Opinion ID: 2070400
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Sequestration

Text: Sellers was tried before Tharp. At Sellers's trial on 29 October 1997, after the selection of the jury and immediately before opening statements, one of the attorneys representing Sellers and one of the prosecutors [4] made a joint motion to sequester witnesses, which the trial judge granted. [5] The judge ordered that [a]ny persons who testify during the trial should be removed to the hallway at this time, not to discuss the case either before or after they testify until the case is completely concluded. The prosecution reminded the court that the sequestration applied to Tharp's trial attorney, who was present in the courtroom, because he was on Sellers's submitted witness list. [6] The court then specifically requested Tharp's trial attorney to leave the courtroom. Sellers's attorney rose in objection: We'll waive [Tharp's trial attorney]he's our witness lift [sic]. We'll waive. (Second alteration in original). The prosecution, upon implied inquiry by the judge, refused to waive. The court, on the asserted ground that Tharp's attorney lacked standing to do so, answered in the negative to Tharp's attorney's query regarding whether he could object. Advising the court that he would be at his office, Tharp's attorney left the courtroom saying [i]f I can't watch I'm gonna leave. We fast forward approximately eleven months to Tharp's trial because the record of Sellers's trial falls silent at this point as to any further matters of consequence to the issues at hand in the present case. On 28 September 1998, immediately before Tharp's trial was to begin, his attorney made a motion to dismiss the charges for prosecutorial misconduct or, in the alternative, a motion to postpone Tharp's trial and permit him instead to depose all of the State's intended witnesses in Tharp's trial who also had testified at Sellers's trial. During argument on his motion to dismiss, Tharp's attorney reminded the Circuit Court of his sequestration from Seller's trial approximately a year earlier. He stated that he was present at Sellers's trial to act as Tharp's attorney in the event that Tharp was called to testify and otherwise to observe the witnesses and listen to the testimony. According to Tharp's attorney, [i]t was known by everyone concerned that I had absolutely no knowledge, no firsthand knowledge, no factual knowledge about the case. Tharp's attorney recounted his recollection of what took place at various points during Sellers's trial, including an unrecorded chambers conference, in the presence of the judge, the prosecuting attorneys, himself, and Sellers's attorneys, the day following the initial sequestration. At this chambers conference, he asserted that the judge reconsidered his sequestration. According to the transcript of the oral argument on Tharp's pretrial motions at his own trial, his attorney described the following exchange that reportedly took place at the pertinent chambers conference during Sellers's trial: [THARP'S TRIAL ATTORNEY]: Uhm, your Honor indicated that so long as the State was continuing to object to my presence that I would not be permitted to sit in the courtroom, and your Honor asked [the State's attorney] if he was still objecting. [The State's attorney] at that time said, and I, if this isn't a direct quote, it's very close, he indicated, Trials are a chess game. Checkmate. Now, I'm not sure I know what that means, but I took that to mean that he had the upper hand; ... it was not going to do anything ... to jeopardize his case ..., an in his opportunity to get a conviction against [Tharp]. He also said, as part of that same discussion that [Tharp's] trial was coming up. That there would certainly be an advantage to my being in court. Then said that bit about it's chess game. (Emphasis added). Tharp's attorney then argued that he was barred from the courtroom during Sellers's trial for the wrong reasona strategic ploy by the prosecution. He explained that although he later was able to obtain a transcript of Sellers's trial, there's a lot more that goes on in that trial than can be covered in a transcriptthere's ... how someone testifies, body language, credibility, those sorts of things. He maintained that his sequestration amounted to prosecutorial misconduct and accordingly Tharp's charges should be dismissed. The prosecutor responded that he remembered making the chess game remark, but that possibly he had taken some poetic license in its formulation. The prosecutor continued: I guess [Tharp's Attorney's] saying that somehow his client has right to a, see the whole trial happen before his trial. But he doesn't. I mean, it, he was sequestered not because of anything the State did, and he hasn't been prejudiced in any way as a result of it; ... [he] was on the Defense witness list. And if any misconduct at allI mean, we really didn't know why he was on the list. And if the Court will recall, there was a long line of witnesses called by the Defense so it wouldn't have really surprised me if the Defense ... tried to call [Tharp's attorney] for some obscure reason. So we did it just to ... tactically, yes, but in the case against Mr. Sellers, not really against the case against [Tharp]. So I think there's been no foul. Tharp's attorney retorted that he had a personal right, as a citizen, to be at Sellers's trial and that Sellers's rights had been violated because the prosecution was putting on a trial [Sellers's trial] to exclude me simply to gain strategic advantage in ... [Tharp's] trial. He further maintained that the prosecutor must have known that he would not be called as a defense witness for Sellers because if he was a fact witness regarding Keller's murder he would be unable to act as Tharp's attorney. The court, after examining Maryland Rule 5-615, determined, in Tharp's trial, that it had not violated the Rule by granting and enforcing sequestration in Sellers's trial and, thus, denied Tharp's motion to dismiss. Tharp then made a motion for depositions. He requested that the court convert the trial into a series of depositions so that he would have the opportunity to see and to hear the witnesses testify that were common to Sellers's trial and Tharp's imminent trial and, therefore, place his attorney in the same position that he would have been had he been present at Sellers's trial. The court denied this motion as well. In a final initiative, Tharp's attorney purported to remind the court that, at Sellers's trial when Tharp ultimately was called as a witness by Sellers, he stood with Tharp, outside the presence of the jury, and advised him to invoke his Fifth Amendment privilege. The court thereupon assertedly excused Tharp's attorney permanently. Tharp's attorney further recounted that he later attempted to reenter the courtroom during Sellers's trial to listen to Minton's testimony. The court, however, reportedly with hand gestures, indicated that he was to leave, and he complied. Tharp's attorney then asked the court to reconsider its denial of Tharp's motions. In response, the court stated: I don't have an independent recollection of any of that [from Seller's trial]. It does not alter my conclusion that you were properly excluded when you were on a witness list for ... [Sellers]. I don't know exactly the context in which you asked me if you were excused permanently and I indicated yes. Certainly if your client was going away to the Baltimore County Bureau of Correction you weren't going to be needed anymore to represent him but you were still on the witness list and we were in the ... [defense's] case at the time so, again, I don't think that anything that I have done in this case ... violated Rule 5-615 and will not grant[, the] relief requested. The trial judge proceeded with Tharp's trial. He ultimately was found not guilty of first degree premeditated murder and first degree felony murder, but guilty of second degree murder and robbery with a dangerous or deadly weapon. The judge imposed a thirty-year sentence for the second degree murder conviction and a consecutive twenty-year sentence for the armed robbery.