Court Opinion

ID: 9697067
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 19:05:01.941257+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:28.986957
License: Public Domain

KARWACKI, Judge,
dissenting.
The majority recognizes the well settled Maryland law of evidence concerning the test for consolidation of offenses in the prosecution of an accused. Nevertheless, in my judgment it misapplies that law in the instant case.
Notwithstanding its concession that the respondent raised no defense to the child abuse charges based upon lack of motive or intent or mistake exceptions to the general exclusion of evidence of other crimes, the majority concludes that those exceptions justified the mutual admissibility of evidence of the other charged offenses in each of the child abuse prosecutions. In reaching this conclusion reliance is improperly placed upon a statement made by Taylor to a social worker, a statement suppressed by the trial court as made in violation of his right to counsel.
Moreover, I disagree with the majority’s assertion that the State was entitled to negate in its case in chief the possible defenses of lack of motive or intent or mistake on the part of the defendant. See Lynn McLain, Maryland Practice § 404.12, where the author states:
“If the defendant admits that he or she took an action, but claims to have done so unintentionally or by mistake, so that allegations of, for example, forgery, fraud, embezzlement, or malice are unfounded, the prosecution may offer evidence of his or her similar prior wrongs, acts, or crimes, This use of the evidence as proof of absence of mistake is merely the obverse of proof of intent.
*379Similarly, the defendant may claim the harm he or she is alleged to have caused was not at his or her hands, but was the result of an independent accident. Evidence of prior similar acts is then admissible to show lack of mistake or accident. For example, if a defendant charged with child abuse contends that the child’s injuries were caused by an accidental fall, evidence of prior beatings of the child will be admissible.”
(Emphasis added, footnotes omitted). Allowing the prosecution to speculate on the accused’s defenses for the purpose of satisfying the mutual admissibility requirement of the joinder rule renders that requirement nugatory as a protection of the accused’s right to a fair trial. Thus, I agree with the Court of Special Appeals that the trial court erred in joining the offenses for trial. It is difficult for me to conceive of a basis, other than propensity, upon which evidence of the other charged offenses against the defendant could be proffered. Since this evidence was not mutually admissible in the several prosecutions, joinder in this case did not pass muster under the first prong of the test for joinder of offenses we most recently repeated in Conyers v. State, 345 Md. 525, 553, 693 A.2d 781, 794 (1997), i.e., that the evidence concerning each of the charged offenses is mutually admissible. Consequently, the second prong of the test, i.e., whether or not the interest in judicial economy outweighs the arguments favoring separate trials, is not a consideration in deciding the joinder issue. Id., 345 Md. at 552, 693 A.2d at 793.
For these reasons, I respectfully dissent.
BELL, C.J., and ELDRIDGE, J., join in this dissent.