Court Opinion

ID: 9754109
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 19:44:22.943904+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:27:48.969581
License: Public Domain

HARRELL, J.,
Concurring.
I concur in the judgment of the Court, subscribing as I do to the Majority opinion’s reasoning supporting its conclusion that the trial court acted prematurely and unfairly when it entered an order on 21 April 2010 denying Arey’s petition.1 I am perplexed, however, at the Majority opinion’s avoidance of Arey’s initial question presented regarding whether the trial judge was clearly erroneous in declaring penultimately and effectively that the State had discharged its initial burden of production regarding whether it had conducted a reasonable search for the missing evidence to that point. The Majority opinion, in its short shrift treatment of this question,2 dooms *340to exploitable confusion what should happen on remand.3 Accordingly, I would reach and decide Arey’s first question as well.
Although mentioning the correct standard of review, see Majority op. at 333-34, 29 A.3d at 989, the Majority opinion declines to apply that standard to the trial judge’s reasonableness determination. The clear instructions in Blake v. State, 418 Md. 445, 460,15 A.3d 787, 796 (2011), are for us to defer to the trial judge’s determination of the reasonableness of the State’s search, unless that determination is “clearly erroneous.” The Majority’s (and my) conclusion that Arey and his counsel deserve an opportunity, in part, to respond to the State’s submission of the crime lab technician’s (Robert S. Davis’s) affidavit (which Arey can do in discharging the burden of production now shifted to him), does not relieve us from resolving properly the threshold inquiry of whether the hearing judge’s finding in the first instance that the State made a reasonable search is clearly erroneous. For the sake of order alone, we must reach and decide this issue now.
Maryland Code (2001, 2008 Repl.Vol.), Criminal Procedure Article, § 8-201, Maryland Rule 4-710 (2009), and the cases *341alluded to in the Majority opinion interpreting the statute and rule require the State to conduct a “reasonable ” search for the missing evidence. The State is not required to conduct a “complete” or “exhaustive” search.
The Majority opinion leaves muddled for litigants, litigators, and Bench alike the burdens to be borne by parties in similar proceedings and in this case in particular on remand. Our caselaw is somewhat unclear already with respect to which burdens shift to the defendant when a hearing judge concludes, as happened here, that the State established a prima facie case of reasonableness of its search. For example, we stated in Arey I that:
Once the State performs a reasonable search and demonstrates sufficiently a prima fade case, either directly or circumstantially, that the requested evidence no longer exists, the State will have satisfied its burden of persuasion. The burden of production then shifts to the petitioner to demonstrate that the evidence actually exists.
Arey v. State, 400 Md. 491, 505, 929 A.2d 501, 509 (2007) (emphases added). The words “prima facie” are synonymous usually with “burden of production.” See, e.g., Questar Builders, Inc. v. CB Flooring, LLC, 410 Md. 241, 281 n. 25, 978 A.2d 651, 675 n. 25 (2009) (“CB Flooring bears the initial burden of production to adduce a prima facie showing that Questar invoked the termination for convenience clause in bad faith.... ”). Thus, the language in Arey I suggests that, at the inception of a post-conviction DNA proceeding, the State bears the burdens of production and persuasion, but both may shift to the defendant, upon a showing by the State, satisfactory to the trial judge, that, after a reasonable search, the DNA evidence could not be found and does not exist.
Ordinarily, only the burden of production shifts between parties; the burden of persuasion stays usually with the party that bore it originally. See Lynn Mclain, Maryland Evidencia—State and Federal § 300:2 n. 23 (2d ed. 2001) (“As a general rale, th[e] burden [of persuasion] does not shift, but remains throughout the trial as allocated at the beginning of the trial.”); Sergeant Co. v. Pickett, 285 Md. 186, 203-04, 401 *342A.2d 651, 660 (1979) (“The burden of [persuasion], i.e., the risk of non[-]persuasion, never shifts from the party on whom it is placed.” (internal quotation marks and citation omitted)). In elucidating this conceit, we quoted from Dean McCormick for the proposition that:
“The burden of producing evidence on an issue means the liability to an adverse ruling (generally a finding or directed verdict) if evidence on the issue has not been produced____ The burden of producing evidence is a critical mechanism in a jury trial, as it empowers the judge to decide the case without jury consideration when a party fails to sustain the burden.
The burden of persuasion becomes a crucial factor only if the parties have sustained their burdens of producing evidence and only when all of the evidence has been introduced. It does not shift from party to party during the course of the trial simply because it need not be allocated until it is time for a decision. When the time for a decision comes ... [t]he jury must be told that if the party having the burden of persuasion has failed to satisfy that burden, the issue is to be decided against him. If there is no jury and the judge finds himself in doubt, he too must decide the issue against the party having the burden of persuasion [C. McCormick, McCormick on Evidence § 336, at 947 (3d ed. 1984) ].”
Commodities Reserve Corp. v. Belt’s Wharf Warehouses, Inc., 310 Md. 365, 368 n. 2, 529 A.2d 822, 823 n. 2 (1987).
Without a clearer indication of legislative intent in Maryland Code (2001, 2008 Repl.Vol.), Criminal Procedure Article, § 8-201, Maryland Rule 4-710 (2009), or our caselaw, we should be reluctant to countenance shifting the burden of persuasion, as opposed to the burden of production, in DNA missing evidence cases. The defendant does not regain control usually of the type of evidence taken from him in this case after it is acquired and used by the State at trial. Thus, if the evidence is retained after trial, most likely it is in the State’s (or its agents’) possession, if it exists at all. Because of this, the State has the burden of production and persuasion at the *343outset of a post-conviction DNA proceeding; however, if the State makes a prima facie showing that the DNA evidence does not exist (e.g., presents testimony and/or documents persuading the hearing judge that a reasonable search was made), then the burden of production only shifts to the defendant. See Murphy v. 24th St. Cadillac Corp., 353 Md. 480, 492, 727 A.2d 915, 921 (1999).
Applying properly the deferential “clearly erroneous” standard to the record here as to the reasonableness of the State’s search, we should conclude that the hearing judge’s determination that the State discharged its prima facie burden was not clearly erroneous and, thus, the burden of production shifts to Arey on remand. See Arey I, 400 Md. at 505, 929 A.2d at 509 (stating that, after the State presents its case, “[t]he burden of production then shifts to the petitioner to demonstrate that the evidence actually exists”). The record is ample to support the trial judge’s finding of reasonableness as to the State’s search. The Majority opinion documents well the bases for that finding at Majority op. 332-33, 29 A.3d at 988-89.
The Majority opinion’s (and my) concern that Arey have an opportunity to inquire behind the face of Davis’s affidavit and, further, to attempt to persuade the hearing judge that his petition should not be denied, may be vindicated through Arey attempting to discharge the shifted burden of production.
Arey knows already who Davis is and the role he played in securing his conviction because Davis testified at Arey’s 1974 trial. Davis’s lab work on the sought-after missing evidence occurred between 1973 (the crime) and 1974 (Arey’s trial). The State, in the course of the present proceedings, informed Arey’s trial counsel of the since-retired Davis’s current address, as ordered by the trial judge some months before Davis’s affidavit was filed here. Thus, Arey may examine Davis in open court (once Arey serves him with process or the State persuades Davis to appear as an accommodation) by challenging the accuracy of his non-recollection versus what he apparently does recall in the affidavit.4
*344The hearing judge’s premature and unfair decision to deny Arey’s petition so promptly after receiving the Davis affidavit does not reflect adversely on the prior determination as to the prima facie reasonableness of the State’s search to that point. The State’s search was reasonable, notwithstanding the hearing judge’s error in signing the 21 April 2010 order of denial, without giving Arey an opportunity to adduce evidence that the evidence exists and where it may be found. That is why there were two questions presented in this case, one addressing the reasonableness of the State’s search (for burden shifting purposes) and the other the prematurity and fairness of the trial judge’s denial of Arey’s petition on 21 April 2010. We should answer both questions.

