Court Opinion

ID: 9706913
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 01:55:05.482314+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:25.896834
License: Public Domain

ROBERT M. BELL, Judge,
dissenting.
Despite the issue being squarely presented, this Court declines the petitioner’s invitation to expand its holding in Hook v. State, 315 Md. 25, 553 A.2d 233 (1989), and its progeny, e.g., Fairbanks v. State, 318 Md. 22, 566 A.2d 764 (1989), to a case involving a lesser, separate, but related, offense. I believe that, in some circumstances, the nolle pros of a lesser related offense presents an issue of fundamental fairness with equal, if not greater, force1 than, as in Hook and Fairbanks,2 the nolle pros of a lesser included *244offense. Because I believe the circumstances sub judice present just such a case and, in fact, are more egregious than those addressed in either Hook or Fairbanks, I respectfully dissent.
The cornerstone of the Hook/Fairbanks rationale is "fundamental fairness”. Moreover, it is straightforward. A prosecutor’s right to nolle pros counts of an indictment, free from judicial control or restraint depends upon the fairness, or unfairness, of his or her exercise of the right, i.e., whether it results in an injustice. Hook, 315 Md. at 36, 553 A.2d at 239; Fairbanks, 318 Md. at 25, 566 A.2d at 766. Furthermore, a defendant’s right to a fair trial is superior to, and thus prevails over, a prosecutor’s right to nolle pros charges against that defendant. Hook, 315 Md. at 36, 553 A.2d at 239, citing and quoting Crawford v. State, 285 Md. 431, 451, 404 A.2d 244, 254 (1979). Consequently, "... under the concept of fundamental fairness with respect to a trial in a criminal cause, the broad authority vested in a prosecutor to enter a nolle prosequi may be fettered in the proper circumstances. A case-by-case evaluation is necessary.” 315 Md. at 37, 553 A.2d at 239. The underpinning of the Hook/Fairbanks characterization of the nolle pros of lesser included offenses as fundamentally unfair is found in Keeble v. United States, 412 U.S. 205, 213, 93 S.Ct. 1993, 1998, 36 L.Ed.2d 844, 850 (1973); Beck v. Alabama, 447 U.S. 625, 633, 100 S.Ct. 2382, 2387, 65 L.Ed.2d 392, 400 (1980); Hooper v. Evans, 456 U.S. 605, 611, 102 S.Ct. 2049, *2452052, 72 L.Ed.2d 367, 373 (1982); and Spaziano v. Florida, 468 U.S. 447, 454, 104 S.Ct. 3154, 3159, 82 L.Ed.2d 340, 348 (1984). That underpinning is, in the words of Keeble, upon which the other cases build, “Where one of the elements of the offense charged remains in doubt, but the defendant is plainly guilty of some offense, the jury is likely to resolve its doubts in favor of conviction.” (Emphasis in original). 412 U.S. at 212-213, 93 S.Ct. at 1998, 36 L.Ed.2d at 850. In short, the aim of fundamental fairness is the elimination of “the distortion of the factfinding process that is created when the jury is forced into an all-or-nothing choice____” Spaziano, 468 U.S. at 455, 104 S.Ct. at 3159, 82 L.Ed.2d at 349.
This case presents a graphic and egregious example of the unfair use of the power to nolle pros. Here, the only issue before the trial court was petitioner’s intent. While not explicitly conceding criminal agency during the trial, that concession was made during closing argument by petitioner’s counsel, who argued only that petitioner did not intend to kill his wife. At trial, petitioner did not take the stand and acknowledge that he set his wife afire, but neither did he attempt to refute the rather substantial evidence presented by the State identifying him as the person who did so. Petitioner’s defense raised, albeit by means of circumstantial evidence, only the intent with which he acted. Thus, his only witness, his brother, testified that petitioner had been severely burned in an accident and recounted petitioner’s frustration at being unable to obtain the assistance needed to apply his medication properly. In addition, that witness testified that petitioner had ready access to firearms, implying that, had he wished to kill the victim, he could easily have shot her.
Not only was the issue of the intent with which petitioner acted the only one presented to the jury, but the case for finding that petitioner acted only to maim or disfigure the victim was more than simply plausible, it was substantial. Indeed, the facts presented were more consistent with the petitioner having acted with the intent to maim or disfigure than with the intent to murder. The petitioner having all *246but conceded committing a criminal act, it was fundamentally unfair of the State to deny the jury the opportunity to assess with what intention petitioner really acted, in the context of an actual controversy, and to make meaningful choices with respect thereto. And, in fact, denying the jury a meaningful choice appears to be the sole reason that the assault with intent to maim or disfigure count was nolle prossed.
Petitioner’s counsel stated the situation very clearly in closing argument: the State made the practical decision to force the jury into the all-or-nothing situation, to choose between attempted murder and assault and battery, an offense which is for most people, a rather minor one; the State sought “the bigger crime, what they considered to be the more important crime.” And counsel was also correct in suggesting to the jury that, in effect, the State “box[ed] the defendant in by saying, okay, that may not be the most logical charge in this case, but I’m not going to give you twelve people the right to listen to the evidence and apply the evidence to that law.”
The effect of the State’s actions was aptly summed up by petitioner in his brief:
The wrongful dismissal of the crime placed the jury in a Hobson’s choice. Petitioner’s clear guilt of some serious aggravated assault could not be ignored by the jury; the chasm separating the remaining crimes of attempted murder and battery represented no choice at all. Faced with Petitioner’s assaultive behavior, no jury under these circumstances could justify a conviction for mere battery or acquit Petitioner of serious criminal misconduct. Where injustice results from the State’s nolle prosequi of a less serious aggravated charge and the only issue is the defendant’s specific intent at the moment he committed the crime, the dismissal fatally infects the proceedings by sabotaging the defense.
I agree totally.
There simply is no meaningful difference between the injustice which resulted from the State’s action in this case *247and that we found abhorrent in Hook/Fairbanks. In point of fact, the injustice here is much more egregious. Because the State acted in such a manner as to deny petitioner a fair trial, it would be fundamentally unfair to permit the judgment to stand. Accordingly, I would reverse and remand for a new trial. At that trial, the State would be precluded from nolle prossing the lesser, separate, but related, offense of assault with intent to maim or disfigure.3

