In re Anthony W.

879 A.2d 717

388 Md. 251

In re ANTHONY W.

No. 136, September Term, 2004.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

August 1, 2005.

Ann N. Bosse, Asst. Atty. Gen. (J. Joseph Curran, Jr., Atty. Gen., on brief), for petitioner.

Michael R. Braudes, Asst. Public Defender (Nancy S. Forster, Public Defender, Katherine P. Rasin, Asst. Public Defender, on brief), for respondent.

Argued before BELL, C.J., RAKER, WILNER, CATHELL, HARRELL, BATTAGLIA and GREENE, JJ.

GREENE, J.

Anthony W., respondent, was charged in juvenile court with the malicious destruction of property.¹ During the trial, respondent moved for dismissal, alleging that the State's case consisted only of the testimony of two accomplices that was not corroborated in any manner. The motion to dismiss was denied. On November 14, 2002, the Circuit Court for Frederick County, sitting as a juvenile court, found that Anthony W. was involved in the delinquent act. Anthony W. filed a timely appeal to the Court of Special Appeals and the intermediate appellate court reversed the juvenile court.

We granted the State's petition for writ of certiorari, which contains two questions combined into one. For purposes of clarity, we separate and reword the two questions:

1. Did the Court of Special Appeals err in holding that the accomplice corroboration rule applicable in criminal cases applies in juvenile cases?

2. Did the Court of Special Appeals improperly hold that the evidence was insufficient to find that Anthony W. committed the act of malicious destruction of property because there was no corroboration of the testimony of the two alleged accomplices?

We hold that the common law rule, applicable in criminal proceedings, requiring independent evidence to corroborate the testimony of an accomplice, also applies in juvenile cases. As to the second question, however, we reverse the Court of Special Appeals. We hold that the trial judge was not clearly erroneous in finding that the State's two witnesses were not accomplices whose testimony needed to be corroborated.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

Sometime during the late evening of May 10 and early morning of May 11, 2002, Jose Gonzales, Keith Steers, and Anthony W. were driving around the area of Kemptown Church Road in Frederick County with no particular destination in mind. According to the testimony of Keith Steers, the front seat passenger and one of two witnesses for the State, Anthony W. told Jose Gonzales, the driver, to stop the car in the parking lot of Kemptown Elementary School. After Gonzales stopped the car, Anthony W. exited the car from the back seat and went toward a school bus. Shortly thereafter, Steers and Gonzales also got out of the car and went to the rear of the school bus, which was about fifteen feet from the car. Steers testified that the respondent entered the bus by breaking the glass in the front door of the bus. According to Steers, Anthony W. smashed a number of windows with a fire extinguisher stored in the bus and sprayed the interior. Steers and Gonzales testified that they entered the bus shortly after Anthony W. and attempted to stop him from breaking additional windows. Neither Steers nor Gonzales broke any windows. They did, however, remove a box of road flares as all three left the bus.

On cross-examination, Steers testified that he had been charged with misdemeanor theft for taking the box of flares from the bus, and that the charge was stetted² in exchange for his testimony against the respondent.

In a series of questions, the defense attorney for Anthony W. asked Steers:

Q. Now you say that your case was placed on the stet docket?

A. Yes sir.

Q. And was that, what was the agreement that your case be placed on the stet docket, Mr. Steers? Did you make an agreement with the, with the State's Attorney's Office?

A. That I stay out of trouble.

Q. Did you also make an agreement that if your case, your theft case was placed on the stet docket, that you would testify against —

A. Oh —

Q. — Tony.

A. Yes sir.

Q. Now at the time that your case was... and you, you said you were charged with misdemeanor theft?

A. Yes sir.

Q. And that's what was placed on the stet, stet docket?

A. Yes sir.

Q. So, and do you know what the penalty for misdemeanor theft is?

A. It's a $5000 fine and up to a year and a half in jail, I think.

Q. All right. So you knew that by testifying against, against Tony, you could avoid being prosecuted and potentially facing that penalty and jail. Is that correct?

A. Yes sir.

The State's second witness, Gonzales, after being advised of his rights, declined to testify until the State entered a "nol pros with prejudice"³ on his theft charge, which also stemmed from the taking of the box of flares from the bus. After a recess, the State agreed to either enter a nolle prosequi with prejudice or dismiss the case with prejudice.

