Court Opinion

ID: 9697487
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 19:18:08.848305+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:32.958514
License: Public Domain

*17
Rodowsky, J.,

dissenting:

I respectfully dissent. The examination by the State of Kim Bognanni (Bognanni) elicited proper rebuttal testimony, in my opinion.
This was a case of substantial factual conflict between the State’s principal witness, Deno Kanaras (Deno), and the Appellant, John Norman Huffington (Huffington). Portions of Huffington’s testimony were corroborated by his witness, Tom Hall (Hall). The testimony which the majority holds to have been erroneously admitted deals with a time discrepancy between State and defense proof, involving the period from 7:30 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. on Monday, May 25, 1981. Defense evidence from Huffington and Hall placed Huffington at Huffington’s apartment during this period, as part of an exculpatory explanation for a bloodstain found by the police on Huffington’s boot. In contradiction of this new matter from the defense, Bognanni swore that Huffington was at Bognanni’s apartment during the same period. Bognanni’s description of what she and Huffington were doing during the two and one-half hour discrepancy tended to show that Bognanni’s version was the more credible. Her testimony was not admitted as evidence of contemplated flight.
Under the State’s proof, through Deno, the murders were committed by Huffington between 4:00 a.m. and daylight on May 25. According to Deno, he was continuously in Huffington’s company from about midnight on the 24th-25th until at least noon on the 25th, and he had witnessed the murders. Deno also testified that at about 6:00 p.m. on the 25th he received a call from Huffington in which Huffington said they both should state they had been at the Fiddler’s Convention. Part of the State’s proof was a bloodstain found on a boot owned by Huffington. The State’s expert could not identify whether it was blood from a human being or from an animal.
Huffington’s version was that he knew nothing about the murders, but that he had been asked by Deno to alibi for *18Deno by giving the Fiddler’s Convention story. Huffington testified that he had been with Deno until 3:00 a.m. on the 25th when Deno dropped Huffington off at Huffington’s apartment. Huffington then walked his dog and, on returning to his apartment, received a telephone call from Hall. After the call Huffington went to bed and slept until about 9:00 a.m. During most of the afternoon of the 25th Huffington was at Pimlico race track. He said he was back in his apartment by 6:00 p.m. when Deno telephoned him. Deno wanted Huffington to alibi for Deno, but Deno did not explain why. Huffington agreed. Huffington also said that blood probably got on his boot when he tended to his dog which had cut its hind leg in a fall from the porch at Huffington’s apartment. This incident occurred when Hall and a Mark Gravely were visiting with Huffington.1
On his direct examination, Huffington said that he had gone to the Fox’s Den at about 10:00 p.m. on the 25th where he met Tommy Kanaras (Tommy), a cousin of Deno’s. Tommy said that the police wanted to talk to Huffington. Huffington went to the police station that evening and gave the police the false alibi as Deno had requested. Huffington volunteered for a lie detector test at a later date, which the police were to arrange. He also consented to a search of his apartment, after telling the police they would find paraphernalia which Huffington did not want, because he was no longer going to deal in cocaine.
On cross-examination Huffington admitted that he did not go from his home to the Fox’s Den on the evening of the 25th. He went from his home to that of his female friend Bognanni, whom Huffington, on direct, had been trying to shield from involvement. Huffington said that he had been with Hall and Gravely, that Hall dropped Huffington off at Bognanni’s apartment about 10:00 p.m., that Tommy arrived at Bognanni’s about 11:00 p.m., and that Tommy then took Huffington into Bel Air where Huffington went to the police and gave the false alibi for Deno.
*19Under Huffington’s version it was not until the 26th, after he was arrested based on Deno’s statement to the police, that Huffington concluded Deno no longer needed an alibi.
Hall was a witness in the defendant’s case. Hall testified that he telephoned Huffington’s apartment about 2:30 a.m. or 3:00 a.m. on the 25th and spoke to Huffington to invite him over to Hall’s for a party, but Huffington declined. Hall also said that on the evening of the 25th he left work in Aberdeen at about 7:00 p.m. with Huffington. They traveled in Hall’s car which Huffington had used to go to Pimlico. They went directly to Huffington’s apartment near Bel Air, where they were met by Mark Gravely. While the three were on the porch, Huffington’s dog slipped off and cut one of its paws. Huffington comforted the dog. The three men were together at Huffington’s until about 8:00 p.m. when Hall and Mark Gravely left Huffington at his apartment and went in Gravely’s van to a pool hall in Bel Air. Gravely brought Hall back to Huffington’s about 9:30 or 10:00 p.m., and Gravely went elsewhere. At 10:15 or 10:30 p.m. Hall, in Hall’s car, drove Huffington to Bognanni’s apartment, and dropped him off there.
