Opinion ID: 2332966
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 10

Heading: Remand with the Introduction of New Evidence

Text: In the case at bar, the Court of Special Appeals improperly held that the State can present new evidence on remand. Rule 8-604(d) does not permit such a remand for the purpose of introducing new evidence in cases where a party, like the State here, failed to sustain its burden of proof on an issue both raised in a motion to suppress and argued at the hearing on that motion. Because the State did not sustain this burden, allowing the State to introduce new evidence on remand, i.e. taking a second bite at the apple, is an improper application of Rule 8-604(d) and undermines the State's burden during the suppression proceedings in this case. [4] There is a line of cases permitting the introduction of new evidence on remand, but the cases permitting new evidence on remand usually do so to correct some action taken by the trial court in a proceeding collateral to the trial itself which results in unfairness to a party. See, e.g., Patrick v. State, 329 Md. 24, 617 A.2d 215 (1992) (holding that reports of State experts who have conducted polygraph tests were discoverable and on remand allocated the burden to the State to show that the defendant was not prejudiced by prior non-disclosure); Warrick v. State, 326 Md. 696, 607 A.2d 24 (1992) (approving for the first time the use of an in camera hearing to determine whether the defendant had been prejudiced by non-disclosure of the confidential informant and remanded so the trial court could conduct such a hearing); Stanley v. State, 313 Md. 50, 542 A.2d 1267(1988) (remanding because the trial court erroneously failed to find a prima facie case of discrimination in the State's exercise of its peremptory challenges and had deprived the State of an opportunity to explain the reasons for its challenges); Reid v. State, 305 Md. 9, 501 A.2d 436 (1985) (ordering a limited remand for an evidentiary hearing because two favorable letters to the defendant had been improperly excluded from the sentencing hearing and new evidence related to those letters' authenticity was allowed); Bailey v. State, 303 Md. 650, 496 A.2d 665 (1985) (remand allowing the State to provide the defense with discovery materials which it had improperly withheld and the defense could decide whether a motion to suppress should be filed on the basis of those statements); Davis v. State, 100 Md.App. 369, 641 A.2d 941 (1994) (remanding for an initial suppression hearing after the appellate court concluded that the trial court's failure to review the defendant's right to court appointed counsel was good cause to waive the thirty-day time limit for filing a motion to suppress). We have not found a case that has permitted the reopening of a suppression proceeding, after an appellate holding that the State has failed to meet its burden on a constitutional challenge, for the presentation of additional evidence where, on the facts and law, the motion to suppress should have been granted. The facts and the procedural situation were different in Tu v. State, 336 Md. 406, 648 A.2d 993 (1994), relied upon by the Court of Special Appeals. Tu did not involve a remand for the reopening of a suppression proceeding for the presentation of additional evidence where the suppression proceeding had been completed, but involved a reversal based upon an improper denial of a motion to suppress, and a subsequent completely new trial. In respect to the items at issue, we noted: We have shown that Tu I held that the State had failed to prove at the first suppression hearing that the plain view doctrine applied to items, beyond the scope of the warrant, that the court understood were seized at the hotel.... Thus, the circuit court, at the second suppression hearing, did not directly violate the precise holding of Tu I, at least as it applies to the custodial items. At the second suppression hearing the court accepted the State's testimony that the custodial items were not seized at the hotel. Tu does not contend that the custodial items are subject to suppression if they may be considered to have been acquired from the Nevada authorities as described in the testimony at the second suppression hearing. Id. at 417, 648 A.2d at 998. Tu had originally moved to suppress the evidence on the mistaken belief that it had been improperly seized during the execution of a search warrant for a hotel room. The State originally defended on its also mistaken belief that the items were properly seized in the hotel room, not under the warrant, but that the items were seized because they were in plain view in the hotel room during the execution of the warrant. The Court of Special Appeals reversed on the failure by the State to present plain view facts at the first suppression hearing, and remanded the case for a new trial. In Tu I, there was no remand to the trial court for it to reopen the initial suppression proceeding, requiring it to address an issue it had not previously recognized, and further requiring the trial court to allow the State to present new evidence at a reopened suppression proceeding. Tu I was completely reversed and remanded