According to Gonzales, he was "just driving around cuz ... there was nothing to do," when they all decided to drive down the road past the elementary school. After parking on the left-hand side of the building where the school buses were parked, he then testified that the following occurred:

Tony got out of the car and just tried to find a way into the bus. We circled the bus around one time to see if there was [sic] any windows open. And then he got through the [passenger] door [of the bus] like I said at the first time. He'd broken in from the inside somehow. I don't know how he did it.

* * * * * *

[Anthony W.] [g]ot on the bus, started looking around, went up and down the aisle found a fire extinguisher, looked at it for a minute, then apparently brought it back outside the emergency exit in the back of the bus. He bashed out the windows with his foot at the time. And then had opened after he'd broken the glass and then went inside with the fire extinguisher and just squirted all of the inside of it, and then just randomly started bashing out windows. And at the time I was in the driver seat of my car saying what are you doing? Get out. Don't do that. You know, someone's gonna come and find out.... I was trying to get him off the bus, telling him not to do that, and he kept doing that. So at the time I was saying this from my car. Then I got onto the bus and tried to grab a hold of him. I told him to get off the bus.

* * * * * *

Keith was in the ... passenger side... [n]ext to me. We were both telling him to get off the bus. Get off the bus. And Keith was telling me constantly what is he doing. Tell him to get off the bus. Get him off the bus. We, at the same time, we were just telling him to get off the bus. He wouldn't listen. So Keith got on the bus and tried to pull him off. He wouldn't do it so Keith got back off the bus. Then I tried to get him off. He wouldn't budge. And then I got off the bus.

Gonzales admitted that while he and Steers were on the bus he stole the box of flares and that Steers took one from the box.

At the conclusion of the State's case, respondent moved for dismissal, alleging that the State's case consisted of the testimony of two accomplices that was not corroborated in any manner. The juvenile court judge denied the motion. The court found that the State's two witnesses were not accomplices for the purposes of the accomplice corroboration rule. In a written order issued the day of the adjudicatory hearing, the court stated that the State had proven "beyond a reasonable doubt" that Anthony W. was involved as alleged for the charge of malicious destruction of property. On November 14, 2002, respondent was placed on probation and ordered to pay restitution in the amount of $250.00.

In a reported opinion, the Court of Special Appeals reversed the judgment of the Circuit Court. In re Anthony W., 159 Md.App. 514, 859 A.2d 679 (2004). The majority reasoned that,

they [the three youths] drove to the scene and drove around looking for open windows on a bus, from which one may reasonably infer they intended to enter. Finding no easy access, [Anthony W.] broke the door of a bus and entered. The alleged accomplices voiced no objections until the window breaking ensued. The offense was committed when the door was broken open; the window breaking was not a separate offense, it was an acceleration of the illegal activity in which all three were engaged.

In re Anthony W., 159 Md.App. at 519, 859 A.2d at 682. In conclusion, the Court of Special Appeals stated that, "`as a matter of sound policy,' the rule requiring corroboration of accomplice testimony applies in juvenile proceedings." Id. The Court of Special Appeals then held that Anthony W. was wrongly adjudicated as being involved based on the uncorroborated testimony of two witnesses who were, "in [the court's] view" both accomplices. Thereafter, we granted certiorari. 385 Md. 161, 867 A.2d 1062 (2005).

STANDARD OF REVIEW

The standard of appellate review that we apply in a juvenile delinquency matter is mandated by Maryland Rule 8-131(c).⁴ The first question presented to this Court is whether the Court of Special Appeals erred in holding that the accomplice corroboration rule applies in juvenile cases. As a pure question of law, the appropriate standard of review is de novo. When the trial court's decision "involves an interpretation and application of Maryland... case law, [we] must determine whether the [trial court's] conclusions are legally correct...". Nesbit v. Government Employees Insurance Company, 382 Md. 65, 72, 854 A.2d 879, 883 (2004). See Helinski v. Harford Mem. Hosp., Inc., 376 Md. 606, 614, 831 A.2d 40, 45 (2003) (noting that we must apply the law as we discern it to be); Ferris v. State, 355 Md. 356, 368, 735 A.2d 491, 497 (1999).

The second question is whether the intermediate appellate court erred in concluding that the evidence was insufficient to support the juvenile judge's finding of involvement because there was no corroboration of the testimony of the two alleged accomplices. In the case, In re Timothy F., 343 Md. 371, 380, 681 A.2d 501, 505 (1996)...