When the State called Bognanni in rebuttal, her direct testimony developed that she and Huffington were "very close” friends. Her apartment was about two to three miles from where Huffington lived. On the 25th of May she had gotten home from work about 5:00 p.m. Someone dropped Huffington off at Bognanni’s around 7:30 p.m. Her examination, the defense objection and the trial court’s ruling then proceeded as quoted in the majority opinion.
It is plain from the quoted portion of the record that the trial court did not admit the disputed evidence on the theory that the State was showing flight, or had a right on rebuttal to show flight. What had been developed by the State, without objection, was that Bognanni put Huffington in her apartment two and one-half hours before Huffington said he had arrived there. This was the period when Huffington and Hall had testified Huffington was handling his cut dog. If the jury believed Bognanni, they would have reason to reject not only the Huffington-Hall explanation of the blood, but the *20jury would also have had further reason to disbelieve Huffington’s story that he was at home when the murders were committed and to disbelieve Hall’s partial confirmation of Huffington’s story by way of the telephone call. Thus, in argument on the objection, the State said it wanted to bring out "just generally what happened that evening,” and that it should not be required to do so by picking and choosing "specific exact points .. ..” If Bognanni was able to fill in what transpired during the time she said she was with Huffington, her testimony would become more believable.
Against this background, the testimony objected to was clearly an integral part of the State’s proper rebuttal of new matter. The Bognanni evidence showed that between 7:30 p.m. and 11:30 p.m., when Tommy picked Huffington up at Bognanni’s, she and Huffington talked about a trip to Florida, made telephone calls for schedule and price information, and snorted cocaine. Indeed, the claimed erroneous ruling was merely a proper exercise of the trial court’s discretion concerning the amount of time it would permit to be devoted on a particular line of relevant examination.
Nor did the State argue at the close of the case that Bognanni’s evidence supported an inference of guilt based on flight. In the State’s opening summation the reference to talk about going to Disney World was in response to Huffington’s position that his only connection with the murders was to give a false alibi for Deno. The State suggested that it was inconsistent for Huffington to claim he was simply helping support Deno’s original story, when Huffington was getting information on a trip to Florida. Some weight to this argument might be found in Huffington’s offer to the police to take a lie detector test at some time after May 25.2
By holding that Bognanni’s testimony was evidence of flight which was improper rebuttal, the majority has greatly expanded what may constitute proof of flight. It is said that *21"planning a trip to Florida [on the evening after the killings] supported an inference that the appellant was attempting to flee from the scene of the crimes and, therefore, supported an inference of the appellant’s guilt.” The uncontradicted proof was that Buffington and Bognanni had, for some considerable time previously, been talking about a vacation trip, but had not specifically discussed going to Disney World. Today’s holding that that evidence tended to show guilt means it was admissible in the State’s case in chief. It means such evidence is admissible in chief against any person accused of committing a crime at or about the time that person was getting information about a possible, and long contemplated, vacation. No previous Maryland decision has gone that far. Because the proof in the instant case was not admitted on the theory that the State was proving flight, I see no need to reach the question in this case.
Chief Judge Murphy and Judge Smith have authorized me to state that they join me in the views expressed herein.

. Mark Gravely did not testify at trial.

. Even if one were to consider the State’s reference to the Bognanni testimony as insinuating flight, and thereby going beyond the purpose for which the proof was admitted, there was no defense objection to that argument, no request for a curative instruction, and no motion for a mistrial.