Mayes v. State

HERBERT MAYES v. STATE OF MARYLAND

No. 1928

COURT OF SPECIAL APPEALS OF MARYLAND

SEPTEMBER TERM, 2014

February 26, 2016

UNREPORTED

Eyler, Deborah S., Arthur, Salmon, James P. (Retired, Specially Assigned), JJ.

Opinion by Eyler, Deborah S., J.

*This is an unreported opinion and therefore may not be cited either as precedent or as persuasive authority in any paper, brief, motion, or other document filed in this Court or any other Maryland court. Md. Rule 1-104.

A jury in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City convicted Herbert Mayes, the appellant, of first degree premeditated murder, use of a handgun in a crime of violence, and wearing, carrying, or transporting a handgun. The court sentenced Mayes to life in prison for the murder conviction and a consecutive twenty-year sentence, the first five years to be served without the possibility of parole, for the use of a handgun conviction.¹

Mayes presents three questions for review, which we rephrase as follows:

I. Did the circuit court err by admitting into evidence prior inconsistent statements of the State's own witnesses?

II. Was there legally sufficient evidence to support Mayes's conviction for use of a handgun in the commission of a crime of violence?

III. Did the circuit court abuse its discretion by ordering Mayes to remain in restraints when the jury returned its verdict?

For the following reasons, we shall affirm the judgments of the circuit court.

FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS

The following facts were adduced at trial.²

Around 11:00 p.m. on March 30, 2012, Chauncey Hardy was shot and killed while standing in front of a building in the 900 block of Valley Street, in Baltimore City. That block is an open air drug market and the building Hardy was in front of was a drug house known as the "Animal House." Officers of the Baltimore City Police Department("BCPD") recovered a surveillance video from a nearby City Watch blue light camera that showed the shooting and the shooter's flight from the scene.

Antonio Denise Carraway testified that she frequented the area and regularly purchased drugs from dealers at the Animal House. She often purchased drugs from Mayes, who she knew as "Monk" or "Mack," and his associate, "Horsey." On occasion, she sold drugs for them. Carraway knew Hardy. He was a drug addict who sometimes sold or hid drugs for Mayes and Horsey.

On March 29, 2012, Carraway was using drugs inside the Animal House when she saw Hardy shoot Horsey in the mouth. Later that day, she saw Hardy outside the house, and she warned him that he should leave because the drug dealers in the area "stick together" and might retaliate against him for shooting Horsey.

At around 11:00 p.m. the next day, March 30, Carraway and her fiancé, James Farmer, went to the Animal House to buy drugs. When Carraway and Farmer left the Animal House a short time later, Hardy was standing outside. Carraway saw Mayes and two other drug dealers—"Black" and "Twin"—approach Hardy. As she and Farmer walked away, she heard Mayes say, "I got your punk ass now," and then heard four or five gunshots. She started to run and then turned and saw Mayes standing over Hardy, holding a gun. Carraway knew the shooter was Mayes because she had seen him earlier that day wearing a white hooded sweatshirt with a grey jacket, the same outfit as the shooter, and recognized his dreadlocked hair "coming out of the hood" of the sweatshirt.

Either that night or the next morning, Carraway contacted the BCPD. On April 2, 2012, she and Farmer were interviewed separately at the station house. Detective JulianMin, the lead investigator on the case, and Detective Raymond Yost conducted the interviews, which were tape recorded.

In her interview, Carraway described the shooting and said she thought Mayes had shot Hardy in retaliation for his having shot Horsey. Her interview included a photo array. She identified Mayes in the array and on the back of the photo array wrote, "He shot Chauncy [sic]. I know him as Mack. It happened on Valley Street at night." Carraway also identified Black and Twin in separate photo arrays.

In his interview, Farmer told the police that, when he and Carraway went to the Animal House to purchase drugs on March 30, 2012, they saw Hardy standing outside the Animal House and asked him why he was there. They only were in the Animal House briefly because no one was there selling drugs. When they left, Farmer noticed "someone creeping through the bushes" and then heard gunshots. He described the shooter as "short, dark-skinned with dreads." He thought it was "Monk." During the interview, Farmer identified Mayes in a photo array. On the back of the photo array he wrote, "Mac stood over the victim and shot him a few times then he ran away. He ran down the street and turned to the right." Farmer corroborated Carraway's statement that the shooter was accompanied by two men known as Black and Twin and identified them in separate photo arrays.

Detective Min testified that he arrived at the crime scene at 11:16 p.m. on March 30. He recovered seven .40 caliber cartridge casings on the sidewalk where Hardy was shot. He did not locate the murder weapon. He reviewed the surveillance video that showed the shooting. The footage was played for the jury and admitted into evidence.Detective Min testified that his interviews with Carraway and Farmer led to Mayes's arrest on April 3, 2012. On that day, Mayes was interviewed by Detective Min's partner, Sergeant Richard Purtell, and Detective Shawn Richenburg.

Sergeant Purtell testified that Mayes waived his Miranda rights and gave a tape recorded statement.³ Mayes denied any involvement in the shooting and claimed that he was at his mother's house on March 30, 2012, with other relatives, playing cards and getting ready for his aunt's 50^th birthday party the following day. Mayes said he heard about the shooting and he and his sister went to check it out. They arrived at the scene as the ambulance was leaving with Hardy's body. The recorded statement was played for the jury.

Later that same day, Sergeant Purtell interviewed Sharon Chestnut, Mayes's mother, at her house.⁴ This interview also was tape recorded. Sharon stated that Mayes had been at her house on March 30, 2012, but he left around 8:30 or 9:00 p.m. and did not return. She denied that anyone else was at her house that evening. Later that night, she received a phone call from someone (she could not recall who) telling her that Mayes had been shot. She tried to call him on his cell phone, but he did not answer. She then heard from her sister Linda that Mayes was not the person who had been shot. Sharon stated that she did not see Mayes until Linda's birthday party the next evening.

Mayes called Linda and Ronald Douglas, his uncle, as witnesses. Linda testified that Mayes was with her at Sharon's house on March 30, 2012, from 7:30 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. She drove Mayes to the corner of Greenmount Avenue and Eager Street; she did not know why he wanted to go there. When asked on cross-examination why she did not give this information to the police, she replied, "I never contact no police. I don't talk to police."

Douglas testified that he arrived at Sharon's house between 7:00 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. on March 30, 2012; that Mayes arrived around the same time; and that he and Mayes played cards with two other men throughout the evening. When he left, sometime between 11:00 p.m. and 11:30 p.m., Mayes was still there playing cards.

We shall include additional facts as pertinent to the issues on appeal.

DISCUSSION

I.

The State called Sharon and Farmer as witnesses at trial. Their testimony conflicted with the recorded statements they gave to the BCPD. Over Mayes's objection, the recorded statements were admitted into evidence. Mayes challenges those rulings on separate grounds.

Statement of Sharon Chestnut

On direct examination, Sharon testified that Mayes spent the evening of March 30, 2012, at her house with her and other family members, preparing for Linda's birthday party, and that he left her house with Linda at "around 11:33 p.m." Sharon volunteered that Mayes was at her house every evening from March 27 through March 30, 2012.

At that point, the State moved to admit Sharon's recorded statement to Detective Purtell "for the purposes of impeaching [her]." Counsel for Mayes objected as follows:

[COUNSEL FOR MAYES]: [Your Honor] - the State is not unaware that this is the way that [Sharon] was going . . . to testify. She - this is the third trial of this case. She testified consistently in those cases with her testimony today.

The State is attempting to use the misstatements, the prevarications, whatever label we wanna attach to it, Sharon . . . who, the mother of the Defendant, to be - to be inculpatory evidence to the Defendant. It's-it's like bring [sic] a third party in and saying this third party lied -

[THE COURT]: The witness - no. You don't have to show that they lied. You have to show that their statement, their testimony at trial is inconsistent with statements given at a prior time. That's -

[COUNSEL FOR MAYES]: But -

[THE COURT]: That's what impeachment is.

[COUNSEL FOR MAYES]: But the whole purpose of, of the State doing this, Your Honor, because the State called her as their own witness, the whole purpose of the State doing this is to try and show - because Ms. Sharon Chestnut Adams is either prevaricating, lying, mistaken, whatever, it should be held as inculpatory evidence against the Defendant.

The court overruled the objection. It later clarified that Sharon's recorded statement was admissible as extrinsic evidence for the purpose of impeachment, under Rule 5-613(b).

After the recording was played, Sharon testified that, when she was questioned by the police, she had confused her dates. The State then moved into evidence a recorded jail phone call between Sharon and Mayes that took place on September 16, 2014, two days before Sharon's testimony at trial. The recorded phone call was as follows:

[SHARON]: Yeah, man, I get up on

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