Court Opinion

ID: 9757109
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 22:19:00.926334+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:34.934673
License: Public Domain

Eldridge, J.,

concurring:

I agree with the judgment reached by the majority in this case. However, the majority’s concern with the finality of judgments for the purpose of appealability seems to me to lend needless confusion to what is, in fact, a relatively simple case.
The ruling on Cook’s motion to suppress in the Baltimore County case was, according to Maryland law, subject to revision during the further proceedings in that case. It was not, therefore, a final determination on the issue when originally made. Since the Baltimore County trial ended in a mistrial requested by Cook, and the request was not caused by bad faith conduct of the judge or prosecutor, Cook was subject to retrial and the proceedings never came to a *676termination which would lend the suppression ruling any degree of conclusiveness. See United States v. Dinitz, 424 U. S. 600, 96 S. Ct. 1075, 47 L.Ed.2d 267 (1976); Jourdan v. State, 275 Md. 495, 508, 341 A. 2d 388 (1975). Given the circumstances under which the mistrial was granted, the State was able to retry Cook and could be expected to relitigate the suppression motion. Consequently, the State was not estopped from relitigating the motion to suppress in the Harford County proceedings. This is all that need be said.
Nevertheless, additional considerations are incorporated into the majority opinion. The majority takes the position that “appealability is most certainly a relevant factor in measuring finality for purposes of collateral estoppel” in criminal cases. This emphasis on appealability is both irrelevant and confusing.
The rationale underlying the final judgment rule for the purpose of appeals, as we have said many times, is that piecemeal appeals disrupt trial proceedings, congest the trial courts, burden the appellate courts, and unduly increase the time and expense of litigation. The final judgment rule in the context of appeals allows the trial court to pass upon all aspects of a case in uninterrupted proceedings, and consolidates all assignments of error into a single appeal. That is, the use of the final judgment rule in appeals is meant to delay the raising of an issue until a more appropriate time.
The doctrine of collateral estoppel or issue preclusion, however, is employed to prevent, not merely delay, the raising of an issue which has been fully and finally determined in a prior proceeding. Whether an issue in a prior criminal proceeding has been finally determined has no necessary or intrinsic connection with whether, in addition, that prior criminal proceeding happens to be in the proper posture for appellate review.
Only rarely does the State have the right of appeal in a criminal case. In fact, criminal proceedings often end under circumstances where appeals will not lie with either the defendant or the State. In addition to the obvious situation of an acquittal, such circumstances include the sua sponte mistrial without manifest necessity, the mistrial granted due *677to prosecutorial bad faith, the nolle pros after jeopardy attaches, probation without judgment under Art. 27, § 292 (b), etc. Yet these cases would obviously seem to possess the conclusiveness requisite to sustain a claim of collateral estoppel.
It seems to me important that the task of a trial court in resolving a collateral estoppel claim in a criminal case, namely assessing whether a conclusive resolution of an issue has been made in another proceeding, not be clouded by reference to the extraneous matter of whether, in addition, the previous determination or proceeding is appealable.1
Consistent with these considerations, I would not distinguish People v. Williams, 59 Ill. 2d 557, 322 N.E.2d 461 (1975), as the majority does in part, on the fact of the appealability of the suppression order. Instead, the pertinent distinction is the consequence of that appealability. Illinois courts hold that the state, if it fails to appeal from a suppression order, may not relitigate this order either in the trial court or in any subsequent proceeding against the defendant for the same offense. This finality is not, of course, a necessary consequence of the appealability of the order but is merely a matter of policy.2 The legislature could, if it so *678chose, provide for the state to appeal suppression orders but further provide that failure to take an appeal does not prohibit the state from relitigating the suppression order in certain circumstances, e.g., after a mistrial requested by the defendant where all issues would normally be relitigated. In this event, even though appealable, the order would not be conclusive for purposes of collateral estoppel since there would have been no final determination of the issue in the original proceedings.
The majority, invoking “considerations of fairness,” suggests that collateral estoppel should not apply when a “party” against whom issue preclusion is sought could not obtain appellate review of the prior judgment by an appellate court.3 However, this suggestion has no application whatsoever in the consideration of issue preclusion in criminal cases. Collateral estoppel does not apply against a criminal defendant. As Judge Hammond stated for the Court in Rouse v. State, 202 Md. 481, 490, 97 A. 2d 285 (1953):
“In criminal law, the better reasoned authorities hold that the constitutional right of the accused to have the case against him proven beyond a reasonable doubt at his trial, requires a determination by the trier of the facts in that trial of every fact essential to his guilt, so that matters which have been decided adversely to him by a prior trier of the facts cannot be shown conclusively merely by the prior record.”
Consequently, the majority’s suggestion amounts to the proposition that the State should not be collaterally estopped unless it can raise the issue on appeal. However, the State can almost never take an appeal in criminal cases. And in those rare instances when the State can appeal, the issues *679which it can raise may be limited. Cf. Hayward v. State, 278 Md. 654, 366 A. 2d 52 (1976).
In sum, appealability should not be a relevant factor in determining when collateral estoppel applies in criminal cases.

. In support of its claim that appealability is an important factor in measuring finality for purposes of collateral estoppel in criminal cases, the majority refers to Watts v. United States, 402 F. 2d 676 (D.C. Cir. 1968). Chief Justice Burger, then a circuit judge, stated for the court (402 F. 2d at 685 n. 22):
“The Government argues that the suppression order was not a final order because it was not appealable.... But appeal-ability is not the touchstone of a final order for these purposes. The most frequent type of order that leads to a claim of . . . collateral estoppel is a judgment of acquittal . . . and that is not subject to appeal by the Government. However, judgments of acquittal and even dismissals of cases have a degree of finality that is absent when, as here, the prior case is terminated by the Government’s nolle prosequi.” (Emphasis supplied.)
How the majority manages to construe this case as supporting its assertion is unclear to me.

. Compare, for example, the Maryland practice which allows a defendant to take an appeal from a pre-trial order denying a motion to dismiss on the ground of double jeopardy, Neal v. State, 272 Md. 323, 322 A. 2d 887 (1974); Cornish v. State, 272 Md. 312, 316, 322 A. 2d 880 (1974). However, where the defendant does not exercise this right of immediate appeal but waits until *678after trial, raising the double jeopardy issue in an appeal from the final judgment, this Court will consider the double jeopardy issue then. See, e.g., Thomas v. State, 277 Md. 257, 258-260, 353 A. 2d 240 (1976).

. This is a position which has been urged in civil cases. Restatement (Second) of Judgments, Part I, Chapter 3, Former Adjudication: The Effécts of Judicial Judgments Rendered in Civil Actions, § 68.1(a) (Tent. Draft No. 4, 1977).