Court Opinion

ID: 9755389
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 20:36:50.81715+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:06.649969
License: Public Domain

Concurring opinion by HARRELL, J., which RAKER, J., Joins.
On the record before us, I join the Majority opinion and judgment; however, had the Master’s written report issued as a result of the 5 October 2006 adjudicatory hearing been other than a brief compilation of sweeping generalizations, I well may have joined the judgment only as to Marcus J.’s entitlement to a de novo hearing before a Circuit Court judge on the issue of the “admission of a non-expert’s testimony on the operability of the handgun.” Maryland Rule 11-111(c) and Maryland Code (1974, 2006 Repl.Vol.), Courts and Judicial Proceedings Article, § 3-807(c) require that exceptions to a Master’s written report be stated with specificity. Specificity, as used in these provisions, is a term best understood and applied in context, however.
In the present case, the Master’s amended Order of 6 October 2006, arising from the adjudicatory hearing, stated, in relevant part:
As a result of the Adjudicatory hearing in the above case(s), the Master recommends that the Court find:
The following facts sustained:
Name Cmp Cnt Charge description
Marcus J[.] 7 1 Handgun-Possession
Marcus J[.] 7 2 Deadly weapon-concealed
Marcus J[.] 7 3 Firearm-regulated-minor
The following facts merged:
Name Comp Cnt Charge description
Marcus [J.] 7 1 Handgun-Possession
*238In support of the above findings, the following evidence was accepted:
The testimony of witnesses supported the sustained counts.
Conflicting testimony concerning the sustained counts was resolved in favor of the witnesses for the State. Parties stipulated that Respondent’s fingerprints were not found on the revolver.
It is hereby ordered that Maryland Department of Juvenile Services is directed to provide care and custody for the child in detention eligible for evening reporting center, pending hearing on above entitled cause and for a period not to exceed the next hearing date.
The Court orders that the following agencies perform the following actions regarding Marcus J[.] by the next court session:
the Maryland Department of Juvenile Services shall submit an Investigation Report to the Court
The following person(s) appeared for the hearing:
Marcus J[.]
Carolyn Bellamy (Grandmother)
Sondra M. Douglas (Defense attorney for the child)
Janet Hankin (Supervising Attorney)
Charles A. Thompson (Police officer)
The next court action will be at a(n) Disposition hearing on 11/3/2006 at 1:00 PM in Pt 3/H-10. All persons listed as present at today’s hearing have been given notice of the next court action.
The exceptions filed by Marcus J. were at least as specific as the Master’s findings and conclusions, giving the Master’s findings and conclusions the treatment they deserved. He should not be penalized for filing exceptions that largely were equally as unilluminating as the Master’s findings and conclusions. A de novo hearing before a Circuit Court judge is necessary in order to understand the bases for any action on the charges in this case.
*239Had the Master’s “supporting” findings been more specific, however, I likely would have concluded that, other than as to the challenge to the non-expert opinion regarding the operability of the handgun, Marcus J.’s exceptions, had they been filed “as is” in this case, would have been insufficiently specific according to the requirements of the Rule and the statute. To conclude otherwise puts the lie to the requirement that exceptions “shall specify those items [in the Master’s written report] to which the party excepts.” Maintaining a proper tension between judicial efficiency and economy on one hand, and a juvenile’s rights on the other, would dictate such a result.
Despite the Majority opinion’s reiteration of the limited role of the master in the juvenile justice scheme, it is clear that a master’s recommended findings and conclusions may be adopted by a Circuit Court judge. Rule 11—111(d); Courts & Judicial Proceedings, § 3-807(d)(2). When exceptions are filed, the hearing before a Circuit Court judge is “limited to those matters to which exceptions have been taken.” Rule 11—111(c); Courts & Judicial Proceedings, § 3-807(c)(4). Where the master’s findings and conclusions are specific and explain the result reached at the adjudicatory hearing, it would make a mockery of the Rule and statute to conclude that a juvenile simply may take general exception to anything and everything and have that effort pass muster as having been taken with specificity.15
Judge RAKER has authorized me to state that she joins in this concurring opinion.

. As the late Judge Thomas Hunter Lowe of the Court of Special Appeals once said to me in response to an ipse dixit point I tried to make at oral argument on behalf of a client, "Mr. Harrell, just because kittens are born in an oven doesn’t make them biscuits.” See Supervisor of Assessments v. Washington National Arena Ltd. Partnership, 42 Md.App. 695, 704, 402 A.2d 148 (1979). So, too, something is appropriately specific not merely because we declare it to be so, without reference to context, but because it may be justified (or not) on the particular record.