Monroe v. State

CURTIS WAYNE MONROE v. STATE OF MARYLAND

No. 760

COURT OF SPECIAL APPEALS OF MARYLAND

September Term, 2015

August 24, 2017

Circuit Court for Montgomery County

Case No. 26242C

UNREPORTED

Berger, Friedman, Sharer, J. Frederick (Senior Judge, Specially Assigned), JJ.

Opinion by Sharer, 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.

In 1982, following a jury trial in the Circuit Court for Montgomery County, Curtis Wayne Monroe was convicted of murder, armed robbery, and lesser included offenses.¹

In 2013, Monroe filed a motion to unseal the 1981 grand jury testimony of Valerie Lawson, a witness to the planning and aftermath of the robbery and shooting. After a summary denial by the circuit court, appeal to this Court, and remand, a hearing was held on February 27, 2015, at which the State reported that it could not locate the requested grand jury transcripts. The hearing was then continued so that further searches by the Clerk of Court and the State's Attorney could be undertaken. At the reconvened hearing, on May 21, 2015, after receiving testimony from the Clerk and reviewing reports from both the Clerk and the State, the court denied Monroe's motion to unseal the testimony, finding that the transcript no longer existed.

In this appeal, in which he appears pro se, Monroe alleges that the circuit court abused its discretion when it denied his requests to subpoena witnesses and, in so doing, accepted the State's report without sworn testimony. Additionally, Monroe claims that the court erred when it failed to order additional searches for the grand jury testimony.²

We find no merit to Monroe's contentions and affirm the orders of the circuit court.

BACKGROUND

In March, 1981, Monroe and others were indicted for the crimes noted, supra, following an armed robbery and deaths of two of the victims, in Montgomery County. The grand jury evidence that led to the indictment of Monroe and two co-defendants consisted, in part, of the testimony of Valerie Lawson, Detective Harry Harner, and an unnamed witness. In separate trials, in 1982, Monroe and each of his co-defendants were convicted.³

On July 13, 2013, Monroe filed a motion to unseal the grand jury testimony of Valerie Lawson, with a request for a hearing. Initially, the circuit court denied the motion without a hearing. On his petition for leave to appeal, this Court remanded, with instructions to hold a hearing on the motion pursuant to Rule 4-642.

Following the remand, and a month before filing a formal response to Monroe's motion, the State moved for an extension of time to allow for time to search for the grand jury transcripts. After the State sought the records from archives, then from the circuit court's Technical Services Department, and finally contacting the former prosecutor for his insights, it was determined that the records were no longer available. The State then filed its formal response to Monroe's motion stating that it did not believe Monroe wasentitled to the records, but that it would provide them if found. The transcripts have not been found.

Three weeks before the February hearing, Monroe filed two requests for subpoenas duces tecum for Loretta Knight, a former Clerk of the Circuit Court for Montgomery County, and Carrie Williams, an Assistant Attorney General, requesting their appearance at the hearing, and production of the sealed transcripts of Valerie Lawson's grand jury testimony. Those requests for subpoenas were summarily denied, pre-hearing. At the hearing, the State proffered its search efforts and submitted that the grand jury transcripts were no longer available.

However, the State advised the court of a note found on a co-defendant's file suggesting the grand jury transcripts could be in the "Clerk's office safe." With that information, the hearing judge called for a recess in order to undertake his own brief search. Realizing, however, the volume of records to be examined, the court determined that much more time and effort would be required for a thorough search.

Thus, the hearing was continued and the court issued an order directing the Clerk to conduct searches of all facilities under the Clerk's jurisdiction. The Clerk was then to file a report outlining her efforts and results. The order also directed the State's Attorney's Office to review the two co-defendants' files for any additional information that might aid in the search and to likewise file a report of its findings.

Prior to the May hearing, Monroe filed two additional requests for subpoenas duces tecum that were issued to Barbara Meiklejohn ("Meiklejohn"), the current Clerk of the Court, and John McCarthy ("McCarthy"), the State's Attorney for MontgomeryCounty, requesting their appearance at the hearing and production of the grand jury transcripts. Pursuant to the court's order, the Clerk and the State submitted reports of their respective search efforts, neither of which resulted in locating the grand jury transcripts. At the ensuing hearing, the Clerk testified as to her efforts to locate the transcripts, at which point she was subjected to Monroe's cross-examination. An Assistant State's Attorney assigned to the case appeared, but McCarthy did not. The State offered the report of its additional search efforts to the court. Despite Monroe's protests to the contrary, the court accepted the report as evidence of the State's good faith efforts to locate the transcripts and, ultimately, of the unavailability of the records. The court denied the motion based on the inability to locate the transcripts.

