Opinion ID: 1985092
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Maryland Law

Text: The choice, therefore, is whether to adopt the Chagra/Croft approach or that of California and Michigan. Both this Court and, in earlier cases, the Court of Special Appeals, have effectively made that choice, adopting the California/Michigan approach and holding that conspiracy to commit murder necessarily constitutes conspiracy to commit first degree murder, but we have done so in almost ex cathedra fashion, without analysis. The Court of Special Appeals first reached that conclusion 20 years ago in Wise v. State, 47 Md.App. 656, 670, 425 A.2d 652, 660, cert. denied, 454 U.S. 863, 102 S.Ct. 322, 70 L.Ed.2d 163 (1981), and Bell v. State, 48 Md.App. 669, 680, 429 A.2d 300, 306 (1981). In Wise, the issue was one of collateral estoppelwhether a previous acquittal for conspiracy to murder X precluded, in a subsequent trial for the murder of X, hearsay evidence of the efforts made to hire the defendant to perform the killing. It was in that context that the court, without citation to any authority, stated that [a]lthough all conspiracies must presuppose elements of premeditation and deliberation, the converse was not true. Wise, 47 Md.App. at 670, 425 A.2d at 660. In Bell, the defendant was sentenced to life imprisonment for conspiracy to murder her husband based on the judge's finding that the murder she conspired to commit was first degree murder. On appeal, Bell complained that, because the issue of premeditation had not been submitted to the jury, it was improper for the judge to draw that inference and make that finding. In rejecting that argument, the court, citing Wise, held that [i]f one conspires to murder, however, the conspiracy itself is the premeditating factor raising the underlying crime from a second to a first degree offense. Bell, 48 Md.App. at 680, 429 A.2d at 306. [3] In Gary v. State, 341 Md. 513, 671 A.2d 495 (1996), the defendant was convicted of conspiracy to commit first degree murder, for which he was sentenced to life imprisonment. His complaint on appeal was that the sentence exceeded the statutory maximum. We rejected that complaint, but, in a footnote to our statement that he had been convicted of conspiracy to commit first degree murder, we observed: Where, as in the instant case, the object of a conspiracy is to kill, the appropriate charge may be conspiracy to commit first degree murder. See Bell v. State, 48 Md.App. 669, 680, 429 A.2d 300, 306 (1981) (`If one conspires to murder... the conspiracy itself is the premeditating factor raising the underlying crime from a second to a first degree offense'). Id. at 517 n. 2, 671 A.2d 495. In this case, the Court of Special Appeals attempted to distinguish Wise and Bell and held that, by using the word may in our footnote in Gary, we left open the prospect of may not. Although we think that is a strained and unpersuasive reading of our footnote, it is important that we give a reasoned basis for our conclusion. In Maryland, conspiracy remains a common law crime. Johnson v. State, 362 Md. 525, 766 A.2d 93 (2001). We have described the offense as follows: A criminal conspiracy consists of the combination of two or more persons to accomplish some unlawful purpose, or to accomplish a lawful purpose by unlawful means. The essence of a criminal conspiracy is an unlawful agreement. The agreement need not be formal or spoken, provided there is a meeting of the minds reflecting a unity of purpose and design. In Maryland, the crime is complete when the unlawful agreement is reached, and no overt act in furtherance of the agreement need be shown. See Townes v. State, 314 Md. 71, 75, 548 A.2d 832, 834 (1988); Apostoledes v. State, 323 Md. 456, 461-62, 593 A.2d 1117, 1120 (1991); Campbell v. State, 325 Md. 488, 495-96, 601 A.2d 667, 670 (1992). [4] Although a conspiracy may be shown by circumstantial evidence, from which a common design may be inferred, Seidman v. State, 230 Md. 305, 322, 187 A.2d 109, 119 (1962), cert. denied, 374 U.S. 807, 83 S.Ct. 1696, 10 L.Ed.2d 1031 (1963), the requirement that there must be a meeting of the mindsa unity of purpose and designmeans that the parties to a conspiracy, at the very least, must (1) have given sufficient thought to the matter, however briefly or even impulsively, to be able mentally to appreciate or articulate the object of the conspiracythe objective to be achieved or the act to be committed, and (2) whether informed by words or by gesture, understand that another person also has achieved that