Smith v. State

HAROLD SMITH v. STATE OF MARYLAND

No. 926-2020

Court of Special Appeals of Maryland

September 14, 2021

Circuit Court for Washington County Case No C-21-CR-19-000450

Gould Ripken, Eyler, Deborah S. (Senior Judge, Specially Assigned) JJ.

OPINION ^[*]

Eyler, Deborah S., J.

In the Circuit for Washington County, Harold Smith, the appellant, was convicted in a bench trial of driving while under the influence of alcohol ("DUI") and related traffic offenses. After sentence was imposed, he noted this appeal, raising three questions for review, which we have rephrased slightly:

I. Did the trial court err by admitting into evidence Smith's unredacted driving record?

II. Did the trial court err by admitting into evidence Smith's hospital records when they were not properly authenticated?

III. Did the trial court violate Smith's federal and state constitutional rights of confrontation by admitting into evidence Smith's lab results when the person who drew his blood and the analyst who analyzed his blood did not testify at trial?

For the reasons that follow, we shall affirm the judgments.

FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS

Shortly after midnight on March 2, 2019, Dylan Way, a motorist on Leitersburg Pike in Washington County, noticed a red Jeep Cherokee lodged against a fence off the side of the road. Its airbags had deployed. Way called "911" and told the dispatcher that, in his opinion, the Jeep had driven "off the road." He later identified Smith as the driver of that Jeep.

When Way first encountered the Jeep, Smith was sitting in the driver's seat. As Way approached to see if Smith needed assistance, Smith exited the vehicle, "apologized, and then walked down the street."

Trooper Daniel Rishell, of the Maryland State Police, received a call that there had been a single-vehicle accident and responded to the scene. Upon arriving, he saw Smith "laying on the ground" in the snow, wearing only a tee shirt, shorts, and black tennis shoes. Trooper Rishell approached Smith and asked whether he was okay. Smith responded with an obscenity, asked the trooper "to pull his finger," and finally called the trooper a "clown" and a "dummy."

Emergency Medical Technicians ("EMTs") arrived, helped Smith off the ground, and put him in an ambulance. The EMTs and Trooper Rishell asked him some questions. While doing so, Trooper Rishell "started to detect a strong odor of an alcoholic beverage coming from [Smith's] breath as he spoke." Smith told the EMTs that he had had "six Rolling Rock beers" to drink. The EMTs recovered a set of keys from Smith's pocket that went to the Jeep that was lodged against the fence.

After Smith informed the EMTs that he had high blood pressure, he was transported to Meritus Medical Center. During that trip, Trooper Rishell asked Smith whether he would submit to a horizontal gaze nystagmus test. Smith refused. Smith arrived at the hospital and immediately was assessed by Christopher Bjork, M.D., at about 1 a.m. Smith was seen to be highly intoxicated, randomly yelling the names of politicians, and was acting aggressively. At 1:30 a.m., he was admitted to the hospital, and at 1:50 a.m. Dr. Bjork ordered blood to be drawn for a number of tests, including one to determine blood alcohol concentration ("BAC"). The blood was drawn five minutes later.

Smith's aggressive behavior included attempting to hit a member of the hospital staff, kicking a security guard, and also kicking a State trooper in the torso.^[1] At 2:05 a.m., Trooper Rishell and another trooper read Smith a DR-15A advice-of-rights form and asked whether he would consent to have his blood drawn. He refused. The BAC test came back later, showing a BAC of 0.28.

In the District Court of Maryland for Washington County, Smith was charged with two counts of second-degree assault and a host of traffic offenses, including driving under the influence of alcohol ("DUI"), driving while impaired by alcohol ("DWI"), and driving without a license.^[2] After Smith demanded a jury trial, the case was transferred to the Circuit Court for Washington County.

Ultimately, Smith waived his right to a jury trial and elected to be tried by the court. (At the time, jury trials were suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic). At the conclusion of the one-day trial, the court found Smith guilty of DUI, DWI, driving without a license, negligent driving, and failure to obey a traffic control device.^[3] The court sentenced him to three years' incarceration, with all but 18 months suspended, for DUI, a consecutive one-year term for driving without a license, all suspended, as well as fines and court costs. This timely appeal followed.