. In Hook v. State, 315 Md. 25, 41-44, 553 A.2d 233, 243 (1989), a capital case, the Court prohibited, in capital and non-capital cases, as fundamentally unfair, the nolle pros, over the defendant’s objections, of lesser included offenses when to do so would have presented the jury with an all-or-nothing choice; Fairbanks v. State, 318 Md. 22, 26-27, 566 A.2d 764, 766 (1989) reiterated that the Hook rationale extended to non-capital cases.

. In Echols v. State, 82 Md.App. 594, 604 n. 6, 573 A.2d 44, 49 n. 6 (1990), I noted that “the rationale on which Hook rests gives rise to an interesting and somewhat difficult policy issue” — the extent to which the Hook/Fairbanks rationale should be applied to cases involving lesser, separate, but related offenses. The facts in Echols were, to my mind, illustrative of the kind of case in which application of that rationale should apply. Thus, I wrote:
Here, the State charged appellant with both distribution and, though not lesser included, possession of cocaine. Moreover, it produced evidence tending to establish both offenses: One of its witnesses testified that appellant was in the van smoking cocaine with him and others and, hence, in possession of cocaine. Appellant admit*244ted that he was. To be sure, other evidence was produced tending to establish that appellant distributed cocaine and indeed, it was that aspect of the case upon which the State primarily relied. There was, therefore, evidence supportive of both charges. The jury could have resolved the credibility issue inherent in the first count, distribution, in favor of appellant, but found, based upon appellant’s admission and the other evidence on the issue, that he possessed cocaine. The evidence thus supported the instruction, not only on distribution of cocaine, but on possession of cocaine as well. As in the case of the lesser included offense scenario, the jury was faced with the same all-or-nothing proposition that Hook found objectionable.

Id.

. I am also troubled by the court’s refusal to instruct the jury on the crime of assault with intent to maim or disfigure. The majority correctly points out that, the court having permitted the nolle pros, the charge of assault with intent to maim or disfigure was not before the court. Nevertheless, I do not agree that it was not incumbent upon the court, upon request, to instruct the jury on that charge.
The majority acknowledges that the petitioner was properly allowed to argue that he was not guilty of attempted murder, only assault with intent to maim or disfigure. Thus, the court recognizes the necessity to a fair trial that the jury understand the parameters of each of those offenses so as to be able meaningfully to assess the petitioner’s guilt. By instructing the jury as to attempted murder, and only implying, rather than explicating, the elements or the definition of assault with intent to maim or disfigure, however, the court placed its imprimatur on only one of the charges, thus giving that charge greater weight in the eyes of the jury. That the petitioner’s counsel argued that the offense petitioner committed was assault with intent to maim or disfigure did not change the perception of the jury that the offenses were on different planes. Where, as in the instant case, the nolle pros of a charge by the State deprives the jury of the opportunity to choose between two crimes clearly presented by the evidence and, indeed, where the one nolle prossed is the more logically supported by the evidence, at the very least, the petitioner should be given the benefit of having the court instruct the jury on both charges. It is not enough for the court to stress the intent required for proof of attempted murder; it must also define the intent, in the context of the competing charge, that will not suffice.