State v. Smith

487 Md. 635

321 A.3d 52

STATE of Maryland

v.Lamont SMITH

No. 30, Sept. Term, 2023

Supreme Court of Maryland.

August 13, 2024

Circuit Court for Wicomico County, Case No.: C-22-CR-19-000554, Karen Dean, Judge.

Argued by Gary E. O’Connor, Asst. Atty. Gen. (Anthony G. Brown, Atty. Gen. of Maryland, Baltimore, MD), on brief, for Petitioner.

Argued by Wyatt Feeler, Assigned Public Defender (Beltsville, MD; and Anne K. Olesen, Assigned Public Defender, George Washington University, Criminal Appeals & Post-Conviction Services Clinic, Washington, DC), on brief, for Respondent.

Argued before: Fader, C.J., Watts, Booth, Biran, Gould, Eaves, Michele D. Hotten (Senior Justice, Specially Assigned), JJ.

Booth, J.

This Court has established a process for admitting certain types of hearsay statements that fall within a particular hearsay exception that is commonly known as the "declaration against penal interest." State v. Matusky, 343 Md. 467, 682 A.2d 694 (1996).¹ Under that process, when a proponent seeks to admit presumptively inadmissible hearsay statements that comprise an extended narrative or interview, a trial court must conduct a "parsing analysis" in which the court must break down the narrative and determine the separate admissibility of each single declaration or remark. The test for admissibility that the trial court must apply "to each statement within a declaration is whether a reasonable person in the declarant’s circumstances would have believed the statement was adverse to his or her penal interest at the time it was made." Id. at 492, 682 A.2d 694. A trial court may not simply admit the extended narrative or interview in toto without first determining that each statement contained therein was self-inculpatory as to the declarant.

The trial court’s analysis of each statement "can be a factintensive inquiry," which requires careful examination of all the circumstances surrounding the criminal activity involved.² This may be especially true when a proponent seeks the admission of an extensive narrative or interview containing many individual statements.

In this case, the State sought to admit law enforcement’s extensive interview of Mr. Tony Blake (the "Blake Interview") as a declaration against penal interest in the criminal trial of the Respondent, Mr. Lamont Smith. The interview is 55 minutes long, contains approximately 250 questions from law enforcement to Mr. Blake, and Respondent is mentioned or referenced approximately 88 times. In seeking its admission, the State acknowledged that some statements contained in the Blake Interview were inculpatory solely as to the Respondent. However, the State urged the trial court to admit the Blake Interview in its entirety because the statements "were so interwoven" that they could not be separated. At the pre-trial hearing, defense counsel objected on several grounds, including disputing that all of the statements were self-inculpatory to Mr. Blake. Defense counsel also disagreed with the State’s "interwoven" theory of admissibility.

After hearing arguments of counsel, the circuit court ruled that the entirety of the Blake Interview was admissible. In doing so, however, the court failed to conduct the parsing analysis required by Matusky. Instead, it treated the interview as a single statement and ruled that it was admissible as a declaration against penal interest. Thereafter, the Blake Interview was admitted at trial and published to the jury over defense counsel’s objection. Respondent was found guilty on multiple charges involving possession and conspiracy to distribute controlled dangerous substances ("CDS").

On appeal, Respondent argued that the trial court erred in admitting the entire Blake Interview without undertaking the admission process required by Matusky. The State maintained that the Appellate Court could not consider Respondent’s argument because defense counsel did not identify, and request specific redactions of, the inadmissible statements contained within the interview. The Appellate Court rejected the State’s argument and determined that Respondent had adequately preserved his objection to the trial court’s failure to undertake the process required by Matusky. Smith v. State, 259 Md. App. 622, 306 A.3d 153 (2023). That court held that the trial court erred in admitting the entire Blake Interview into evidence, and vacated Respondent’s convictions. Id. at 673, 306 A.3d 153.

We granted the State’s petition for writ of certiorari to answer one question: whether the Appellate Court erred in holding that Respondent adequately preserved his objection to the trial court’s failure to undertake the process required under Matusky for the admission of this particular type of hearsay evidence. For the reasons set forth herein, we hold that the Appellate Court did not err. On the record before us, we determine that Respondent made sufficient objections to preserve his argument that the trial court failed to undertake the process for admission that is unique to this particular type of hearsay evidence.

