Lambert v. State

BRADFORD PIERSON LAMBERT v. STATE OF MARYLAND

No. 0181

COURT OF SPECIAL APPEALS OF MARYLAND

September Term, 2014

June 29, 2015

UNREPORTED

Berger, Nazarian, Leahy, JJ.

Opinion by Leahy, J.

*This is an unreported opinion, and it may not be cited in any paper, brief, motion, or other document filed in this Court or any other Maryland Court as either precedent within the rule of stare decisis or as persuasive authority. Md. Rule 1-104.

Following a trial in the Circuit Court for Talbot County, a jury convicted Appellant Bradford Pierson Lambert of distribution of heroin.¹ The circuit court imposed a sentence of 40 years imprisonment without the possibility of parole,² and Appellant filed a timely notice of appeal. He presents the following questions for our consideration:

I. Did the Motions Court err in denying the motion to suppress Mr. Lambert's statement?

II. Did the Trial Court err in precluding cross-examination, thereby unduly restricting Mr. Lambert's constitutional right/s of confrontation?

III. Did the Trial Court commit plain error in instructing the jury as to reasonable doubt?

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

BACKGROUND

A. Motion to Suppress Hearing

On February 7, 2014, the Circuit Court for Talbot County ("suppression court") held a hearing on Appellant's motion to suppress, which was filed on January 10, 2014. Appellant sought to suppress an inculpatory statement that he made to Detective Shane McKinney of the Easton Police Department (the officer who arrested Appellant) while inhis custody and without the benefit of Miranda³ warnings. Detective McKinney was the State's only witness and testified as follows.

At approximately 11:00 a.m. on August 31, 2013, Detective McKinney observed Appellant driving his red 2006 Honda Civic on Dover Street in Easton, Maryland.⁴ Knowing that there was an outstanding warrant for Appellant's arrest,⁵ Detective McKinney followed Appellant's vehicle, initiated a traffic stop, and ultimately arrested Appellant pursuant to that warrant. When Appellant asked about the nature of the outstanding charge, Detective McKinney advised that it was for distribution of controlled dangerous substances. After placing Appellant in his police car, Detective McKinney searched Appellant's vehicle incident to the arrest and recovered $850 in U.S. currency from the center console. The currency was wrapped in eight bundles of $100 each, along with a single $50 bill, which, based on Detective McKinney's experience, was indicative of drug sales. Detective McKinney seized the currency for civil forfeiture and the vehicle, which was thereafter towed to the Easton Police Department, because the indictment charged that Appellant had sold drugs in the vehicle. Detective McKinney then took Appellant to police headquarters, where he received a copy of his indictment.

Detective McKinney testified that during the five-minute walking transfer from police headquarters across the street to the Commissioner's office, the following occurred:

[W]hile transporting him over to the detection center he asked where his money was. And I told him I was seizing his money. He then asked what was I doing with his vehicle. I told him I was seizing his vehicle and I advised him, I said if you're going to continue to sell drugs we're going to continue to keep seizing it. With that he said, I have to do what I have to do.

On cross-examination, he testified about the conversation again:

[F]rom the walk over to the jail, he happened to ask you know, where's my money? And when I told him he said, where's my car? And I told him we were seizing it. And I followed that up by saying, if you're going to keep selling drugs out of your car we're going to keep seizing it. And his response was, I have to do what I have to do.

Detective McKinney described Appellant's questioning as calm and respectful. At the time of the statement, Appellant had not been read his Miranda rights, and the record does not reflect that on his own accord he asked to be represented by counsel.⁶ Detective McKinney denied that he intended to interrogate Appellant during the transfer. Instead, he testified that he "just made a statement to be clear to him if he wants to keep selling narcotics out of his vehicle we were going to keep seizing it." He maintained that Appellant initiated the conversation.

Appellant argued to the court that Detective McKinney reasonably should have known that his statement—"if you're going to continue selling drugs we're going tocontinue to keep seizing it"—was likely to elicit an incriminating response from Appellant. If the question did not comprise an actual interrogation, he continued, it was the functional equivalent thereof. Because the interrogation was undertaken without Miranda warnings, Appellant urged that his inculpatory statement, "I have to do what I have to do," should be suppressed. The State emphasized that Appellant initiated the conversation with Detective McKinney regarding the whereabouts of his money and vehicle. Further, the State argued, Detective McKinney's answer to the question was not intended to invite an incriminating response from Appellant and, therefore, Appellant's response should not be suppressed.

The suppression court denied the motion to suppress, and explained its ruling as follows:

Well there's several, issues rolled in here. The first one is the Motion to Suppress the alleged incriminatory statement. . . . I gotta do what I gotta do. Frankly, it's a pretty meaningless statement to me. It could mean so many things to so many people. But let's take it that it's incriminatory and that . . . would be why the State is introducing it. The first question is why didn't the officer give him Miranda rights? I mean, Detective McKinney wasn't born yesterday and I don't think this is his first rodeo. The reason he didn't give him Miranda is cause he didn't have any intention of interrogating him. He didn't need anything from him. He was walking him across the street, I mean he was in the processing stage. The guy had already been charged by the grand jury. And if he wanted a statement out of him I think I'll give Detective McKinney credit that he would take him into an interrogation room, set him down, and have a piece of paper in case the guy wants to make a statement. Say well I got a piece of paper. In the middle of a street? When he's got to watch out for traffic and everything is no place, I mean if that's the way he conducts his interrogation he ought to be reevaluated or retrained or something, frankly. It just doesn't make any sense. So obviously he says, that wasn't my intent. But I'm saying, that's subjective of course and an officer can always say that. But under these circumstances I believe him because he didn't need a statement from him. He could have cared less whether he said anything. In fact, apparently hedidn't even write this down or he did it later in the form of a report. He's walking him across the street in a few minutes. If you're going to interrogate somebody you better allow a little bit of time so you can work them or whatever you're going to do with them. So Miranda simply wasn't required here because for one thing, he didn't start any conversation as far [as] the evidence is concerned[. T]he Defendant started the conversation by asking, what have you done with my money and my car? Well, was the officer supposed to remain mute? I mean, what's the big secret? He's going to be notified anyway sooner or later that they're going to forfeit it or that it's, you know, they're going to use it in evidence or whatever. And secondly or lastly, I believe the law is pretty clear that it is not a threat by a person to say that they're going [to] do what they have a lawful right to do. And if a person is arrested for speeding and the officer says, if you keep speeding out here I'm going to keep arresting you or if they get caught by radar, if you come through here again you're going to get another ticket because the radar is working. I don't see where that's intimidating. It's a statement of fact. This is my job. I arrest people when they violate the law. So I don't know how he could consider that incriminatory. It was a, a, an offhand conversation. The officer made what I consider to be a declaration not a question. And after he answered the question that the Defendant asked him the Defendant chose to make a response which means whatever you want it to mean, I guess. So for all of those reasons whatever statement he made, I gotta do what I gotta do. The Motion to Suppress that is denied. (H. 47-9).

B. Trial

Although Appellant does not challenge the sufficiency of the evidence to support his conviction, we summarize the facts presented at Appellant's jury trial held on February 27, 2014, to provide context for our examination of Appellant's contentions of error. See Goldstein v. State, 220 Md. 39, 42, (1959) (noting that "[t]o understand the contentions made, it is necessary to relate some of the background of the case").

In addition to Detective McKinney's testimony, which was largely consistent with his testimony at the suppression hearing,⁷ the trial evidence established as follows.

Detective Robert Schuerholz of the Easton Police Department narcotics unit testified that Ms. Amber Wooters, who was recently arrested and charged with possession of drug paraphernalia,⁸ agreed to become a confidential informant ("CI") for the Police Department in lieu of prosecution of the paraphernalia charge and to dismiss charges against her then-current boyfriend, Daniel Giles. She provided the names of severalpeople she knew to be involved in the distribution of heroin in Talbot County, including Appellant.

The police arranged for Ms. Wooters to engage in a "controlled buy" of heroin from Appellant on August 14, 2013. On that day, after Detective Schuerholz searched her person for contraband, he gave her $80 to complete the purchase.⁹ Ms. Wooters then called Appellant,...