Court Opinion

ID: 9711873
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:40:53.013572+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:07.931734
License: Public Domain

McAULIFFE, Judge,
concurring.
I concur in the judgment and the opinion. I write separately to express the view that the facts of this case clearly would have supported separate convictions.
The question presented by this case involves the applicability of the doctrine of merger when there are several different acts of force or threats of force directed to the victim of a robbery during the criminal event. The answer, which of necessity must depend upon the facts of each case, involves two principal considerations. First, is the conduct constituting the assault or battery for which the State seeks a separate conviction sufficiently separate from the conduct necessary to establish the “force or threat of force” element of robbery so that dual convictions offend neither a sense of basic fairness nor essential protections of the Double Jeopardy Clause? Second, does the record affirmatively show that the trier of fact, in finding the defendant guilty of robbery, did not in fact rely upon the conduct constituting the allegedly separate offense to satisfy the “force” element of the robbery?
With respect to the first question, this Court has said that:
separate acts resulting in separate insults to the person of the victim may be separately charged and punished even though they occur in very close proximity to each other and even though they are part of a single criminal episode or transaction.
State v. Boozer, 304 Md. 98, 105, 497 A.2d 1129 (1985).
In a somewhat similar context, where the Court was concerned with legislative intent with respect to the proper unit of prosecution under a single statute, the Court explored the problem of separate offenses. See Randall *621Book Corp. v. State, 316 Md. 315, 323-29, 558 A.2d 715 (1989). As was pointed out in Randall Book, the line is not always easy to draw. The Supreme Court has held that the simultaneous transporting of two females across a state line for immoral purposes may be punished only as a single offense, Bell v. United States, 349 U.S. 81, 75 S.Ct. 620, 99 L.Ed. 905 (1955), but that the successive cutting of each of three mail bags on a single occasion within a single railway car may be punished as three separate offenses, Ebeling v. Morgan, 237 U.S. 625, 35 S.Ct. 710, 59 L.Ed. 1151 (1915). Two offenses may be committed by a single act, as where a person wielding a knife against two detectives may be punished for two assaults, Cousins v. State, 277 Md. 383, 397, 354 A.2d 825 (1976). Yet, a person unlawfully carrying a single handgun continually for a three-hour period, at different locations, may be punished only for a single possessory offense. Webb v. State, 311 Md. 610, 619, 536 A.2d 1161 (1988) (discussing “continuous offense” cases). And, as Lord Mansfield pointed out in Crepps v. Durden, 2 Cowper, 640, 98 Eng.Rep. 1283 (K.B.1777) when Parliament prohibited the exercise of one’s ordinary trade upon the Lord’s Day, it could not have intended that a baker receive four convictions for selling four small loaves of bread on the same Sabbath, or that a tailor might be separately punished for each stitch taken on a single Sabbath.
In the case of multiple assaults or batteries, the line is equally difficult to draw. Although these are common law crimes, and do not, therefore, involve legislative intent, it is appropriate in determining the propriety of cumulative punishments to employ the same basic standards of common sense and fairness that largely influence the outcome of legislative intent cases. Certainly, where one person pummels another with his fists for several minutes, the law would not countenance a separate punishment for each time a blow is landed. On the other hand, if one person were to inflict various types of torture upon another during the course of the day, allowing the victim to recover consciousness between each assault, it would seem appropriate to *622permit separate convictions for the separate insults to the person of the victim. As the Supreme Court of Connecticut observed in approving separate convictions for separate sexual assaults upon a single victim occurring during a brief period of time, “each assault upon the victim involved a separate act of will on the part of the defendant and a separate indignity upon the victim.” State v. Frazier, 185 Conn. 211, 440 A.2d 916 (1981), cert. denied, 458 U.S. 1112, 102 S.Ct. 3496, 73 L.Ed.2d 1375 (1982).
In the case before the Court, the State argues there were at least two separate acts or courses of conduct on the part of the defendant that were independently sufficient to 1) establish the threat of force necessary to satisfy that element of the robbery offense, and 2) establish the required elements of a separate battery. The first of these separate acts involve the defendant shooting Stamidis in the arm when Stamidis came to investigate the noise caused by the confrontation between the defendant and Bucklew. Clearly, that shooting of Stamidis constituted a battery.
The second course of conduct by the defendant, alleged by the State to constitute a separate assault fully capable of supplying the “threat of force” element of the robbery, was the holding of Stamidis at gun point while the defendant extracted information from him concerning the location of the money, marched him to the office, and then took the money. This conduct constituted an assault sufficient to prove the threat of force required for the robbery conviction. Had the shooting of Stamidis never occurred, the proof of robbery would still have been complete. Thus, the State argues, the defendant’s act of shooting Stamidis could have been completely disregarded by the trier of fact when the determination of the robbery charge was made, and under those circumstances the shooting was not a lesser included offense of the robbery, and was properly punished as a separate battery.
I agree with the State that under the particular circumstances of this case the shooting of Stamidis could properly have been the subject of a separate conviction and sentence. *623I also agree, however, that the Court need not decide that issue, because the State is unable to demonstrate that the trier of fact, in this case the trial judge, did not rely upon the defendant’s conduct in shooting Stamidis as evidence of the requisite force or threat of force in finding the defendant guilty of robbery. As noted above, the trial judge need not have relied upon that evidence. If he believed that the defendant held Stamidis at gun point thereafter, that conduct alone would suffice to prove the “force” element of the robbery. But, in the absence of an affirmative showing that this was the rationale employed by the trial judge, the Court cannot assume that it was. Nightingale v. State, 812 Md. 699, 542 A.2d 373 (1988); State v. Frye, 283 Md. 709, 393 A.2d 1372 (1978).
Chief Judge MURPHY has authorized me to state that he joins in this concurring opinion.