Bynum v. State

LOUIS JARRARD BYNUM v. STATE OF MARYLAND

No. 1029-2020

Court of Special Appeals of Maryland

August 10, 2021

Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County Case No. 02-K-14-002525

Berger, Reed, Harrell, Glenn T., Jr. (Senior Judge, Specially Assigned), JJ.

OPINION ^[*]

BERGER, J.

In 2015, a jury in the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County convicted appellant, Louis J. Bynum, of sexual abuse of a minor and 11 counts of third-degree sexual offense. The trial court sentenced Bynum to a total of 58 years in prison suspending all but 25 years. In his timely appeal, ^[1] he asks us to consider the following questions:

I. Whether the circuit court violated Md. Rule 4-215 by not inquiring further into Appellant's reasons for wanting to discharge counsel.

II. Whether the circuit court erred by not allowing the defense to elicit relevant testimony from one of the State's main witnesses.

For the reasons that follow, we will affirm the judgments of the trial court.

BACKGROUND

In 2012, Bynum worked as a dance ministry instructor at a church in Baltimore. He was assisted by T.B., whose 11-year-old daughter, S.B-L., was one of Bynum's dance students. Bynum and T.B. began dating, and they were married in the spring of 2013. After the birth of their son P.B. in July 2013, Bynum stayed home to care for the infant, while trying to start his own business, and T.B. worked outside of the home.

One night in June 2014, P.B. developed a high fever that would not abate, so T.B. took him to the hospital, leaving S.B-L. home alone with Bynum. According to S.B-L., while her mother was gone, Bynum undressed her, kissed her, touched her breasts and buttocks, and tried to entice her to touch his penis.

Bynum's sexual touching of S.B-L. continued throughout the summer of 2014, mostly on occasions when T.B. was at work. Bynum told S.B-L. that her mother would be angry at both of them if she found out about the touching, so S.B-L. kept it secret until September 11, 2014.

On that evening, S.B-L. was again home alone with Bynum. As they watched a movie on the living room couch, he locked the front door and returned to the couch to grab her ankles and pull her on top of him. He removed both their clothes and touched her breasts, vagina, and buttocks and rubbed his penis against her vagina until he ejaculated.

T.B. returned home then, and Bynum told S.B-L. to run to her bedroom and pretend that nothing had happened. She ran, leaving her shirt and bra on the couch, hoping her mother would see them and understand what had happened. As T.B. entered the apartment, she saw S.B-L., with a bare back, running to her room and the child's shirt and bra on the couch. As she entered her daughter's room, she found S.B-L. in the closet buttoning her shorts, wearing no shirt. S.B-L. then told her mother what Bynum had been doing to her.

T.B. furiously confronted Bynum and kicked him out of the home. He denied the touching to T.B. and the police, but through a series of text messages, later apologized and asked for forgiveness for his sins, claiming he was "lost" and "very remorseful."

After showering and changing her clothes, S.B-L. was taken to the hospital on September 12, 2014 for a sexual assault forensic exam.^[2] She also provided a statement to Noreen Startt ("Startt"), a Department of Social Services social worker, while a detective observed from another room.

Initially, S.B-L. said, she told Startt that she had not touched Bynum's penis because she "didn't remember all the details." She also acknowledged telling Startt that Bynum had only ever touched her breasts and buttocks with his hands and that if he tried to touch her "too far down," she would slap his hand away and he would stop. In court, however, she clarified that she had touched his penis and that he had touched the outside of her vagina.

S.B-L. explained that her mother and Bynum had fought a lot during the summer of 2014, mostly over Bynum's attempt to start a business, which was not going well, with money T.B. had earned. They also fought over T.B.'s suspicion that Bynum was seeing other women, which turned out to be accurate. T.B. agreed that by September 2014, her marriage was "unraveling."

Bynum testified on his behalf, denying that he had ever touched S.B-L. in a sexual manner or masturbated in front of her. On the evening of September 11, 2014, he said, S.B-L. was doing homework at the kitchen table while he was in his bedroom, showering in preparation of going to church. As he exited the shower and put on a robe, T.B. confronted him, but he denied having "every physically done anything to [S.B-L.]." He said the remorse he expressed to T.B., via his numerous text messages, related to his infidelity and the demise of their marriage, not because he had done anything to S.B-L.