conceptualization and agrees to cooperate in the achievement of that objective or the commission of that act. Absent that minimum level of understanding, there cannot be the required unity of purpose and design. As other courts have consistently held, therefore, conspiracy is necessarily a specific intent crime; there must exist the specific intent to join with another person in the accomplishment of an unlawful purpose or a lawful purpose by unlawful means. When the object of the conspiracy is the commission of another crime, as in conspiracy to commit murder, the specific intent required for the conspiracy is not only the intent required for the agreement but also, pursuant to that agreement, the intent to assist in some way in causing that crime to be committed. That conclusion is compelled not only by force of logic but is implicit from the two statutes that deal with the general crime of conspiracy Article 27, § 40 which makes an indictment for conspiracy sufficient if it alleges that the defendants unlawfully conspired together to murder X-Y (or other conspiracy here stating briefly the object of the conspiracy) ... and Article 27, § 38, which limits the punishment for a criminal conspiracy to the maximum punishment allowed for the offense [the defendant] conspired to commit. Although the gravamen of the crime of conspiracy is the unlawful agreement, the second phase of the specific intent required is adjunctive to the criminal objective, whether or not that objective is ever achieved. Thus, if the conspiracy is to commit murder, the intent must be to commit (or have someone commit) those acts that would constitute murder. Under Maryland law, murder remains a common law crime that, by statute, has been divided into two degrees. Hook v. State, 315 Md. 25, 553 A.2d 233 (1989); Bruce v. State, 317 Md. 642, 566 A.2d 103 (1989); Burch v. State, 346 Md. 253, 696 A.2d 443, cert. denied, 522 U.S. 1001, 118 S.Ct. 571, 139 L.Ed.2d 410 (1997). Sections 407 through 410 of Article 27 make certain specified kinds of murder in the first degreemurder perpetrated by means of poison, lying in wait, or by any kind of wilful, deliberate and premeditated killing (§ 407), murder committed in the perpetration or attempt to perpetrate arson in the first degree (§ 408), murder committed in the burning or attempt to burn certain agricultural buildings (§ 409), and murder committed in the perpetration or attempt to perpetrate certain other specified felonies (§ 410). Section 411 makes all other kinds of murder murder in the second degree. Although second degree murder, as characterized by § 411, is a broad class all other kinds of murderwe have defined it more precisely as embracing four kinds of murder. In Burch, supra, 346 Md. 253, 274, 696 A.2d 443, 454, we observed, as of 1997, when Burch was decided, that second degree murder embraced a killing accompanied by any of at least three alternative states of mind ( mentes reae ): killing another person (other than by poison or lying in wait) with the intent to kill, but without the deliberation and premeditation required for first degree murder; killing another person with the intent to inflict such serious bodily harm that death would be the likely result; and what has become known as depraved heart murdera killing resulting from `the deliberate perpetration of a knowingly dangerous act with reckless and wanton unconcern and indifference as to whether anyone is harmed or not.' Id. (quoting in part from Robinson v. State, 307 Md. 738, 744, 517 A.2d 94, 97 (1986), quoting, in turn, from DeBettencourt v. State, 48 Md.App. 522, 530, 428 A.2d 479, 484 (1981)). We left open in Burch whether there was a fourth category of second degree murdermurder committed in the perpetration of a felony other than one specified in § 410. That issue is presently pending before this Court in Fisher and Utley v. State (Sept. Term 1999, No. 113) and Deese v. State (Sept. Term 1999, No. 138). The charge at issue here, articulated in Count 7 of the indictment, was of the first variety of second degree murder. The conspiracy alleged was the agreement actually to kill Mr. Arias, other than by poison or lying in wait, with the intent to kill, but without the deliberation and premeditation required of first degree murder. As noted, it charged petitioner with conspiring with Ellis, with malice aforethought, to kill and murder Mr. Arias. There was no allegation that the conspiracy was merely to inflict such grievous bodily injury that death would be the likely result, to commit a dangerous act with wanton