Opinion ID: 2326635
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: evidentiary and procedural background

Text: The State's case at trial demonstrated that, on the evening of 3 October 2005, Nae Chun Pak, the owner of the Cherry Hill Carry-Out on Cherry Hill Road in Baltimore City, was shot and killed in his store. An employee of the store, who testified that Langley was a regular customer of the store, identified Langley at trial as the assailant. The employee testified that he first saw Langley that evening at around 6:00 pm, when he was arguing with Pak at the security window in the store where customers order their food; apparently, Langley was demanding a refund for a cheesesteak sandwich he purchased that was not to his liking. Pak obliged, and Langley left the store. The employee testified further that Langley returned less than an hour later. Pak, with the store busy at the time, was taking orders from a line of customers. Langley pushed one customer aside, raised his arm, and fired one shot at Pak. The employee, having dove to the floor behind the counter, rose to assess the situation and noticed Pak laying on the floor. As Langley was leaving the store, one Herbert Stokes was waiting on the street in his tow-truck for an acquaintance to get him a bottle of water from a store across the street from the Cherry Hill Carry-Out. After hearing a gunshot, Stokes saw people streaming out of the Cherry Hill Carry-Out, one of whom he identified in the courtroom at trial as Langley. He witnessed Langley get in what he believed to be a white Oldsmobile and drive away. Subsequently, Stokes selected Langley's photograph from a photo array as the person who looked like the man who came out of the store and got in the white car. [1] Additional evidence about the presence of a white car and a description of the assailant were recounted to a 9-1-1 dispatcher by another person, apparently a female located outside the Carry-Out (who, for some unknown reason, was not produced to testify at trial). Over defense objection, a recording of the 9-1-1-tape recording was admitted into evidence and played for the jury. The following was heard on the recording: 9-1-1 Operator: Baltimore City operator number 1316. What would you like, [police], fire or ambulance? Caller: I just want to give some information on a shooting that just occurred at Cherry Hill Shopping Center. 9-1-1 Operator: Okay. Let me call the District for that. Let me give you a District number because I don't have that information here. Caller: Go ahead. [Hurry up. It just happening.] [2] 9-1-1 Operator: Are you Caller: I seen the guy get in the car. Will you give me the number or not? 9-1-1 Operator: Ma'am, you can (phone rings) Caller: Hello? 9-1-1 Operator: Ma'am, you just told me that you had to give information not get information. Caller: I mean 9-1-1 Operator: Where do you want to have the Officer sent to? Caller: I don't want them sent nowhere. They already going out to the store. But the guy, I seen him get in the car. Tag number MRG 908. 9-1-1 Operator: Do you know what type of car it was? Caller: No, I don't know the type of car. All I know it's white. 9-1-1 Operator: Four door? Caller: Look like it might have been a four door. I did look at the tag number and it looked like MRG 908. 9-1-1 Operator: Do you know what he was wearing? Caller: No. Looked like jeans or something in a T-shirt. 9-1-1 Operator: T-shirt, was it dark or light? Caller: Kind of light. He didn't have no mask, he didn't have no hat, he didn't have nothing on. 9-1-1 Operator: Was he a light-complected man? Caller: Kind of brown skinned. I didn't know what kind of car it was. 9-1-1 Operator: Now, he was wearing a light top and he was a brown complected man? Caller: Don't quote me on the color. 9-1-1 Operator: Yes, ma'am. Caller: I just will tell you about the tag because I looked at it, MRG 908. 9-1-1 Operator: Maryland tag? Caller: Yes, I believe so. I didn't even look at that. 9-1-1 Operator: What hundred block is that? Caller: It's in the Cherry Hill Shopping Center. I think that's the 600 block. 9-1-1 Operator: At Cherry Hill Road? Caller: Yes, Cherry Hill Road. 9-1-1 Operator: Cherry Hill? Caller: Yes. 9-1-1 Operator: Thank you. The trial court admitted this portion of the tape, explaining that [t]he whole tape from the beginning up until after the tag number was given is an excited utterance and admissible. Ultimately, the jury convicted Langley of first-degree murder, use of a handgun in the commission of a crime of violence, and wearing or carrying a handgun. The trial judge imposed a sentence of life-imprisonment for murder, a consecutive twenty-year term for use of a handgun, and a concurrent three-year term for wearing or carrying a handgun. Langley noted timely an appeal to the Court of Special Appeals. The panel of the intermediate appellate court, in an unreported opinion, relying on Crawford and Davis, held that the statements in the 9-1-1 tape were non-testimonial, explaining that the 9-1-1 call was for precisely ... [the] purpose to describe current circumstances requiring police assistance. The Court of Special Appeals, in the alternative, explained that [e]ven if ... the admission of the 911 tape were in error, however, we would be persuaded beyond a reasonable doubt that such error was harmless. Langley filed timely a petition for writ of certiorari, which we granted, Langley v. State, 405 Md. 290, 950 A.2d 828 (2008), to consider the following questions: 1. Did the admission of a recording of a 911 call violate Petitioner's right to confrontation where the call was placed after the offense had been completed and where the alleged perpetrator had left the scene and the caller indicated that she was aware that the police had been notified and were in the process of responding? 2. Was the admission of the recording of the 911 call harmless? We hold that the statements in the 9-1-1 tape are non-testimonial for Confrontation Clause purposes, and, thus, Langley's confrontation rights were not infringed by the admission of the statements. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the Court of Special Appeals.