We shall include additional facts as necessary to our analysis of the issues.

DISCUSSION

I.

Smith contends the trial court erred by admitting into evidence his unredacted driving record because it contained his "extensive history of irrelevant prior convictions for motor vehicle offenses during the past" two decades. He asserts the information in his record was so prejudicial that "his conviction was a foregone conclusion."

The State counters that, even if we were to assume the trial court erred by admitting the unredacted driving record into evidence, the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. The State asserts that there is a presumption that a judge presiding in a bench trial understands not to consider inadmissible evidence, such as that contained in the unredacted driving record in this case. That presumption was borne out, the State maintains, by the fact that the judge granted Smith's motion for judgment of acquittal on two counts of second-degree assault and several traffic offenses. Moreover, the State asserts, the judge expressly stated that he "did not look back and look through the details [of the driving record] earlier."

In McCallum v. State, 81 Md.App. 403, 419 (1990), aff'd on other grounds, 321 Md. 451 (1991), we held that a trial court had committed reversible error in admitting into evidence, in a jury trial, the defendant's unredacted driving record, which included "an extensive list of prior motor vehicle violations" that only served "to show [the defendant's] propensity to commit such infractions." Here, Smith offered a redacted copy of his driving record into evidence, but the court declined to admit it, instead opting to admit, over objection, the unredacted record. Smith correctly points out that the unredacted driving record contains numerous prior, irrelevant violations. Clearly, the court erred in allowing the unredacted driving record to come into evidence. Accordingly, we must determine whether that error was harmless.

The test for harmless error in Maryland criminal cases was stated in Dorsey v. State, 276 Md. 638 (1976), and has been repeated (and applied) countless times since:

[W]hen an appellant, in a criminal case, establishes error, unless a reviewing court, upon its own independent review of the record, is able to declare a belief, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the error in no way influenced the verdict, such error cannot be deemed "harmless" and a reversal is mandated. Such reviewing court must thus be satisfied that there is no reasonable possibility that the evidence complained of-whether erroneously admitted or excluded-may have contributed to the rendition of the guilty verdict.

Id. at 659 (footnote omitted).

This appeal, however, is from a bench trial. As we observed in Nixon v. State, 140 Md.App. 170, 189 (2001), there is a "clear distinction" between bench trials and jury trials in assessing whether a trial court error is harmless.^[4] In reviewing a conviction following a jury trial, we must be able to declare, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the error had no influence on the jury's verdict. Dorsey, 276 Md. at 659. On review following a bench trial, however, "the issue is whether or not the judge relied on improper evidence" and we give deference to "a trial judge's specific statement on the record that the court was not considering certain testimony or evidence."^[5] Nixon, 140 Md.App. at 189 (citing Williams v. Higgins, 30 Md. 404, 407 (1869)).

Here, there is nothing to rebut the presumption that the trial judge knew and followed the law, i.e., that in deciding the matters before him he did not rely upon portions of Smith's driving record that were irrelevant. Moreover, the record makes clear that the trial judge in fact did not rely upon those parts of Smith's driving record. In announcing the verdict, the judge made no mention of the driving record whatsoever. Immediately afterward, in response to the prosecutor's assertion that Smith was subject to an enhanced sentence as a repeat offender, the judge said that he "did not look back and look through the details [of the driving record] earlier." We give deference to the "specific statement on the record" by the judge that he did not consider the inadmissible details of Smith's driving record. Id. Finally, the judge acquitted Smith of six of the charges, which hardly lends support to his assertion that the erroneous admission of the unredacted driving record rendered his conviction "a foregone conclusion." The trial court's error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.

II.

Smith contends the trial court erred in admitting into evidence his hospital records. He claims that, "due to the lack of identification of the individuals who actually drew [his] blood, who performed the testing, and who analyzed the results, the custodian of records had no basis by which to know whether the person(s) who made the records actually had the requisite knowledge." Therefore, he asserts, "the records were not properly authenticated as business records and should not have been admitted."

The State counters that this issue is not preserved for review...