Court Opinion

ID: 9753162
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 19:01:23.119684+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:27:31.220151
License: Public Domain

GREENE, J.,
concurring and dissenting.
I agree with the majority that most of the expert witness’s gang-related testimony is relevant to the issue of Gutierrez’s motive to commit murder. I also agree with the majority’s conclusion that “the trial court erred in allowing [the expert *523witness] to comment that MS-13 is the gang that law enforcement ‘had seen the most violence with recently for the past four, four and a half years in this region.’ ” Op. at 499, 32 A.3d at 16. I disagree, however, with the majority’s conclusion that the trial judge’s error was harmless. Accordingly, I join in and adopt the reasoning articulated in Chief Judge Bell’s dissenting opinion, to the extent that the majority failed to apply the harmless error test as explained by this Court in Dorsey v. State, 276 Md. 638, 350 A.2d 665 (1976) and recently reaffirmed by this Court in Perez v. State, 420 Md. 57, 21 A.3d 1048 (2011); Dove v. State, 415 Md. 727, 4 A.3d 976 (2010); Donaldson v. State, 416 Md. 467, 7 A.3d 84 (2010), and Parker v. State, 408 Md. 428, 970 A.2d 320 (2009).