Opinion ID: 2274864
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: Evidence at sentencing hearing of misconduct at Montgomery County Detention Center

Text: Calhoun takes exception to evidence admitted in the sentencing proceeding relative to an incident at the Montgomery County Detention Center in August 1981. The shift commander at the center, Sergeant Gary Hunt, was called as a witness. The record then states: Q Sergeant Hunt, I would like you to go back to August in 1981 and ask you if sometime in that month you had a confrontation with the defendant? MR. TOWNSEND: I object. It's no relationship to any of the specifications of aggravating circumstances under the circumstances. THE COURT: Overruled. I will allow it on the question of whether or not it poses a danger. MR. TOWNSEND: As a mitigating circumstance? THE COURT: No, as the circumstances which the State may establish under Article 27, Section 413(c)3. MR. TOWNSEND: The only reason I make the point, Your Honor, it's my understanding that the consent [sic] of dangerousness in the statute comes in as non-dangerousness as a mitigating circumstance. MR. HAMILTON:[ [1] ] I think the State, however, is entitled to disprove the existence of any mitigating factors set out in the statute. As long as he is provided a fair opportunity to rebut it, I'll allow. The correctional officer related that on August 17 he went to the cell of Calhoun to read Mr. Calhoun a notice of institutional infraction, a violation of jail rules. The record then is: A ... Before I could say much of anything, Mr. Calhoun made a remark to me as  Q Do you know what he said? A Yes. He said quote unquote, he said `Get that shit out of my cell.' I presumed he meant the paper in my hand. He rose from his bunk upon which he had been sitting and took a plastic bottle, a Wella-Balsam bottle used for hand lotion and squirted me in the face and arms and chest with a foul concoction which we later learned to be a mixture of urine and [feces]. It hit me and hit the officer standing with me at the entrance of his cell. And we retreated from his cell at that point. Q Is that the end of the incident? A No, it was not. We determined that his continued possession of that bottle of substance posed a danger to any officer who might have occasion on that shift or some subsequent shift to approach his cell. And we decided to go in and ask him for it and give him an opportunity to be handcuffed and have himself searched. And he refused to cooperate with our efforts. Q Did he do anything else with the bottle? A Yes. When we approached his cell, we told him what we expected of him. We gave him an opportunity to be handcuffed peacefully, to submit to a cell search and a body search, strip search. And he refused to do so. In fact, as we did so, he continued to squirt the same stuff from the same bottle on us again. At that time, we used chemical mace as we had previously warned that we would do. Evidence admissible in a sentencing proceeding is set forth in Code (1957, 1982 Repl. Vol.) Art. 27, § 413 (c) (1): (i) Evidence relating to any mitigating circumstance listed in subsection (g); (ii) Evidence relating to any aggravating circumstance listed in subsection (d) of which the State had notified the defendant pursuant to § 412 (b); (iii) Evidence of any prior criminal convictions, pleas of guilty or nolo contendere, or the absence of such prior convictions or pleas, to the same extent admissible in other sentencing procedures; (iv) Any presentence investigation report. However, any recommendation as to sentence contained in the report is not admissible; and (v) Any other evidence that the court deems of probative value and relevant to sentence, provided the defendant is accorded a fair opportunity to rebut any statements. This incident could not pertain to any aggravating circumstance set forth in the statute. The mitigating circumstance set forth in § 413 (g), relevant to this proceeding, is subsection (1), that [t]he defendant has not previously (i) been found guilty of a crime of violence; (ii) entered a plea of guilty or nolo contendere to a charge of a crime of violence; or (iii) had a judgment of probation on stay of entry of judgment entered on a charge of a crime of violence. The statute then goes on to define the term crime of violence as meaning, abduction, arson, escape, kidnapping, manslaughter, except involuntary manslaughter, mayhem, murder, robbery, or rape or sexual offense in the first or second degree, or an attempt to commit any of these offenses, or the use of a handgun in the commission of a felony or another crime of violence. Calhoun in his argument to us did not and could not rely upon our recent decision in Scott v. State, 297 Md. 235, 465 A.2d 1126 (1983), for the simple reason that it was not decided until some months subsequent to argument in this case, although obviously he could have raised the issue we addressed in Scott. As Judge Davidson put it for the Court in Scott, that case presented the question whether, under Maryland Code (1957, 1982 Repl. Vol.) Art. 27, § 413 (c) (1), evidence is admissible at a sentencing proceeding to show that an accused convicted of premeditated murder has committed other unrelated crimes for which the accused has not been convicted or pleaded guilty or nolo contendere. 