. The affidavit of Robert S. Davis was transmitted by the prosecutor to the Court and Arey’s trial counsel by cover letter of 19 April 2010. The Court's copy was docketed as filed on 20 April 2010. There is no indication in the record extract that Arey’s counsel knew in advance what the contents of the Davis affidavit would be, although he had the apparent ability to contact Davis, a retired employee of the State, on his initiative for some considerable time prior to the receipt of the affidavit and failed to do so. Of course, at that juncture in the long life of this case, Arey had no statutory or legal imperative to do so because, at that time, the State bore still the burden of production as to the reasonableness of its search for the missing evidence.

. After reciting the parties' appellate arguments as to the reasonableness determination, the Majority opinion says simply, "These issues in our view are best left for the hearing judge to resolve, in the first instance, on remand.” Majority op. at 334, 29 A.3d at 989. Of course, *340the hearing judge resolved already "these issues” when she concluded that the State met its initial burden of production that a reasonable search had been made for the missing evidence. See Md.Code (2001, 2008 Repl.Vol.), Criminal Proc. Art., § 8-201. This determination preceded the court’s ultimate conclusion that Arey’s petition should be denied. The Majority opinion and I agree that the ultimate decision was premature and unfair because Arey should have been given an opportunity to respond to the State's discharge of its initial burden of production, which was completed with the filing of Mr. Davis’s affidavit. The Majority opinion misses completely the distinction between, and significance of, the penultimate and ultimate determinations of the hearing judge, implicitly throwing out both (although it purports not to decide whether the judge’s reasonableness finding was clearly erroneous—see Majority op. at 335, 29 A.3d at 990, "[ajlthough we decline to hold that the hearing judge's ultimate conclusion was clearly erroneous ...”).

. Clarity in our directions on remand is all the more important here because a different judge will conduct those proceedings. The judge who presided over the extensive proceedings culminating in the 21 April 2010 denial order has retired since and did not seek the Court’s approval to be recalled.

. It is a little difficult to imagine how Arey will probe behind what Davis stated in his affidavit regarding the existence vel non, and the whereabouts, of the "missing” evidence. Davis stated:
*344• "I do not recall the shirt, any work I may have performed on it and I certainly have no recollection of where I might last have seen it or where it might be now.”
• "I do recall that I did not personally keep any physical evidence and that- items, such as a shirt, were ordinarily returned to the Evidence Control Unit ["ECU"] after laboratory work was completed.”
• "The small [amount] of sample that I test would generally be consumed by the process of analysis. We retained no evidence in the laboratory when our work was complete.”
As the State proved here, the ECU was searched and the evidence not found there. It seems to me a low expectancy that even highly skilled cross-examination of Davis is likely to inspire a catharsis leading to information shedding light on whether the evidence actually exists and, of so, where it is. In any event, Arey should be given that opportunity.