Court Opinion

ID: 9639048
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 16:02:58.848489+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:11.880297
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
BATTAGLIA, J.
which BELL, C.J., joins.
I respectfully dissent.
In this case we have been asked to decide whether the trial judge was required to disqualify the State’s Attorney1 who, while employed as an Assistant Public Defender, previously had represented the defendant in two criminal cases unrelated to the present case. The majority here affirms the trial court’s ruling and holds that,
*555[wjhere the potential conflict of interest with a former client in a criminal case arises out of a substantially unrelated charge (although similar to the current ones for which the former client was being tried), and the trial court makes an appropriate inquiry into potential prejudice to the defendant in the current prosecution from the risk of disclosure of any confidential information that may have been imparted during the previous representation, but finds none, the court is not compelled to disqualify the prosecutor.
Maj. op. at 532, 880 A.2d at 325. I depart from the majority, however, because I do not believe that the trial judge’s decision to disqualify the State’s Attorney was discretionary.
The majority confuses and conflates the standards to be applied when a conflict of interest is alleged and thereafter, when the sanction arising from the conflict is determined, i.e., either the indictment should be dismissed and the prosecution barred or the State’s Attorney should be disqualified. When, as here, the State’s Attorney had a conflict of interest because of his personal representation of the defendant in another criminal case, we utilize a de novo standard to assess whether the trial judge correctly evaluated the allegations of conflict of interest on the part of the State’s Attorney, and then, apply an abuse of discretion standard to determine whether the sanction imposed was appropriate.
In Sinclair v. State, 278 Md. 243, 363 A.2d 468 (1976), this Court considered whether the State’s Attorney could “initiate or participate in a prosecution when he ha[d] a conflicting private interest in a civil matter.” Id. at 244, 363 A.2d at 469-70. We held that “unresolved nonfrivolous allegations of specific prosecutorial conflicts of interest,” mandated a remand to the trial court to determine if the defendant’s conviction should be overturned, as well as whether the Information filed against him was valid, without regard to proof of actual prejudice to the defendant. Id. at 255 n. 8, 260, 363 A.2d at 475 n. 8, 478 (noting, “We, unlike the trial court in this case ... conclude that the defendant need not prove actual prejudice because, on the basis of public policy, it will be presumed to exist as a matter of law.”). In reaching this result, Judge *556Dudley Digges, writing for the Court, relied upon Derlin v. Derlin, 142 Md. 352, 364, 121 A. 27, 31 (1923):
“An attorney at law who has once been retained and received the confidence of a client, is thereafter disqualified from acting for any other person adversely interested in the same general matter, however slight such adverse interest may be. Nor does it matter that the intention and motive of the attorney are honest. This rule is a rigid one, and designed not alone to. prevent the dishonest practitioner from fraudulent conduct, but as well to preclude the honest practitioner from putting himself in a position where he may be required to choose between conflicting duties, or be led to an attempt to reconcile conflicting interests, rather than to enforce to their full extent the rights of the interest which he should alone represent.”
Sinclair, 278 Md. at 253-54, 363 A.2d at 474-75 (internal citation omitted) (emphasis added).
The Sinclair Court recognized a pivotal principle of our criminal justice system, that the functions of a State’s Attorney are so essential to the fair and equal administration of justice that he or she must be, or appear to be, impartial in the exercise of his or her duty. The conflict of interest in Sinclair was so important that the possibility of a contaminating influence on the prosecution subjected an elected State’s Attorney to scrutiny, which would have resulted in a disqualification of his whole office.
The importance of avoiding a conflict of interest was reinforced in Lykins v. State, 288 Md. 71, 415 A.2d 1113 (1980), in which an attorney who had represented the defendant in a civil matter later became the State’s Attorney who presented evidence against the defendant to a grand jury that returned an indictment. Id. at 72, 415 A.2d at 1114. In Lykins, the issue was not whether a conflict of interest existed or if the trial judge had committed error in his determination that there was a conflict of interest. Rather, the only issue was whether the indictment should be dismissed in lieu of supplanting the prosecutor.
*557In our review of the record, this Court accepted the trial court’s determination that the circumstances were so grave as to adversely affect the administration justice. Id. at 84, 415 A.2d at 1121. In so doing, we held that:
the proper action to be taken by a trial judge, when he encounters circumstances similar to those in the case at bar which he determines to be so grave as to adversely affect the administration of justice but which in no way suggest the bringing of a prosecution for improper motives (as was the case in Sinclair), is to supplant the prosecutor, not to bar the prosecution. Of course, a trial judge may determine that the facts presented to him are not sufficiently grave to require even this action. Normally, the evaluation of such circumstances is left to the sound discretion of the trial judge who is upon the scene and able to sense the nuances of that before him. Ordinarily an appellate court will not interfere with his conclusion as to the proper course of action to be followed in the absence of a showing of an abuse of discretion upon the part of the trial judge.
Id. at 85, 415 A.2d at 1121. In Lykins, it is noteworthy that the State’s Attorney testified that he did not remember if confidential information had been disclosed during his prior representation of the defendant. Id. at 74-75, 415 A.2d at 1115-16.
The majority in this case, however, commingles the standards used in the determination of a conflict of interest and its appropriate sanction into one standard and relies on Young v. State, 297 Md. 286, 465 A.2d 1149 (1983), for the proposition that “Young reflects our continuing reluctance to require disqualification when merely an appearance of impropriety is shown to exist.” Maj. op. at 546-47, 880 A.2d at 334. In Young, the only issue was “whether all of the prosecutors in a county State’s Attorney’s office [were] disqualified from prosecuting a defendant in a criminal case [where] one of their number, prior to appointment as an Assistant State’s Attorney, acted as counsel to the defendant.” Young, 297 Md. at 287, 465 A.2d at 1150. Relying on the decisions in Sinclair *558and Lykins, this Court determined that the whole State’s Attorney’s Office need not be disqualified:
We think it clear from the rationale of Sinclair and Lykins that the mere appearance of impropriety is not of itself sufficient to warrant disqualification of an entire State’s Attorney’s office, based upon one member’s prior representation of a defendant presently under prosecution. Where disqualification is sought, the trial court must make inquiry as to whether the defendant’s former counsel participated in the prosecution of the case or divulged any confidential information to other prosecutors.
Id. at 298, 465 A.2d at 1155 (emphasis added). The issue in Young, as in the earlier cases, was not whether a conflict of interest existed on the part of the former defense attorney turned prosecutor, but whether that conflict could be imputed to another member of the office, absent actual communication, so that there was an appearance of a conflict. The seminal distinction between Sinclair and Lykins, on the one hand, and Young, on the other is that the State’s Attorney was the actor in Sinclair and Lykins while an Assistant State’s Attorney was subject to scrutiny in Young, which dealt solely with disqualification of the entire office, when the conflicted Assistant had not communicated any information about his prior representation to his colleagues. Therefore, disqualification of an entire State’s Attorney Office would not necessarily be required when an appearance of impropriety was involved.
Clearly, Young does not stand for the proposition that the appearance of impropriety, alone, is insufficient to warrant disqualification of a State’s Attorney. To the contrary, our precedent unequivocally establishes that when a State’s Attorney in a criminal matter has a conflict of interest resulting from his or her prior representation of an accused, the conflict that is created is sufficient, in and of. itself, to warrant disqualification; the only issue that remains is whether the indictment also must be dismissed or the entire office supplanted. Lykins, 288 Md. at 84-85, 415 A.2d at 1121; Sinclair, 278 Md. at 254, 368 A.2d at 475. Actual prejudice to the *559defendant is not required — thus a per se rule is effected. Sinclair, 278 Md. at 255 n. 8, 363 A.2d at 475 n. 8.
In the case sub judice, the record is clear that the State’s Attorney had a conflict of interest and should have been disqualified from prosecuting the defendant. During the bench conference on the motion, the State’s Attorney stated that he did “remember Mr. Gatewood from the [Public Defender’s] Office.” Counsel for the defense confirmed through electronic records at the Public Defender’s Office that the State’s Attorney, in fact, had represented the defendant on two cases in 1998 — a burglary charge that resulted in a nolle prosequi and a conspiracy to possess a controlled dangerous substance (CDS) that was resolved by a guilty plea. Armed with such knowledge, the judge, nonetheless, did not limit the State’s Attorney from impeaching the defendant with his prior convictions even though the State’s Attorney so limited himself during cross-examination of the defendant.
In addition, and as the majority concedes, “the knowledge of Gatewood’s prior criminal record, which merited a ‘5’ on the sentencing guideline worksheet as a prior adult criminal offender, contributed most significantly to the State’s [sentencing] recommendation,” Maj. op. at 553, 880 A.2d at 338, which undoubtedly included the prior CDS conviction. In fact, during the sentencing hearing, the State’s Attorney stated in support of the sentencing recommendation: “looking at the presentence report, I note that not even counting the robbery second degree conviction in Delaware, which Mr. Gatewood has disputed, he has at least eleven prior criminal convictions otherwise.” In response, the trial judge remarked: “Mr. Gatewood’s criminal history is not good, It’s rather lengthy. It’s varied. The pre-sentence investigation reveals that — the different crimes, theft, burglary, alluding a police officer, assault, drug distribution. That’s why the offender score is so high.”2
*560The issue is never whether the prosecutor remembers the vagaries of representing a defendant or if the defendant is actually prejudiced by the conflict of interest. In this case, the conflict of interest exists and we should not countenance it. Under the circumstances, I would reverse the conviction and remand the case to the trial court for a new trial with a different prosecutor.3 The integrity of the judicial process demands it.
Chief Judge BELL has authorized me to state that he joins in this dissent.

