Opinion ID: 1902219
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: Sufficiency of Evidence on Principalship

Text: Here we consider the sufficiency of the evidence that Booth was a principal in the first degree to the murder of Irvin Bronstein. Principalship was an issue because the evidence disclosed the presence of a second person, Willie Sweetsie Reid (Reid), at the crime scene. Compare Wiggins, 324 Md. at 570-72, 597 A.2d at 1368-69. At the hearing, Booth contended that his accomplice, Reid, or possibly some other person, stabbed both of the Bronsteins. The State's theory was that Booth stabbed Mr. Bronstein and Reid stabbed Mrs. Bronstein.
Booth argues that the evidence as a whole was insufficient to prove that theory beyond a reasonable doubt. The standard of review is whether, after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 2789, 61 L.Ed.2d 560, 573 (1979); Tichnell v. State, 287 Md. 695, 717, 415 A.2d 830, 842 (1980). That standard was met. The State presented the testimony of Jewell Booth, who married the defendant a few weeks after the murders. Mrs. Booth testified to the following conversation she had with Booth shortly after the murders: MRS. BOOTH: After, I don't know how many times I asked him the different questions. I think I might have just been asking them one after another, constantly back at him. He was unfolding the bed. I came right out and I asked him again what had happened to the people, did he know. He said `No,' and I said `Are you sure? Did you kill those people? Were they dead?' something like that, and he said that he ÔÇö at first he said he didn't know, then he said, when I asked him `Did you kill the people' or something like that, he said `Well, yeah. Sure. Sure I did. Sweetsie,' I am not too sure, but I think he said Sweetsie killed the woman and he killed the man and then he went into this ridiculous statement about his grandmother. PROSECUTOR: What was your reaction to John's statement that he killed the man and that Sweetsie killed the woman? MRS. BOOTH: I looked at him and, see, he was ÔÇö it was so stupid, because he had brought up ÔÇö I looked at him like he was crazy because of what he had said to me. The State also presented the prior recorded testimony of Veronda Mazyck, the girlfriend of Reid. She had asked Booth why you all ÔÇö referring to both Booth and Reid ÔÇö killed the Bronsteins. Mazyck said that Booth replied, because they knew me and my nephew. Eddie Smith, who was acquainted with both Reid and Booth, testified that Reid told him in Booth's presence shortly after the murders that we [referring to Reid and Booth] or he [referring to Booth] just killed a couple mother fuckers. Smith was unsure about the subject of Reid's sentence. Smith did not think that Reid had said, I just killed a couple MFs. The State also presented circumstantial evidence on Booth's principalship. There was evidence that the wound patterns on the two bodies were substantially different, which tended to show that two separate people did the killings. There was evidence showing that the Bronsteins knew and could identify Booth but not Reid, which suggested that Booth had the greater motivation for murdering the couple. There was, of course, substantial evidence that Booth was involved in the robbery of the Bronsteins' home. The essence of Booth's argument on principalship ÔÇö other than attacks on the credibility of the witnesses against him ÔÇö was that the State ignored various forensic clues which might have proved that Booth did not do the stabbing. For instance, Booth presented a former medical examiner who testified that the police did not perform a relatively simple test on blood found on one of the knives at the murder scene. Had they done so, they might have found evidence suggesting that the same knife was used in both murders. The suggestion, presumably, was that the police and prosecutors limited their investigation lest they develop clear proof that Booth was not a first-degree principal. Our independent review of the record, however, reveals that a reasonable trier of fact could have concluded beyond a reasonable doubt that Booth was a first-degree principal.
Booth constructs an elaborate theory that Jewell Booth was his accomplice in the murders. Because the State allegedly proved principalship solely on her testimony Booth says that he was improperly convicted of being a first-degree principal on the uncorroborated testimony of an accomplice. See Turner v. State, 294 Md. 640, 452 A.2d 416 (1982); Luery v. State, 116 Md. 284, 81 A. 681 (1911). According to Booth, when Mrs. Booth returned to the Bronstein home with Booth, Reid, and Mazyck several hours after the murders and participated in looting the premises, she became an accomplice in the robbery for which Booth was convicted. Her liability for robbery, Booth contends, also made her liable for the murders under the felony-murder doctrine. We need not consider the logical problems with this theory, nor need we reach the question of whether the corroboration requirement is applicable in a sentencing proceeding. It is enough to point out, as we did in the preceding subsection, that Mrs. Booth's testimony on principalship was corroborated. See Collins, 318 Md. at 280, 568 A.2d at 6 (Not much in the way of evidence corroborative of the accomplice's testimony has been required by our cases.) (quoting Brown v. State, 281 Md. 241, 244, 378 A.2d 1104, 1107 (1977)).