Opinion ID: 2403588
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Taylor's Statement

Text: In light of our holding as to the Agreed Statement, the verdicts rendered below cannot stand. The deficiency is not one of legally insufficient evidence, however, but rather one of trial error  the procedure used to determine guilt. The case must therefore be remanded for new trial. Should the State wish to proceed, the issue of Taylor's statement to Detective Schreiber will likely arise again, and, as that issue was raised and decided in both the Circuit Court and the Court of Special Appeals and was included in the petition for certiorari, we shall address it, or at least one part of it. Because, unlike the two lower courts, we believe that Detective Schreiber did offer an improper inducement that was relied on by Taylor, we shall hold the statement to be involuntary under Maryland common law, and, as that will preclude its use in any retrial, we need not address the Miranda issue that was never raised or decided in the Circuit Court and should not have been addressed by the Court of Special Appeals. [7] Although, to the extent that Taylor repeatedly claimed that the sexual encounter was consensual, his statement was largely exculpatory, it was partly inculpatory as well. He not only conceded that he had engaged in vaginal intercourse with Ms. Carter on the day and at the place she alleged  a critical element of the offense  but, on the issue of consent, he acknowledged as well that (1) she initially resisted his efforts, and (2) she immediately claimed that what had occurred was rape. His complaint  that he was induced first to recite and then to put in writing that statement by Detective Schreiber's promise to intercede or make a recommendation to the commissioner with respect to pre-trial release  needs to be resolved. In Hillard v. State, 286 Md. 145, 153, 406 A.2d 415, 420 (1979), this Court, distilling earlier decisions dating back to Nicholson v. State, 38 Md. 140, 153 (1873), made clear, as a matter of Maryland common law, that if an accused is told, or it is implied, that making an inculpatory statement will be to his advantage, in that he will be given help or some special consideration, and he makes remarks in reliance on that inducement, his declaration will be considered to have been involuntarily made and therefore inadmissible. We have confirmed that principle on many occasions since Hillard. See Reynolds v. State, 327 Md. 494, 508-09, 610 A.2d 782, 789 (1992); Ball v. State, 347 Md. 156, 174-75, 699 A.2d 1170, 1178 (1997); Winder v. State, 362 Md. 275, 308-09, 765 A.2d 97, 115 (2001); Williams v. State, 375 Md. 404, 429, 825 A.2d 1078, 1093 (2003); Knight v. State, 381 Md. 517, 533-34, 850 A.2d 1179, 1188-89 (2004). As we pointed out in Winder, supra, 362 Md. at 309, 765 A.2d at 115, Hillard embodies a two-prong test: (1) did the officer promise[] or impl[y] to a suspect that he or she will be given special consideration from a prosecuting authority or some other form of assistance in exchange for the suspect's confession, and (2) did the suspect make[] a confession in apparent reliance on the police officer's statement. Although both prongs must be satisfied before an inculpatory statement may be held to be involuntary, the State has the burden of showing that an inculpatory statement is voluntary  that it was not made in reliance on a promise or inducement made by a police officer or agent of the police. Id. at 310, 765 A.2d at 116. We also confirmed in Winder that, because the issue of voluntariness is a mixed one of law and fact, we undertake a de novo review of the trial judge's ultimate determination. Id. at 310-11, 765 A.2d at 116. Circumstances analogous to those here were presented in Knight v. State, 381 Md. 517, 850 A.2d 1179 (2004). Knight actually involved two separate cases that were consolidated on appeal, Knight v. State and Sirbaugh v. State, and our disposition of those cases points the way to the conclusion in this case. In Sirbaugh, the suspect was informed by the police, during a custodial interrogation, that the officers would inform the State's Attorney `that when we asked a question he answered it.' We held that such a commitment did not constitute an improper inducement sufficient to render his ensuing inculpatory statement involuntary. We pointed out that the officer's statement was not a promise of help or special consideration because he had no discretion regarding such matters  that police officers had a professional duty to inform the prosecutor truthfully of the circumstances surrounding the investigation of a case so that the prosecutor is not surprised at trial. Knight, supra, 381 Md. at 535, 850 A.2d at 1190. In Knight's case, we reached a different result. The police there told the suspect not only that his cooperation `would be helpful' and that the State's Attorney would be informed of his cooperation, but that `down the line, after this case comes to an end, we'll see what the State's Attorney can do for you, with your case, with your charges.' Id. at 522, 850 A.2d at 1182. The latter commitment, we held, crossed the line; it was clearly a promise to exercise advocacy on Knight's behalf to convince the prosecutor to exercise discretion in Knight's favor. Id. at 537, 850 A.2d at 1190. In the end, we affirmed Knight's conviction because we were unable to conclude that the improper commitment actually induced the statement Knight sought to suppress. [8] In this case, as a backdrop to both prongs of the Hillard test, we note that Taylor was a 19-year-old youth with apparent, though unspecified, mental problems, who had just been subjected to a seven-to-eight hour drive by North Carolina sheriffs, without food or drink, who said that he was tired and wanted very much to go home. He made that point clear to Detective Schreiber several times  that he was hoping to be released by the commissioner until his trial date. Detective Schreiber knew, and later acknowledged, that, with Taylor facing charges of first degree rape and first degree assault involving the alleged use of a weapon, it was extremely unlikely that he was going to be released by the commissioner. Nonetheless, in response to Taylor's attempt to connect his cooperation with Schreiber to the prospect of his being released, Schreiber not only laid out the various options available to the commissioner, including release, as though all were equally possible, but he went on to offer the prospect of his making a recommendation to the commissioner that can assist them in making whatever decisions they make. That offer, to make a recommendation that can assist the commissioner in deciding whether to release Taylor, was tied tightly to Taylor's being cooperative with me this evening and clearly constituted an improper inducement  an implication that, if he cooperated by giving a statement of his version of the event to Detective Schreiber, he would be given help with the commissioner. Unquestionably, the reliance prong was satisfied here. Taylor refrained from giving an oral statement and resisted later giving a written one until after being assured that Schreiber would intercede with the commissioner. Both he and Schreiber continually tied his making a statement to what the commissioner might do. The resulting statements, therefore, were involuntary and, for that reason, inadmissible. JUDGMENT OF COURT OF SPECIAL APPEALS REVERSED; CASE REMANDED TO THAT COURT WITH INSTRUCTIONS TO REVERSE THE JUDGMENT OF THE CIRCUIT COURT FOR PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY AND REMAND THE CASE TO THAT COURT FOR A NEW TRIAL; COSTS IN THIS COURT AND IN COURT OF SPECIAL APPEALS TO BE PAID BY PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY.