Shaw v. State

EDWARD RAMON SHAW v. STATE OF MARYLAND

No. 1118

COURT OF SPECIAL APPEALS OF MARYLAND

September Term, 2018

February 12, 2020

Circuit Court for Prince George's County

Case No. CT170199X

UNREPORTED

Berger, Leahy, Zarnoch, Robert A. (Senior Judge, Specially Assigned), JJ.

Opinion by Zarnoch, 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.

The Circuit Court for Prince George's County found appellant Edward Ramon Shaw ("Shaw") guilty of having committed four separate robberies (or attempted robberies) within a one-week span. On appeal, Shaw argues that the circuit court erred (1) by not severing the pertinent charges into separate trials, and (2) by not sua sponte conducting a competency inquiry at sentencing. Finding no error with respect to either claim, we affirm.

BACKGROUND AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

Shaw was charged with five counts of robbery, five counts of second-degree assault, three counts of theft of property valued under $1,000, and two counts of attempted theft under $1,000 for a string of purse-snatchings conducted over a one-week period in November 2016. Each of the incidents involved Shaw assaulting a woman who was walking alone, running errands, in the same general vicinity near Hyattsville and New Carrollton. Of central concern on appeal, the circuit court joined all fifteen counts into one trial after denying Shaw's pre-trial motion to sever the charges into five separate trials.¹

Over the course of a two-day bench trial in March 2018, each of four female victims testified separately about the particular robbery that had targeted her. Each of the women had identified Shaw in a photo array soon after the pertinent robbery, and eachwoman testified in court that Shaw had threatened her by posturing or threatening that he had a weapon that he would use if she did not hand over her money. (We shall describe further testimony as may be relevant in the discussion below.).

At the close of trial on March 20, 2018, the circuit court convicted Shaw of three counts of robbery, one count of attempted robbery, four counts of second-degree assault, three counts of theft of property valued under $1,000, and one count of attempted theft under $1,000.² At a sentencing hearing on June 29, 2018, following an allocution that Shaw now argued should have triggered a sua sponte competency evaluation by the court, the circuit court imposed a consecutive sentence of 15 years, all but 5 years suspended, for each of the four robbery convictions (i.e., 20 years total), with 5 years of supervised probation to follow. The assault and theft convictions merged into the robbery convictions.

Shaw's appeal followed.

DISCUSSION

I. SHAW WAS NOT PREJUDICED BY THE CIRCUIT COURT'S JOINDER DECISION.

Shaw first contends that the circuit court erred by joining the separate charges from distinct robberies into one trial.

Rule 4-253(b) generally allows a court to join multiple cases against the same defendant into one trial, so long as the evidence about each separate incident would be "mutually admissible" at separate trials. Cortez v. State, 220 Md. App. 688, 694-95(2014). Shaw's core argument is that the evidence here was not mutually admissible: he claims that the evidence about each separate robbery was the sort of "other crimes evidence" that is generally inadmissible at trial—and that it did not meet the exception permitting other crimes evidence that proves "motive, intent, absence of mistake, a common scheme or plan, identity, opportunity, preparation, knowledge, absence of mistake or accident." State v. Faulkner, 314 Md. 630, 634 (1989); see also McKnight v. State, 280 Md. 604, 612-13 (1977).

However, in the context of a bench trial, improperly joining separate charges only constitutes reversible error if the defendant was in fact prejudiced by the misjoinder. Graves v. State, 298 Md. 542, 547 (1984) ("[I]n a [bench] trial, upon joinder of similar offenses where the evidence would not be mutually admissible at separate trials, prejudice is not assumed as a matter of law. The question [] is whether a given defendant is in fact prejudiced by the joinder."). Because Shaw elected a bench trial,³ we need notresolve whether the evidence was mutually admissible (or not), given our ultimate conclusion that Shaw was not prejudiced by the court's decision to join the charges.

Simply put, Shaw suffered no prejudice from the circuit court's joining all charges into one trial.⁴ The circuit court judge meticulously detailed her factual findings when announcing each conviction, and the court's findings demonstrate that the judge focused only on the evidence that was pertinent to each incident when arriving at a guilty verdict on each particular count:

• Robbery #1 (Vicenta Lucero): The circuit court found that on November 4, 2016, Ms. Lucero was walking home by herself from a bank in Hyattsville when she was approached by Shaw, who gestured that he had a gun, grabbed her purse, and pulled on it so hard that he bruised Ms. Lucero's arm. (Shaw also took her wallet.). Ms. Lucero called 911, gave a description of the defendant to the police, and eight days later identified Shaw in a photo array. Ms. Lucero also identified Shaw in person at trial.