DISCUSSION

State's Motion to Dismiss

We first take up the State's motion to dismiss.

The State asserts that, despite our holding to the contrary in Causion v. State, 209 Md. App. 391 (2013), we lack jurisdiction to address Monroe's claims. Indeed, the State posits that Causion was "wrongly decided." We are not persuaded of former error and, for reasons consistent with Causion, deny the State's motion to dismiss.⁴

Like the case before us, Causion presented a question of the appealability of an order denying disclosure of confidential grand jury testimony. Thirteen years after his conviction for murder, Causion filed a motion requesting the disclosure of grand jury testimony of four witnesses, with a request for a hearing. Following summary denial ofhis motion Causion appealed to this Court. As in the instant matter, the State moved to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction, citing Courts and Judicial Proceedings ("C.J.P.") Article of the Maryland Code, section 12-301. The State contended that the order denying the motion to disclose grand jury testimony was neither a final judgment nor a statutorily authorized appeal from an interlocutory order, as permitted by § 12-301.

We disagreed and held that "the order denying Causion's motion is reviewable on appeal as a final judgment." Causion, 209 Md. App. at 402. We held that the issue of determining "whether an order is a final judgment, and thus appealable, does not depend on the grounds on which the order is based but rather upon the order's effect upon the rights of the parties or their ability to obtain the relief they seek." Id. at 399. Further, we established that the "court's order 'settled the rights of the parties and terminated the cause.'" Id. at 402 (quoting In re Special Investigation No. 236, 295 Md. 573, 575 (1983)). Because we conclude that Causion controls our review, we deny the State's motion to dismiss this appeal.⁵

Standard of Review

The disclosure of grand jury testimony is governed by Md. Rule 4-642. See Causion, 209 Md. App. at 403. See also Office of State Prosecutor v. Judicial Watch,Inc., 356 Md. 118, 131-32 (1999) ("Maryland Rule 4-642 ... provides the exclusive vehicle for obtaining disclosure of grand jury records and documents[.]"). The only express requirements of the Rule are that the hearing "shall be on the record and shall be conducted out of the presence of all persons except those whose presence is necessary." Rule 4-642(b). The party seeking disclosure must show a "particularized need" for the testimony. See Causion, 209 Md. App. at 403. Here, the court's hearing on Monroe's motion focused on the availability of the transcripts and did not address the issue of whether Monroe had satisfied his burden of showing a "particularized need" for the testimony. Accordingly, the question of Monroe's entitlement to the grand jury transcripts is not an issue before this Court and our review is limited to the factual findings of the circuit court.

As this Court established in Causion, "appellate courts review a ruling on a Rule 4-642(d) motion for errors of law in the application of these principles and for abuse of discretion in the ultimate decision regarding disclosure." Id. Generally, "[w]e will not set aside factual findings made by the [court] unless clearly erroneous, and we will not interfere with a decision . . . that is founded upon sound legal principles unless there is a clear showing that the [court] abused [its] discretion." McCready v. McCready, 323 Md. 476, 484 (1991). A finding by the circuit court "is not clearly erroneous if there is competent or material evidence in the record to support the court's conclusion." Goss v. C.A.N. Wildlife Trust, Inc., 157 Md. App. 447, 455-56 (2004) (quoting Lemley v. Lemley, 109 Md. App. 620, 628 (1996)). Abuse of discretion, on the other hand, is found "'where no reasonable person would take the view adopted by the [trial] court, or when the courtacts without reference to any guiding rules or principles.'" In re Adoption/Guardianship No. 3598, 347 Md. 295, 312 (1997) (quoting North v. North, 102 Md. App. 1, 13 (1994)).

Appellant's Evidentiary Arguments

Assuming, arguendo, that Monroe was entitled to subpoena witnesses for the motion hearing, the fact remains that...