Court Opinion

ID: 9747034
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 14:53:37.844664+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:19.498491
License: Public Domain

Concurring and Dissenting Opinion by WILNER, J., which CATHELL and BATTAGLIA, JJ., join.
I concur in that part of the judgment that affirms the convictions and vacates the sentence imposed on the extortion conviction but, with respect, I dissent from the Court’s vacation of the death sentence.
Here is a case in which defense counsel and the State agreed on the appropriate advice to be given to the defendant, to make certain that, if he chose to waive sentencing by a jury and allow the court to determine the sentence, his waiver and election would be knowing and voluntary. The court agreed with the written statement presented by the prosecutor, with the consent of defense counsel, and read that statement as approved by them. After reading the statement, the court asked the defendant if he had any questions, to which the defendant responded that he did not. The court inquired whether the defendant had discussed his election with his attorney, and the defendant replied that he had. The court inquired whether the defendant understood what the court had recited, and, again, the defendant replied in the affirmative. The court inquired whether defense counsel, who was presumably aware that his client had been prescribed anti-psychotic medication, had any questions, and the answer was “no.”
Notwithstanding the careful, fully adequate, and agreed upon, recitation, this Court declares Abeokuto’s waiver of jury sentencing invalid because the trial court failed to determine whether the defendant, who had been prescribed Geodon while incarcerated at the County Detention Center, was in fact taking that medication at the time of the waiver. I find this *361strained excuse to vacate a death sentence lawfully imposed more than troubling.
In his brief, Abeokuto acknowledges that, in June, 2004, two months before the waiver at issue, he had been found competent to stand trial, a ruling that he has not challenged (yet). His argument on this point is that the court was “on notice” that “his mental health was an issue” and that he “had been prescribed an anti-psychotic medication,” and that “[ajccordingly, the court was required to ask questions designed to reveal whether Mr. Abeokuto’s mental illness and the drugs that he had been prescribed for that illness might have adversely affected his ability to both voluntarily and knowingly waive his right to be tried by a jury.”
This Court seemingly rejects that argument, as presented, but from its own presumed pharmacological expertise drawn from an Internet web site, the Court finds that Geodon “may give rise to the side effects, among others, of sedation, nausea, dizziness, and confusion,” and on that basis declares the waiveiyblection invalid. There is, of course, nothing—absolutely nothing—in the record to indicate that Abeokuto was experiencing any sedation, nausea, dizziness, or confusion when he made his election. Abeokuto made no such complaint, nor did his attorney. Nor does the transcript reveal any colloquy from which any possible sedation, nausea, dizziness, or confusion may be inferred. Simply from the fact that a drug that was prescribed for Abeokuto nearly two years earlier may, according to the Internet, have those effects, the Court requires—not in every case, but just in this one—that the judge make some inquiry.
What kind of inquiry? It does not appear that the trial judge had the same pharmacological expertise regarding Geo-don that the Majority of this Court has assumed for itself. Was he required to consult the Internet to determine the possible side effects of every drug that Abeokuto had taken in the recent or distant past? In the absence of any suggestion by Abeokuto or his attorney that there was a problem in this regard, was the judge obliged to summon into court a pharma*362cist, or psychiatrist, or Court of Appeals judge to testify as to the possible side effects of any such drugs? Was he obliged to deny the election in the absence of such expert testimony and require Abeokuto to proceed before a jury even though he chose not to do so?
What if the judge had made an inquiry and learned that Abeokuto was actually taking Geodon—what then? In the absence of any suggestion that Abeokuto was, in fact, sedated, nauseous, dizzy, or confused—which, to this day Abeokuto has not contended—would he have been obliged to deny the waiver? Would he have been required to conduct an evidentiary hearing, with experts opining as to the alternative effects of taking or not taking the medication in various dosages? If, as argued, the medication is designed to counteract the effects of a psychosis, of hallucinations, would the judge have nonetheless been obliged to insist that Abeokuto stop taking the medication so that he could make his election while not sedated, dizzy, confused, or nauseous but simply hallucinating?
The Court’s decision in this case is inconsistent with the approach taken in Thanos v. State, 330 Md. 77, 622 A.2d 727 (1993) and Baker v. State, 367 Md. 648, 790 A.2d 629 (2002) and, despite the Court’s attempt to cabin it, will make routine sentencing proceedings exponentially more complex. We can take judicial notice of our own statistics that fewer than 5% of the criminal cases in the Circuit Courts of this State are resolved by jury trial. In more than 95% of the cases, the defendant waives a jury trial, and, in most of those cases, accepts a plea agreement and waives trial altogether. We know that many, probably most, of those defendants have some kind of drug history—illegal or prescription drugs. Are we now going to require, as a condition to finding a waiver to be valid, an inquiry into the defendant’s past and current drug use, to determine whether there are any current side effects that might affect the knowingness or voluntariness of the waiver? Such an inquiry is certainly appropriate, and judges often do inquire whether a defendant is on any medication, but is it required when there is no indication that the defendant is *363suffering from any effect of a drug? If not, why not? What is different about this case?
I would certainly agree that, if there was anything in the record even to suggest that Abeokuto was suffering from any drug-related (or non-drug-related) inability to make a knowing and intelligent decision, the judge would have been required to conduct a reasonable inquiry into the matter. There is nothing in this record to suggest such a problem, however, and this Court should not invalidate a perfectly good waiver by conjuring such a hypothesis out of thin air or its own imaginings.
Judges CATHELL and BATTAGLIA authorize me to state that he joins in this concurring and dissenting opinion.