Jarvis v. State

487 Md. 548

321 A.3d 1

Aaron JARVIS

v.STATE of Maryland

No. 22, Sept. Term, 2023

Supreme Court of Maryland.

August 12, 2024

Circuit Court for Cecil County, Case No. C-07-CR-19-000806, J. Frederick Price, Judge.

Argued by Piedad Gomez, Asst. Public Defender (Natasha M. Dartigue, Public Defender of Maryland, Baltimore, MD), on brief, for Petitioner/Cross-Respondent.

Argued by Zoe Gillen White, Asst. Atty. Gen. (Anthony G. Brown, Atty. Gen. of Maryland, Baltimore, MD), on brief, for Respondent/Cross-Petitioner.

Argued before: Fader, C.J., Watts, ^*Hotten, Booth, Biran, Gould, Eaves, JJ.

Dissenting Opinion by Watts, J., which Gould, J., joins.

Eaves, J.

I INTRODUCTION

The events of this case arise from a family dispute gone awry. Katie Durrett and Shannon Shoap are sisters.¹ Mrs. Durrett is married to the victim, Ethan Durrett, while Ms. Shoap is married to Petitioner, Aaron Jarvis. Thus, Mr. Durrett and Petitioner are brothers-in-law.

In the very early morning hours of May 6, 2019, Mr. Durrett and Petitioner exchanged heated text messages because Petitioner borrowed their mother-in-law’s vehicle but refused to return it. Shortly thereafter, the two met in the parking lot of the apartment complex where Petitioner lived, and they ended up in a physical altercation that resulted in Petitioner stabbing Mr. Durrett. Petitioner was charged with, among other crimes, attempted first-and second-degree murder and first-degree assault. At the close of his trial, Petitioner requested that the jury be instructed on both perfect and imperfect self-defense. The circuit court instructed the jury on perfect self-defense but declined to provide an instruction for imperfect self-defense.

The jury acquitted Petitioner of the attempted murder charges but convicted him of first-degree assault and other lesser-included offenses. For the first-degree assault conviction, Petitioner was sentenced to 15 years of incarceration, all but 10 years suspended, with five years of supervised probation. In an unreported opinion, the Appellate Court of Maryland held that the circuit court abused its discretion when it declined to instruct the jury on imperfect self-defense, given that the circuit court decided that there was enough evidence to instruct the jury on perfect self-defense.² But that error was, in the Appellate Court’s view, harmless because the jury acquitted Petitioner of attempted first-and second-degree murder; even if the evidence had generated the imperfect self-defense instruction, a conviction of either of those charges would have required mitigating either of those convictions down to a conviction of attempted voluntary manslaughter.³ While recognizing that, "from a sentencing perspective, a conviction of attempted voluntary manslaughter may some- times be a better result for a defendant because it has a lower maximum sentence[,]" the Appellate Court nevertheless held that "an acquittal is a more favorable verdict than a mitigated conviction."⁴

We granted both the petition and the conditional cross-petition for certiorari to answer the following questions⁵:

1. Did the circuit court abuse its discretion in declining to instruct the jury on imperfect self-defense?

2. If the circuit court did abuse its discretion, then did the Appellate Court legally err in determining that the abuse of discretion was harmless?

For the reasons articulated below, we hold that the circuit court did not abuse its discretion in declining to instruct the jury on imperfect self-defense in this case. Because of that holding, we do not address the issue of harmless error.⁶

II BACKGROUND

We begin by providing a brief overview of the law of self-defense before addressing the facts and procedural history.

A. The Law of Self-Defense

[1, 2] Maryland is among a minority of states that recognize both perfect and imperfect self-defense in criminal cases. State v. Smullen, 380 Md. 233, 251, 844 A.2d 429 (2004) ("Maryland recognizes two varieties of self-defense—the traditional one that we now call perfect or complete self-defense and a lesser form sometimes referred to as imperfect or partial self-defense."); L. Song Richardson & Phillip Atiba Goff, Self-Defense and the Suspicion Heuristic, 98 Iowa L. Rev. 293, 325 (2012) ("[O]nly a minority of jurisdictions recognize the doctrine of imperfect self-defense, although this number is growing." (footnote omitted)). Perfect self-defense requires the following:

(1) The accused must have had reasonable grounds to believe himself in apparent imminent or immediate danger of death or serious bodily harm from his assailant or potential assailant;

(2) The accused must have in fact believed himself in this danger;

(3) The accused claiming the right of self-defense must not have been the aggressor or provoked the conflict; and

(4) The force used must have not been unreasonable and excessive, that is, the force must not have been more force than the exigency demanded.