disregard of whether death would be the likely result, or to commit a felony not included in § 410. We need not determine, therefore, whether a conspiracy to commit any of those forms of second degree murder constitutes a crime, but deal here only with whether it is unlawful to conspire to commit the first form of second degree murder. The element that distinguishes this form of second degree murder from first degree murder is that of deliberation and premeditation. For murder to be `deliberate' there must be a full and conscious knowledge of the purpose to kill; and to be `premeditated' the design to kill must have preceded the killing by an appreciable length of time, that is, time enough to be deliberate. Tichnell v. State, 287 Md. 695, 717, 415 A.2d 830, 842 (1980). We added in Tichnell, however, that [i]t is unnecessary that the deliberation or premeditation shall have existed for any particular length of time. Id. at 717-18, 415 A.2d at 842. Appreciable length of time simply means any amount of time sufficient to convince the trier of fact that the purpose to kill was not `the immediate offspring of rashness and impetuous temper,' but was the product of a mind `fully conscious of its own design.' Willey v. State, 328 Md. 126, 133, 613 A.2d 956, 959 (1992). Quoting from Colvin v. State, 299 Md. 88, 108, 472 A.2d 953, 963, cert. denied, 469 U.S. 873, 105 S.Ct. 226, 83 L.Ed.2d 155 (1984), we confirmed in Willey that [i]f the killing results from a choice made as the result of thought, however short the struggle between the intention and the act, it is sufficient to characterize the crime as deliberate and premeditated murder. Willey, supra, 328 Md. at 133, 613 A.2d at 959. Indeed, a delay between firing a first and second shot is enough time for reflection and decision to justify a finding of premeditation. Hunt v. State, 345 Md. 122, 161, 691 A.2d 1255, 1274, cert. denied, 521 U.S. 1131, 117 S.Ct. 2536, 138 L.Ed.2d 1036 (1997) and cases cited therein. When we examine these concepts together, it becomes clear that the kind of awareness and reflection necessary to achieve the unity of purpose and design for a conspiracy is essentially the same as that required for deliberation and premeditation. We think that the California court in Cortez and the Michigan court in Hammond were entirely correct in their analysisthat where the charge is made and the evidence shows that the defendant conspired to kill another person unlawfully and with malice aforethought, the conspiracy is necessarily one to commit murder in the first degree (even if a murder pursuant to the conspiracy never occurs or, for whatever reason, amounts to a second degree murder), as the agreement itself, for purposes of the conspiracy, would supply the necessary deliberation and premeditation. We are unable to follow the metaphysical analysis of Chagra or the intermediate appellate court in this case, that spontaneity or acting on impulse can, at the same time, suffice to establish an agreement to murder but not suffice to constitute the deliberation and premeditation that distinguishes first from this form of second degree murder, as we have defined those concepts. That kind of inconsistency would either broaden the crime of conspiracy, by eroding the specific intent necessary for that crime, or create greater uncertainty in the meaning of deliberation and premeditation. The problem may be in confusing the nature and effect of impulse. Although it is true that a murder committed solely on impulsethe immediate offspring of rashness and impetuous temper is not one committed with deliberation and premeditation, the law does not require that deliberation and premeditation be the product of clear and rational thought; it may well result from anger or impulse. The test for first degree murder is whether there was the deliberation and premeditationsufficient time to reflect not the quality or rationality of the reflection or whether it may have been emotionally based. For these reasons, we shall reverse the judgment of the Court of Special Appeals. Conspiracy to commit this form of second degree murder is not a crime in Maryland. JUDGMENT OF COURT OF SPECIAL APPEALS REVERSED; CASE REMANDED TO THAT COURT WITH INSTRUCTIONS TO REVERSE JUDGMENT ENTERED ON COUNT 7 OF THE INDICTMENT AND REMAND FOR FURTHER PROCEEDINGS WITH RESPECT TO COUNT 8 (CONSPIRACY TO COMMIT FIRST DEGREE ASSAULT) THAT WAS MERGED INTO THE CONVICTION ON COUNT 7; COSTS IN THIS COURT AND COURT OF SPECIAL APPEALS TO BE PAID BY PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY.