Court Opinion

ID: 9761606
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 01:47:14.333671+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:24.977867
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
HARRELL, J.,
in which WILNER and BATTAGLIA, JJ. join.
Although I agree with the Majority’s analysis and conclusion regarding Carter’s flagship argument questioning whether, under the circumstances of this case, the trial judge possessed the power to give curative instructions over the defendant’s objection (Maj. op., Part II, at 582-88), I part company with its conclusion that a mistrial should have been granted (Maj. op., Part III, at 588-92). Although hardly a model, the trial judge’s choice of curative language was not so *593ineffective as to fail to ameliorate the prejudice to Carter in this trial or to erode my confidence in the jury’s ability to follow the judge’s directions. Therefore, I would affirm the Court of Special Appeals’s judgment.
It is unclear to me whether the Majority justifies reversal based solely on its analysis of the trial judge’s instructional response to Sgt. Bryant’s isolated, unresponsive remark made during direct examination by the prosecutor (near the end of the first day of a five day trial) concerning a prior arrest of Carter (Maj. op. at 590), or whether the Majority relies also on a pejorative view of the judge’s curative direction delivered on the third day of trial immediately following the unresponsive reply of State’s witness, James Douglas, during cross-examination by Carter’s counsel, to the effect that Carter sold crack to his alleged co-conspirator, Benny (Maj. op. at 590-91).1 This uncertainty is fueled by the Majority, in its analysis and application of the relevant legal principles, appearing to scrutinize only the curative instruction aimed at Sgt. Bryant’s remark:
In instructing the jury to disregard the testimony about a prior arrest, the court mentioned the arrest four times in the course of telling the jury to disregard it. The instruction as given, rather than being curative, highlighted the inadmissible evidence and emphasized to the jury that petitioner had been arrested previously. The purported curative instruction was inadequate to cure the prejudice.
(Maj. op. at 591).
Even assuming the Majority intended to sweep-up both curative instructions in its proclamation of error, I would not *594agree that the cumulative effect of the debatable linguistic shortcomings in the instructions merit the designation reversible error. Carter may not have received-a perfect trial, but he got a fair one. I imagine the judge’s instruction in response to Sgt. Bryant’s gaffe would not be a candidate for inclusion in future editions of Maryland Criminal Pattern Jury Instructions (owing to its arguably unnecessary repetition of the word “arrest”); however, the Majority fails to persuade me, on this record, why the instruction was not able to be followed by the jury. Further, the instruction intended to cure Douglas’s allusion to Carter selling crack (somewhat less repetitive regarding crack-selling than was its “arresting” cousin) seems to me to be likely of comprehension and observance by a reasonable jury as well.
The two relevant evidentiary missteps occurred on the first and third days of the five day trial and were dealt with promptly. The errant remarks necessitating the instructions were uttered by different State’s witnesses, neither of whom was pivotal. The first remark occurred during the State’s direct examination (for which the trial judge found no fault attributable to the prosecutor) of Sgt. Bryant, one of several officers who investigated the crimes. The second inadmissible statement occurred during Carter’s counsel’s cross-examination of James Douglas, Carter’s friend. Although the trial court found Douglas’s answers to be unresponsive to defense counsel’s question,2 defense counsel arguably should have anticipated the content of the response because a similar statement was contained in Douglas’s pre-trial written statement given to police, a copy of which defense counsel clutched in his hand as he interrogated Douglas. Douglas was but one of several of Carter’s friends and co-workers who testified to various incriminating facts implicating Carter in the crimes (many involving claims or boasts Carter made to them).
As the State points out in its Brief to the Court:
*595This was not a case that rested upon the testimony of a single witness. Numerous witnesses, several of them friends of Carter himself, provided evidence that, taken as a whole, established truly compelling evidence of guilt.... This evidence included Carter’s own admissions to not one, but several, friends that he committed the robbery and murder; the compelling circumstantial evidence regarding his conduct at the time of the crime; his abortive attempt to intimidate a witness as evidenced by the incriminating note found in his jail cell; and his sudden, unexplained wealth after the robbery. In addition, there was abundant evidence from several sources establishing that Carter possessed handguns and that he had shaved long rifle ammunition of the type used in the crime.