. As the majority notes in its footnote 1, the Court of Special Appeals's opinion in this case and the Petitioner's brief in this Court refer to Eastridge as an Assistant State’s Attorney. The Respondent's brief refers to Eastridge as the State’s Attorney for Cecil County. I also will refer to Eastridge as the State’s Attorney throughout this dissent.

. Moreover, the judge did not scrutinize whether the State's Attorney was involved in the presentation of the current charges to a grand jury; in various of Maryland's comities, individuals in private practice also may have served as prosecutors.
*560Whether the prosecutor, with knowledge as the former defense attorney to the defendant, presented the case to a grand jury was suggested as legitimate inquiry by this Court in Lykins to determine that a conflict of interest was present. See Lykins, 288 Md. at 79, 415 A.2d at 1118, quoting Judge Dudley Digges in Sinclair:
These decisions seem to suggest what we think is the controlling principle of this case: if a prosecutor has, or would clearly appear to a reasonable person having knowledge of the pertinent facts to have, any pecuniary interest or a significant personal interest in a civil matter which may impair his obligation in a criminal matter to act impartially toward both the State and the accused, then he is, on the basis of this State's public policy, disqualified from initiating or participating in the prosecution of that criminal cause. The corollary to this principle is that if a prosecutor who should have been disqualified is involved in his official capacity in the bringing of charges (by way of indictment or information) against the defendant, then upon timely objection the charges will be dismissed, or if such a prosecutor participates in his official capacity in the prosecution of the case, then upon timely objection any resulting conviction will be reversed and a new trial ordered.

. Whether another member of the State’s Attorney's Office could prosecute the case or if a special prosecutor should be appointed was not explored, but would need to be.