); State v. Chase, 335 N.W.2d 630, 632 (Iowa 1983); State v. Swartz, 541 N.W.2d 533, 540-41 (Iowa Ct.App.1995); State v. Sage, 31 Ohio St.3d 173, 510 N.E.2d 343, 353-54 (1987); Ex parte Mitchell, 977 S.W.2d at 580-81. The same is true for some federal courts. See e.g. Beringer v. Sheahan, 934 F.2d 110, 114 (7th Cir.1991) (holding that a defendant who did not move for a mistrial on the basis of intentional prosecutorial misconduct cannot invoke the double jeopardy clause to bar the state from retrying him after his conviction is reversed on that ground). But see United States v. Wallach, 979 F.2d 912, 916 (2d Cir.1992) (holding that double jeopardy bars retrial after reversal of conviction where there has been intentional prosecutorial misconduct undertaken, not simply to prevent an acquittal, but to prevent an acquittal that the prosecutor believed at the time was likely to occur in the absence of his misconduct). [20]