(State’s Brief at 27).
The prejudice to Carter, against which the palliative effect of the curative instructions is to be measured, seems to me to be of less “devastating and pervasive effect,” (Rainville v. State, 328 Md. 398, 411, 614 A.2d 949, 955 (1992)), than that found by the Court in the circumstances of the main cases relied on by the Majority: Rainville, Kosmas v. State, 316 Md. 587, 560 A.2d 1137 (1989), and Guesfeird v. State, 300 Md. 653, 480 A.2d 800 (1984). In Rainville, the defendant was on trial for allegedly raping and otherwise sexually abusing a 7 year old girl. Rainville, 328 Md. at 399, 614 A.2d at 949. A State witness, the child’s mother, testified that the defendant, several weeks after the assault on the victim, was “in jail for what he had done to [the victim’s 9 year old brother].” Id. (alteration in original). In fact, Rainville also had been arrested for child abuse and a sexual offense against the victim’s brother. Rainville, 328 Md. at 400, 614 A.2d at 950. Based on this, and even though a prompt curative instruction was given by the trial court, the Court was. persuaded that the prejudice to Rainville was irremediable. Rainville, 328 Md. at 411, 614 A.2d at 955. The Court suggested that one of the considerations that tipped the scales in reaching this conclusion was that “[t]he State’s case rested almost entirely upon the testimony of a seven-year-old girl.” Rainville, 328 Md. at *596409, 614 A.2d at 954. In Carter’s case, however, the inadmissible other crimes/bad acts evidence was not substantially similar, in large measure, to the flagship charges for which he was being tried (first degree premeditated murder and armed robbery). Moreover, as noted supra (Dissent, op. at 595), the body of incriminating evidence against Carter did not rest on any single, pivotal witness.
Both Kosmas and Guesfeird involved prejudice worked by testimonial references to polygraph testing (in the case of Kosmas, a reference to the refusal to take a polygraph test) (Kosmas, 316 Md. at 594, 560 A.2d at 1141). In Guesfeird, the defendant was charged with child abuse and a sex crime against a teenage girl. Guesfeird, 300 Md. at 655-56, 480 A.2d at 801. During the victim’s testimony, she referred in passing to having taken a lie detector test. Guesfeird, 300 Md. at 656, 480 A.2d at 802. As the “sole prosecution witness on which the alleged crimes were based,” the victim’s “credibility was the crucial issue for the jury,” according to the Court. Gues-feird, 300 Md. at 666, 480 A.2d at 807. In comparison, the substance of her testimony as to the crimes was contradicted by the testimony of Guesfeird and his witnesses, many of whom were the victim’s own family members. Guesfeird, 300 Md. at 657-58, 480 A.2d at 803. Thus, because she was, in effect, the State’s case and her reference to having taken a lie detector test could support a reasonable inference that she was testifying because she passed the test, the Court concluded the prejudice to Guesfeird could not be cured effectively by the timely curative admonition delivered by the trial judge. Guesfeird, 300 Md. at 666-67, 480 A.2d at 807. In Carter’s case, as noted supra (Dissent, op. at 596), there was no single pivotal witness in the State’s prosecution. Rather, the mass of the testimony of the State’s multiple witnesses and other evidence was compelling. Comparing the relative strength of the State’s case in Guesfeird to that in Carter’s trial, I am unable to conclude that the prejudice in the latter was unable to be mitigated acceptably by the timely instructions given.
*597Finally, although I am not able “to examine virtually the entire transcript of the trial” in Kosmas, as the author of the Court’s opinion in Kosmas did (316 Md. at 598, 560 A.2d at 1143) in concluding that the prejudice to Kosmas’s credibility occasioned by a witness’s assertion that he overheard Kosmas refuse a police request to take a lie detector test was such that no instruction could cure it (See id.), I am persuaded, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the outcome of Carter’s trial was not dependent on the pertinent inadmissible evidence, given the curative instructions.
Judges Wilner and Battaglia authorize me to state that they join with this Dissent.

. It seems clear that the trial judge’s third curative instruction, given in response to the prosecutor's errant remark in closing argument (Maj. op. at 581-82), does not figure in the Majority’s reasoning because it is not mentioned in the Majority's analysis of the mistrial issue, other than in a passing reference in the opening paragraph of this portion of the Majority opinion (Maj. op. at 588).

. Defense counsel, in a course of questioning implicitly aimed at exploring Benny’s supposed relationship to Carter, asked the open-ended question: "Who is Benny?” The response he got was: "Some crackhead he [Carter] sold crack to.”