Porter v. State, 455 Md. 220, 234–35, 166 A.3d 1044 (2017) (emphasis and citation omitted). In addition, in the case of deadly force outside of one’s home, an individual must make a reasonable effort to retreat before using such force. Id. at 235, 166 A.3d 1044.

[3] As its name suggests, perfect self-defense is a total defense to murder—and all lesser included offenses—and, if accepted by the trier of fact, necessitates an acquittal. Id.

[4–7] Unlike perfect self-defense, imperfect self-defense is not a complete defense to the crime(s) charged. State v. Faulkner, 301 Md. 482, 486, 483 A.2d 759 (1984). Instead, imperfect self-defense modifies the first and fourth require- ments of perfect self-defense (as articulated above). See Porter, 455 Md. at 235, 166 A.3d 1044. Where perfect self-defense requires a defendant’s subjective belief regarding imminent danger to be reasonable, imperfect self-defense obviates that requirement, mandating a defendant to show "that he [or she] actually believed that he [or she] was in danger, even if that belief was unreasonable." Id. (emphasis omitted). Furthermore, while perfect self-defense requires that the force used be objectively reasonable, imperfect self-defense allows for an unreasonable amount of force, so long as the defendant subjectively believed such force was necessary. Id. Lastly, in the case of deadly force used outside the home, to have acted in imperfect self-defense, a defendant "must have only ‘subjectively believe[d] that retreat was not safe’—that belief need not be reasonable." Id. (alteration in original) (quoting Burch v. State, 346 Md. 253, 284, 696 A.2d 443 (1997)). Thus, in summary, imperfect self-defense requires the defendant to show that he or she actually (i.e., subjectively) believed that: (1) he or she was in danger; (2) the amount of force he or she used was necessary; and (3) retreat was not safe. Id. Each of these beliefs can be unreasonable. Id.

In Porter, we explained that when a defendant accused of murder presents evidence of self-defense, a proper instruction enables the jury to reach one of three verdicts:

(1) guilty of murder, if the jury concludes that "the defendant did not have a subjective belief that the use of deadly force was necessary," (2) not guilty, if the jury concludes "that the defendant had a reasonable subjective belief," [i.e., perfect self-defense]; and (3) guilty of voluntary manslaughter, if the jury concludes "that the defendant honestly believed that the use of force was necessary but that this subjective belief was unreasonable under the circumstances." [i.e., imperfect self-defense]

Id. at 236, 166 A.3d 1044 (quoting Faulkner, 301 Md. at 500–01, 483 A.2d 759).

B. Factual Background

The recitation of facts is drawn from the trial testimony that occurred over February 26 and 27, 2020, before the Honorable J. Frederick Price (the "trial judge") in the Circuit Court for Cecil County. We first recount the uncontroverted testimony. We then discuss the underlying altercation between Petitioner and Mr. Durrett from the perspectives of (1) Mr. and Mrs. Durrett and (2) Petitioner.

Late on the night of May 5, 2019, Mrs. Durrett received a call from Ms. Shoap. While the topic of that phone conversation is unknown, the phone call prompted an exchange of text messages and a voice message between Mr. Durrett and Petitioner. Mr. Durrett initiated contact with the first text message on May 6, 2019, at 12:18 a.m.:

[Mr. Durrett]: Yo this is Ethan. I need you to do the right thing and take Patty’s⁷ car back.

[Mr. Durrett]: You have a new born at home dude and your wife is hysterically crying. Are you sick in the head dude ? Go there keep your mouth shut and love your family. Be thankful for what you have my dude…do the right thing please brother we don’t need serious issues

[Petitioner]: Let have serious issues dawg

(All sic in original). At this point in the exchange, Petitioner sent to Mr. Durrett a recorded voice message that was sent as a text message.⁸ The pertinent portions of the remainder of the text messages are as follows:

[Mr. Durrett]: Hey friend meet me in the back of wawa so we can chat.. out of respect for your wife and kid I know you would never want to cause attention or drama where there sleeping [Mr. Durrett]: I’m on my way

[Petitioner]: Come to my [expletive] house bro.

[Petitioner]: There is no talking at all.

[Mr. Durrett]: That disrespectful and you could get kicked out be smart 0lease come to wawa

[Mr. Durrett]: Or walk across the street

[Mr. Durrett]: Or look il meet you out in that field away from the apartments

[Petitioner]: Dude it’s pitch black there are no cameras come to my house. Ain’t no talkin or yelling..

(All sic in original).

Mrs. Durrett then drove herself and Mr. Durrett to Petitioner’s residence, the Pine Hill Apartments ("Pine Hill"), located at 367 Fletchwood Road, Elkton, MD, near the Maryland-Delaware border. Pine Hill is an apartment complex that is situated between two parking lots. One lot, on the left, is an accessory lot and the other, on...