297 Md. at 242. Scott there claimed, that under § 413 (c) (1) (i) and § 413 (c) (1) (iii), admissible evidence of unrelated crimes is restricted to evidence of prior convictions, pleas of guilty or pleas of nolo contendere. 297 Md. at 243. The Court took pains in Scott to distinguish Johnson v. State, 292 Md. 405, 439 A.2d 542 (1982), where we considered, as the Court put it in Scott, whether, under § 413 (c) (1) (v), evidence is admissible at a sentencing proceeding to show that an accused, convicted a premeditated murder, has committed other unrelated crimes for which the accused has not been convicted. Id. The Court pointed out that in Johnson [t]he accused ... did not there contend that under § 413 (c) (1) (i) and § 413 (c) (1) (iii) admissible evidence of unrelated crimes was restricted to evidence of prior convictions, pleas of guilty or pleas of nolo contendere and consequently that the evidence of the unrelated crime was inadmissible because, although charged with the murder, the accused had not been convicted. 297 Md. at 245. The Court said in Scott: Thus, § 413 (c) (1) (iii) establishes a more stringent standard of reliability for the admission of such evidence in a death penalty case than is applied in a nondeath penalty case. It precludes, in a death penalty case, any but the most reliable type of evidence of unrelated crimes  a conviction. Additionally, § 413 (c) (1) (iii) precludes, in a death penalty case, inflammatory detailed evidence of the underlying facts and circumstances surrounding unrelated crimes. As a result, § 413 (c) (1) (iii), like § 413 (c) (1) (i), serves the purpose of moderating the significantly prejudicial nature of evidence of unrelated crimes in the face of the unique severity of the death penalty. 297 Md. at 247. It is obvious from an examination of the objection of defense counsel that at no time did he raise the issue that was raised in Scott, that this was an attempt to elicit information pertaining to a criminal act on the part of Calhoun for which there had been no conviction or disposition tantamount to a conviction. It also can be seen from the record quoted above that the objection was narrowed by defense counsel to whether the incident at the detention center was relevant to a mitigating circumstance. The court overruled the objection saying that the testimony concerned a circumstance which the State may establish under Article 27, Section 413 (c)3. The trial judge presumably was referring to § 413 (c) (1) (iii) (Evidence of any prior criminal convictions, pleas of guilty or nolo contendere, or the absence of such prior convictions or pleas, to the same extent admissible in other sentencing procedures) since § 413 (c) (3) states: (3) After presentation of the evidence in a proceeding before a jury, in addition to any other appropriate instructions permitted by law, the court shall instruct the jury as to the findings it must make in order to determine whether the sentence shall be death or imprisonment for life and the burden of proof applicable to these findings in accordance with subsection (f) or (h). Counsel made no general objection. His specific objection was that this bore no relationship to the specified aggravating circumstances. In von Lusch v. State, 279 Md. 255, 264, 368 A.2d 468 (1977), we said, [W]here counsel clearly states specific grounds for an objection without a request by the trial court, he waives the right to challenge the evidence on other grounds.... The conduct of Calhoun in this instance, if established in a criminal proceeding against him, would be the common law offense of battery. See W. LaFave & A. Scott, Criminal Law 604 (1972) and R. Perkins, Criminal Law 107 (2d ed. 1969). The record here is silent as to whether Calhoun has or has not been charged and tried as a result of this incident. It is entirely conceivable that had the objection here been based upon the issue before the Court in Scott, 297 Md. 235, that the State might well have produced evidence of such a conviction. On the other hand, it might have been obliged to admit that no criminal charges had been brought as a result of the incident or that charges had been brought but the case had not come to trial. In the absence of an objection focusing on the point before the Court in Scott, the evidence here was admissible under Art. 27, § 413 (c) (1) (v), which permits introduction of, Any other evidence that the court deems of probative value and relevant to sentence, provided the defendant is accorded a fair opportunity to rebut any statements.