Opinion ID: 2092690
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: consideration of antecedent events

Text: The first three issues raised by petitioner may be considered together. As part of his contention that Officer McGriff acted negligently and used unnecessary, unreasonable, and excessive force, petitioner urged that McGriff was remiss in entering the apartment late at night, in the dark, facing the prospect of seven armed men, without additional back-up, and that he was also remiss in not turning on the kitchen light before having Catterton open the closet. In support of those positions, he desired to offer into evidence certain guidelines and regulations of the Baltimore City Police Department and the testimony of Sergeant Laron Wilson, and he objected to a supplemental instruction to the jury directing it not to consider whether McGriff should have called for additional back-up or turned on the kitchen lights. The evidence was excluded and the instruction was given. We shall recite the relevant procedural background with respect to each of those matters, but they all hinge on whether it was appropriate for the jury to be allowed, essentially, to second-guess the decisions by Officers McGriff and Catterton to enter and search the apartment alone and to open the closet door without first turning on the kitchen light. The Batson issue, of course, is entirely separate. To set the stage for the discussion of the first three issues, it is important to keep in mind the context. As to each of the three claims against Officer McGriffbattery, gross negligence, and violation of rights under Article 26 of the Declaration of Rightsthe common issue was whether Officer McGriff acted reasonably when the closet door was opened and he saw what he regarded as an armed man about to fire on him. There was no dispute that, by shooting petitioner, McGriff intentionally caused a harmful touching and thus a battery. His defense was self-defensethat the touching was not unlawful-which brought into issue whether the deadly force was reasonable and used only as a last resort. To prove gross negligence, petitioner was required to prove that McGriff's conduct amounted to a reckless and wanton disregard of his rights, [4] and to establish a violation of his rights under Article 26the State counterpart of the Fourth Amendment-petitioner had to show that McGriff did not act with objective reasonableness, from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene. Clearly, by shooting petitioner, McGriff effected a seizure of him for purposes of Article 26. To make the requisite showings, petitioner wanted to present to the jury and have the jury determine that (1) the entire confrontation could have been avoided if McGriff and Catterton had not entered the apartment in the first place without additional back-up, and (2) McGriff would not have mistaken the unarmed petitioner for an armed person had he turned on the kitchen light before opening the closet. The reasonableness of McGriff's conduct, he contended, had to take into account, and indeed was governed by, this antecedent conduct which, in his view, violated established police procedure. He urges that the evidence sought to be presented established the violation and that the supplemental instruction precluded the jury from considering it.