for a new trial, not for a reopened suppression proceeding. At the new trial, Tu II, Tu again moved to suppress the evidence on the basis that the Court of Special Appeals had held that there was insufficient evidence that the items had been in plain view during the search of the hotel room, and, thus, the issue was controlled by the law of the case. During the suppression proceeding in the new trial, it was developed that the items had not been seized during a search of the hotel room in the first instance, but had been otherwise obtained. We held that the law of the case did not control because the actual place of the search, and the actual manner of the obtaining of the evidence were different than the manner of search and the place searched pursuant to the warrant at issue in the suppression hearing at the original trial. Under those circumstances, we held that the State was not foreclosed from establishing the admissibility of the evidence at the subsequent trial. The Tu cases did not involve an appellate court's direction to a trial court to, in essence, reopen a suppression proceeding in the same case to permit the State another opportunity to prevail on a suppression motion that should have been granted to a defendant. The intermediate appellate court in the case at bar noted the following language from Tu: [R]eversal for the erroneous denial of a motion to suppress does not, in and of itself, preclude any trial court reconsideration of the admissibility of the State's evidence that was the subject of the suppression motion, at least if the reconsideration presents a legal theory that was not ruled upon on the prior appeal. Further, facts that are relevant to applying that previously unadjudicated legal theory and that were not previously presented may be considered by the trial court, even if those facts were known to the State at the time of the original trial court ruling. Southern, 140 Md.App. at 512-13, 780 A.2d at 1238 (quoting Tu, 336 Md. at 420, 648 A.2d at 999-1000). The Court of Special Appeals went astray when it attempted to afford the State the opportunity to relitigate, in the same case, an issue it had failed to litigate and prove. Tu stands for the proposition that in a new trial after reversal, certain issues may be litigated, unless prohibited by appropriate law of the case restrictions. At a new trial, a defendant may always file a new motion to suppress, and if the State opposes it, a defendant, in appropriate circumstances may avail himself of law of the case principles. Otherwise, it is a new motion, new hearing, new trial, and new decision. The State, under the given facts of the present case, is attempting to get another chance, a second bite at the apple, to present the evidence it should have presented at the initial suppression proceeding. If petitioner in this case, at the Motion to Suppress hearing, had failed to present any evidence in response to some position the State had adequately established, we normally would not allow petitioner a limited remand for the introduction of new evidence to try and bolster his case. What is required of the defendant in such circumstances is no less required of the State. Furthermore, the Court of Special Appeals, by permitting the introduction of evidence on remand, departed from the practice of appellate courts to reverse the judgment in a case where the State has failed to sustain its burden of proof in a motion to suppress. See Stokes v. State, 362 Md. 407, 765 A.2d 612 (2001); Cartnail v. State, 359 Md. 272, 753 A.2d 519 (2000); Ferris v. State, 355 Md. 356, 735 A.2d 491 (1999); Turner v. State, 133 Md.App. 192, 754 A.2d 1074 (2000); Charity v. State, 132 Md.App. 598, 753 A.2d 556 (2000). This notion of not allowing the presentation of new evidence on limited remand is supported in Wayne R. LaFave, Search and Seizure: A Treatise on the Fourth Amendment vol. 5, § 11.2(e), 82, fn. 238 (3d ed., West 1996), which states: Such [a limited] remand is appropriate when the appellate court would otherwise be unable to decide the case because of an absence of findings of fact or conclusions of law. State v. Wilson, 218 Mont. 359, 708 P.2d 270 (1985). Upon remand, the responsibility of the lower court is to review the evidence and make necessary findings and conclusions, rather than to receive more evidence. Ex parte Hergott, 588 So.2d 911 (Ala.1991) (on remand because of uncertainty as to what record indicated about whether barn was within curtilage, it was error for trial court to receive new evidence by going to view the premises; court holds that Double Jeopardy Clause prevents the Court of Criminal Appeals from sending the issue back to the trial court for a second chance to supply on the record evidence sufficient to prove that the warrantless search fell within the `open-field' exception'). Cf. Hopkins v. State, 661 So.2d 774 (Ala.Crim.App.1994) (holding that although the record before it left unanswered many questions, that court was not authorized to resolve those questions by remanding for another hearing because the State when presented with an opportunity to establish its case, failed to do so, and under the Double Jeopardy Clause it does not get a second chance).