Court Opinion

ID: 9535899
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 06:46:16.224151+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:33:22.829174
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by MURPHY, J., which HARRELL and ADKINS, JJ. join.
I dissent from the conclusion that every “jury verdict, rendered and announced in open court, that is neither polled nor hearkened is not properly recorded and is therefore a nullity.” In my opinion, a guilty verdict announced in open court but neither polled nor hearkened is a nullity only if the jury is discharged before the defendant has the opportunity to either (1) request a poll or (2) object to the failure to hearken.
In the case at bar, because the record clearly shows that the Circuit Court provided the Respondent with two opportunities to request that (1) the jurors be polled and/or (2) the failure to hearken be corrected, under the authority of Glickman v. State, 190 Md. 516, 60 A.2d 216 (1948), the judgment of the Court of Special Appeals should be reversed with directions to affirm the judgments of the Circuit Court.
. In Glickman, while affirming judgments of conviction entered at the conclusion of a jury trial in the Criminal Court of Baltimore, this Court stated:
The record discloses, as we have noted above, that the jury were never hearkened as to their verdict in No. 165. But the record also discloses that no objection was made to the *43verdict on this ground, and we must hold that such objection was waived. This Court has recently held in Conley v. Warden of the Maryland House of Correction, 190 Md. 750, 59 A.2d 684, as follows: “If error was committed by the trial court in receiving or entering the verdict, it was incumbent upon the accused, or his counsel, to raise the question by objection or motion in the trial court, and appeal from the court’s ruling. Compare Hechter v. State, 94 Md. 429, 50 A. 1041, 56 L.R.A. 457; Novak v. State, 139 Md. 538, 115 A. 853, and Harris v. State, 182 Md. 27, 31 A.2d 609. * * * ‘Where in a State criminal trial the defendant is represented by competent and experienced counsel, even constitutional rights known or presumed to be known to counsel to exist must be held to have been waived if not made at all or * * * inadequately presented.’ United States ex rel. Jackson v. Brady, 47 F.Supp. 362, 367, aff. 4 Cir., 133 F.2d 476, cert. den. 319 U.S. 746, 63 S.Ct. 1029, 87 L.Ed. 1702, rehearing denied 319 U.S. 784, 63 S.Ct. 1315, 87 L.Ed. 1727 [(1943)].” Had the objection been seasonably made in the case at bar, the omission could have been readily corrected.
Id. at 526-27, 60 A.2d at 220-21.
I also disagree with the majority’s conclusion that “our holding [in Glickman] that the objection to the reception or entry of the verdict was waived cannot be reconciled with our holdings in Smith [v. State], 299 Md. 158, 472 A.2d 988 [(1984)] and Jones [v. State], 384 Md. 669, 866 A.2d 151 [(2005)].” While both of those cases include a discussion about polling and hearkening, neither holds that a defendant who has been found guilty by a jury verdict returned in open court is entitled to a new trial whenever the record shows that (1) a poll was not requested, and (2) the clerk failed to hearken the verdict.
In Jones, this Court (1) affirmed the judgments entered on all the convictions that were announced in open court (and as to which the jurors were polled), but (2) reversed the judgment entered on the one conviction that had been recorded on the verdict sheet but not announced in open court. The holding in Jones is “that for a verdict to be considered final in *44a criminal case it must be announced orally to permit the defendant the opportunity to exercise the right to poll the jury to ensure the verdict’s unanimity.” 384 Md. at 685, 866 A.2d at 160-61. In the case at bar, it is clear that Respondent had “the opportunity to exercise the right to poll the jury.”
In Smith, while affirming judgments of conviction entered on jury verdicts returned in open court at the conclusion of a second trial, and rejecting the petitioner’s “double jeopardy” argument, this Court, stated:
It is perfectly obvious that the [first] jury did not reach a unanimous final verdict on any of the three charges before them. The verdicts [of acquittal] which were initially announced by the forelady as being the verdicts of the jury were never even hearkened, and, in any event, were undermined by the subsequent polling.
The short of it is that, in the circumstances, the verdicts were in the province of the [first] jury until [that] jury were discharged upon their inability to agree.
299 Md. at 178-79, 472 A.2d at 998. In the case at bar, the verdicts were in the province of the jury when, after the foreman announced the verdict on the third count, the Circuit Court asked, “Anything further for the jury?” The verdicts remained in the province of the jury when, after directing that the clerk “enroll” the verdicts, the Circuit Court asked, “Anything further?” The Respondent’s trial counsel answered, “No, Your Honor[,]” to both of those questions. Under these circumstances, I would direct that the judgments of conviction be reinstated.
Judges HARRELL and ADKINS have authorized me to state that they join this dissenting opinion.