• Robbery #2 (Nicole Alexander): The circuit court found that on November 5, 2016, Ms. Alexander was walking home in New Carrollton from a grocery store when Shaw approached her, threatened to shoot her if she did not give him her money, took the ten dollar bill that she had on her person (while refusing her two singles), then asked twice if she had a phone before leaving the scene. Ms. Alexander called the police, provided a description of the defendant, and later identified Shaw in a photo array. Ms. Alexander identified Shaw in person at trial.

• Robbery #3 (Isis Harrington): The circuit court found that Ms. Harrington was walking home alone (from the same grocery store in New Carrollton) when she was approached by Shaw. Shaw told Ms. Harrington to give him her purse or he would shoot her; she gave him her purse which contained $17, a photo identification, and a medical card. Ms. Harrington called 911, and approximately five days later, identified Shaw in a photo array. Although Ms. Harrington said in court that Shaw looked "a little different" from the time of the incident, and that she was not sure about identifying him at trial because his hair was different, the circuit court ultimately "d[id] not find that that takes away from her out of court identification or her in court identification," given that it had been two years since the robbery, and given that the State's exhibits showed that Shaw's hair was, in fact, different from the time of the robbery.⁵

• Robbery #4 (Sheila Jones): The circuit court found that on November 9, 2016, Ms. Jones was walking home alone (from the same grocery store in New Carrollton) when she noticed a man standing in a dark area near a tree where there was not much light. Feeling uncomfortable, she crossed the street, and the man followed her. After exchanging a few words, Shaw threatened to shoot her in the head if she did not give him her purse. Ms. Harrington called 911 as she was given a ride home, and the next day identified Shaw in a photo array as the individual who tried to take her purse. Ms. Jones also identified Shaw in court.

As demonstrated by the above findings: separate, sufficient evidence undergirded each conviction. The circuit court was persuaded by the fact that each woman had separately identified Shaw in open court, that each woman had previously (and separately) identified Shaw in a photo array shortly after the particular robbery that affected her, and that each woman had credibly testified to the circumstances of her own specific incident. There is no indication from the record that cumulative evidence or latent hostility may have affected any conviction, see McKinney, 82 Md. App. at 126, nor that evidence from one incident bootstrapped any other, weaker charge. Each conviction stood on its own, and Shaw was not prejudiced by joining his charges into one bench trial.⁶

II. THE CIRCUIT COURT DID NOT ERR BY NOT CONDUCTING A COMPETENCY INQUIRY AT SENTENCING.

Shaw's second claim on appeal is that the circuit court erred by not sua sponte making a competency determination upon Shaw's unusual behavior at sentencing.

The presumption that a defendant is competent to stand trial⁷ may be called into question "(1) upon motion of the accused; (2) upon motion of the defense counsel; or (3) upon a sua sponte determination by the court that the defendant may not be competent tostand trial." Kennedy v. State, 436 Md. 686, 694 (2014) (quoting Thanos v. State, 330 Md. 77, 85 (1993)). Section 3-104(a) of the Criminal Procedure Article requires a trial court to make such a competency inquiry "[i]f, before or during a trial, the defendant . . . appears to the court to be incompetent to stand trial . . .." Section 3-104(c) then adds that the court may reconsider the question of competency "[a]t any time before final judgment[.]"⁸ The Court of Appeals recently noted in Sibug v. State, 445 Md. 265, 316 (2015), that "a bona fide doubt created by evidence on the record" triggers the circuit court's "sua sponte duty to evaluate [a defendant's] competency." (discussing Wood v. State, 436 Md. 276, 291 (2013)) (Quotation marks omitted). On appeal, if a circuit court did not conduct a competency hearing, we review the evidence in the record as a whole to determine if the court erred. Gregg v. State, 377 Md. 515, 546-47 (2003).

Here, both sides agree that nothing occurred during the merits portion of Shaw's trial to warrant a competency inquiry.⁹ Shaw, however, contends that his subsequent,atypical comments during his sentencing allocution should have triggered the court's sua sponte duty to evaluate whether he was...