I Background

In the early morning hours of August 9, 2019, law enforcement raided a home in Salisbury, Maryland on suspicion that it was housing a drug trafficking operation. Upon entering the home, officers discovered, among other things, a large amount of CDS, and arrested the residents of the home, Mr. Blake and Mr. Dwight Woods. They also arrested Respondent, who claimed he was an overnight guest.

For approximately one month prior to the raid, the home had been placed under surveillance after receiving information that it was being used for heroin sales. Detective Michael Kirkland,³ working undercover, made four purchases of CDS from Mr. Woods in July and August 2019.

The State charged Respondent in a 42-count indictment with various drug related offenses, including counts of being a drug kingpin to distribute heroin and fentanyl; counts of conspiracy to possess and distribute large amounts of heroin, fentanyl, cocaine, and alprazolam; and one count of unlawful possession of ammunition. The State also brought charges against Mr. Woods but not against Mr. Blake, who was terminally ill and required medical care and supervision. Respondent was acquitted or found not guilty of 30 counts, including all of the drug kingpin charges, but he was convicted of counts for possession and conspiracy to possess heroin, fentanyl, cocaine, and alprazolam. The court sentenced Respondent to an aggregate of four years in prison in May 2022.

A. The Blake Interview

Sergeant Tyler Bennett and Sergeant Jordan Banks⁴ conducted an interview of Mr. Blake at his home on August 27, 2019—18 days after the raid. At Respondent’s criminal trial, a redacted version of the Blake Interview was played and published to the jury over the objection of defense counsel. The State explained at trial that the recording was "not the full continuous interview" because the State had excised portions that it believed "wouldn’t have been relevant[.]" Defense counsel agreed that "[t]he stuff [the State] redacted was stuff that really legitimately, it just shouldn’t come in because it just had nothing to do with this[,]" but maintained that he did not think "any of it is relevant."

Sergeant Bennett and Sergeant Banks began the conversation by telling Mr. Blake that they wanted to talk to him about the case that he was "involved in as a codefendant[.]" Mr. Blake was seated and wearing nothing but a blanket. The interview was recorded on the body camera of one of the officers. The officers informed Mr. Blake that the interview was being recorded and read him his Miranda rights. Mr. Blake confirmed that he understood those rights and verbally waived them because he was physically unable to sign a statement.

The interview is difficult to follow because of Mr. Blake’s declining health, his generic use of the word "him" to refer to both Respondent and Mr. Woods, and the fact that Mr. Blake was describing the drug distribution operation at different points in time without clarifying the time frame to which he was referring. What is very clear, however, is that the officers’ primary purpose in conducting the interview was to obtain information pertaining to Respondent’s involvement in the drug operation. Throughout the interview, the officers repeatedly redirected Mr. Blake to questions involving Respondent’s participation in the criminal enterprise. In total, over the course of the approximately 55-minute interview, the officers and Mr. Blake made approximately 88 references to "Mont" or "Lamont" on the redacted version of the Blake Interview that was introduced by the State.⁵

The very first question the officers asked Mr. Blake was: "[s]o what’s going on with Mont?" One officer asked, "[w]hose stuff is it in the house - - that was in the house?" to which Mr. Blake replied, "[t]he boy, Shamir[,]"⁶ referring to Mr. Woods. Mr. Blake repeatedly asserted that the drugs seized on the day of the raid belonged to Mr. Woods, and that Mr. Woods "leaves late at night" and "[b]rings it down"; whereas Respondent’s "involvement" was that "[h]e just knows about it." Mr. Blake stated that "[a]t first" he worked for Respondent, but that Respondent "fell back because he’s ready to start a family with his wife and get married."

The officers asked Mr. Blake about the operational details of the drug enterprise when he first became involved. According to Mr. Blake, for a period of "[c]lose to a year," Respondent provided him with a cell phone. Mr. Blake’s duties were to answer the phone, arrange deliveries, and drive to meetings where he would exchange drugs for money. Respondent lived near Baltimore City and would visit Salisbury a few times a week. During these visits, Mr. Blake would give Respondent the proceeds from the drug sales, less expenses and his salary, and Respondent would supply Mr. Blake with new drugs that were prepackaged and ready for sale.

Mr. Blake explained that in recent months, he turned money over to, and...