DISCUSSION

I.

Bynum first contends that the trial court erred in failing to conduct the necessary inquiry to determine whether his reasons for attempting to discharge his attorney were meritorious. As a result, he continues, the trial court erred or abused its discretion in declining to grant his request for a postponement so he could engage private counsel.

On the first day of trial, Bynum appeared in court with his assigned public defender, Catherine Woolley. Prior to jury selection Woolley notified the court that Bynum would like to address the court with "questions about preparation for trial." The following colloquy ensued:

THE DEFENDANT: Yes, sir. How are you doing, Your Honor? At this present moment, I feel that Ms. Wool[l]ey has not prepared adequately towards this case and the situations. We discussed some things that during the several months that I had requested her to look into and it has not been done and that would help me with my defense in this case. I believe that [the prosecutor] has come-I mean Ms. Wool[l]ey has just. . . gone off of more so what the State's Attorney has presented to her and without doing a solid investigation on my behalf of this-of this-these allegations, and I just-my request today is actually that she be removed.

I also sent a letter to her office to her supervisor-I never got a response-two months ago, and to ask her to be removed from this case so I could seek representation elsewhere.

So that's-I just wanted to present to the Court how I felt and how I felt about how this case is going and the investigation.

THE COURT: Well, Mr. Bynum, have you, in fact, sought representation elsewhere?

THE DEFENDANT: Yes. I've been seeking representation from the outside. My family has been trying to get the money together now for representation and-so I was hoping they would be in here today, you know, to let me know what's going on with that. But from my understanding that they have come-came together with the money for them to pay the lawyer.

THE COURT: And have you filed anything prior [to] today with the court-prior to today with the court complaining about the representation you've received from Ms. Wool[l]ey or asking that she be removed as your counsel?

THE DEFENDANT: Yes. I haven't-I didn't file to the courts. I filed to her supervisor. I wrote a letter to her supervisor and I never got a response and this was two months ago. I never got a response or anything from it.

THE COURT: And what have you done over the last two months?

THE DEFENDANT: Well, me and her have been discussing the case and I've been sharing her more details-details on things that can help my case. But again, as I said, none of these things has been approached in any way of getting or receiving information from these people that I led her to get information from.

Bynum asked the court to remove Woolley as his attorney and postpone the matter so he could obtain another attorney. The trial court sent the parties to the administrative judge to rule on the request for postponement and denied the request to remove Woolley because the trial was scheduled to begin that day, after several postponements initiated by Bynum, and he had filed nothing with the court prior to that day asking that Woolley be removed.

When the parties appeared before the administrative judge, Bynum again explained his requests for postponement and new counsel:

THE DEFENDANT: Well my intended request was to postpone it yes, but at the same time to get counsel. I feel Ms. Woolley has not done a thoroughly enough of an investigation [sic] on behalf of this case-

THE COURT: Uh-huh.

THE DEFENDANT: --from our conversations and everything that we had been going through. I had-

THE COURT: Let me interrupt you for one minute. Are you asking to discharge Ms. Woolley-

THE DEFENDANT: Yes.

THE COURT: --meaning to no longer have her services?

THE DEFENDANT: Services, yes.

THE COURT: Okay. Go ahead and explain to me why you want me to agree to that.

THE DEFENDANT: Well-

THE COURT: You saying she didn't do things that needed to be done?

THE DEFENDANT: Well no, not just needed to be done, I fully believe that her investigation has come from the State's Attorney information.

THE COURT: Uh-huh.

THE DEFENDANT: And so I believe that she has not done a thorough enough investigation on my behalf-

THE COURT: What is it you want her to do that she has not done?

THE DEFENDANT: Well I asked her-I gave her several people to contact-

THE COURT: Uh-huh.

THE DEFENDANT: --and I also gave her-like for one incident it's a phone situation that keeps bothering me. In this case is a situation with two phones.

THE COURT: Let's go one at a time. Who did you want her to contact?

THE DEFENDANT: Well Mary Florville (phonetic) was one, Parson McFade (phonetic) was another, and Samantha. Well she did contact Samantha, and Samantha-she said she was gonna call Samantha back for the information but never called her back.

THE COURT: What-did they have information

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