Taylor v. State

DERRICK S. TAYLOR v. STATE OF MARYLAND

No. 1317-2021

Court of Special Appeals of Maryland

May 10, 2022

Circuit Court for Baltimore City Case No. 105055024 105055026, 105055028, 105055032, 105055034

Kehoe Beachley, Shaw, JJ.

OPINION ^[*]

SHAW J.

Appellant, Derrick Taylor, appeals from an order issued by the Circuit Court for Baltimore City denying his Motion to Correct Illegal Sentence and Request for Rehearing. He presents two questions for our review, which we have reordered: ^[1]

1. Are Mr. Taylor's three life sentences for felony murder inherently illegal since he was neither charged with nor convicted of any underlying felony?

2. Does the circuit court's finding of waiver disregard Mr. Taylor's right to challenge his inherently illegal sentence "at any time" under Maryland Rule 4-345(a)?

For reasons set forth below, we affirm.

BACKGROUND

On January 10, 2005, two men broke into a home for recovering addicts in Baltimore City. One of the men held four of the home's residents, Antwon Arthur, Steven Matthews, Nathan Gulliver, and Shawn Brown, at gunpoint, apparently angered that Arthur owed him money. The home's manager, Jerome Moreland, eventually came downstairs and was also held at gunpoint. Gulliver offered to go to an ATM and withdraw money to pay what the men said that Arthur owed them. The man without the gun went with Gulliver to an ATM, and Gulliver gave them money when they returned. The man with the gun demanded more money, but no one had any, and the man then shot and killed Arthur, Matthews, and Gulliver. Brown was shot three times but managed to escape. Mooreland was not shot. Brown eventually identified appellant as the shooter, and he was arrested on January 13, 2005. The second suspect was later identified as Corey McMillan.

In the Circuit Court for Baltimore City, appellant was charged in seven indictments, including three counts of murder. On February 27, 2007, a jury found appellant guilty of first-degree felony murder of Steven Matthews, first-degree felony murder of Antwon Arthur, first-degree felony murder of Nathan Gulliver, second-degree murder of Antwon Arthur, five counts of use of a handgun in a crime of violence, and five counts of wearing, carrying, and transporting a handgun. The remaining counts were nolle prossed. The court imposed a sentence of three terms of life without parole plus 100 years imprisonment. Appellant appealed, and on April 23, 2009, this Court reversed and vacated four of the five counts of use of a handgun in a crime of violence, and four of the five counts of wearing, carrying, and transporting a handgun. We affirmed the remainder of the circuit court's judgment. Appellant filed a petition for a writ of certiorari, which was denied on August 24, 2009.

Appellant filed a Motion to Correct Illegal Sentence and Request for Rehearing in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City on September 21, 2021. On October 20, 2021, the court issued an order denying his motion, and this appeal followed.

STANDARD OF REVIEW

"Whether a sentence is an illegal sentence is a question of law that is subject to de novo review." Arias-Rivera v. State, 246 Md.App. 500, 506 (2020). See also Bonilla v. State, 443 Md. 1, 6 (2015); Meyer v. State, 445 Md. 648, 663 (2015); Blickenstaff v. State, 393 Md. 680, 683 (2006).

DISCUSSION

I.

Appellant argues the court erred in denying his motion to correct an illegal sentence. According to him, because he was not specifically charged with felony murder or any underlying felony, he could not be convicted of the crime of felony murder and therefore no sentence could be imposed. The State responds that appellant was properly charged and that a defendant need not be convicted of an underlying felony in order to be convicted of felony murder in Maryland.

A.

The Criminal Law ("CL") Article of the Maryland Code provides a statutory short-form indictment for use by the State in charging various murder counts, including felony murder. It states:

(a) An indictment for murder or manslaughter is sufficient if it substantially states:

"(name of defendant) on (date) in (county) feloniously (willfully and with deliberate premeditated malice) killed (and murdered) (name of victim) against the peace, government, and dignity of the State.".

(b) An indictment for murder or manslaughter, or for being an accessory to murder or manslaughter, need not set forth the manner or means of death.

Md. Code Ann. CL § 2-208. In Dishman v. State, the Court of Appeals held that the short-form indictment "charges each of the homicide offenses, even if it is couched in terms of first degree murder." 352 Md. 279, 303 (1998). Use of the statutory short form is sufficient to charge a defendant with felony murder. See also Nicholson v. State, 239 Md.App. 228, 256 (2018), cert. denied, 462 Md. 576 (2019).

Here, the State charged appellant with multiple counts of murder using the statutory short form. The indictments all used the following language, changing only the name of each victim:

The Jurors of the State of Maryland, for the body of the City of Baltimore, do on their oath present that the aforesaid DEFENDANT(S), late of said City, heretofore on or about the date of offense set forth above, in the City of Baltimore, State of Maryland, feloniously, willfully, and with deliberately premeditated malice killed and murdered ANTWON ARTHUR; against the peace, government and dignity of the State.

The indictments mirror the statutory short form and comply with the requirements set out in CL§ 2-208. Appellant was properly charged with felony murder under Maryland law.

B.

In prosecuting a charge of felony murder, the State must prove the elements of the underlying felony and that death occurred while the felony was occurring. Wagner v. State, 160 Md.App. 531, 560 (2005). The State may charge the underlying felony, but there is no requirement that they do, so long as the State proves its elements beyond a reasonable doubt. Mumford v. State, 19 Md.App. 640, 643 (1974); see also McMillan v. State, 181 Md.App. 298, 351 (2008) (citing Adams v. State, 8 Md.App. 684, 689-90) ("[T]he State's decision not to charge appellant with the underlying robbery did not deprive the court of jurisdiction to try him for felony-murder."), rev'd on other grounds, 428 Md. 333 (2012).

Here, appellant does not argue that the State failed to prove the underlying offense at trial. Instead, he argues because the State failed to charge and convict him of an underlying felony, his sentence is illegal. Appellant cites several cases to support this argument. First, he cites Moosavi v. State, 355 Md. 651 (1999). In Moosavi, a defendant challenged his conviction, successfully arguing that the statute he was charged under was not applicable to his conduct. Id. at 666-67. Moosavi had been convicted under a statute that punished "the transmittal of false statements or rumors about the location or detonation of a bomb or explosive." Id. at 653, 654. Moosavi, however, had made an actual threat to "blow up" a bank due to a disputed charge. Id. at 653, 654. The Court of Appeals held, as a result, he could not be properly convicted under a statute that punished the transmittal of false statements or rumors. Id. at 656-67.

Appellant also contends that Fisher v. State, 367 Md. 218 (2001) supports his argument that his sentence is illegal. There, the Court of Appeals recognized second-degree felony murder based on a predicate offense of child abuse as a crime in the State of Maryland. Id. at 218. Appellant points us to the following quotation:

Here, if the felony murder doctrine has no application to a homicide resulting from child abuse, then the thirty year sentences for murder in the second degree imposed on the petitioners would be similarly illegal, because, by the special jury verdict, the findings of guilty of murder were based solely on felony murder.

Id. at 240. Read in context, the Court's discussion was focused on its decision to exercise its discretion to consider the issue of second-degree felony murder when the State argued that it was not preserved for review. The above sentence was posed as a reason why the Court of Appeals might decide to exercise its discretion to address an issue that was not preserved below. In addressing the merits of this case, the Court held that the felony murder doctrine was applicable to child abuse. We note that the Court of Appeals imposed no requirement that in order to convict a defendant of felony murder, there must also be a conviction for the underlying offense.

Next, appellant cites Jackson v. State, 286 Md. 430 (1979), ^[2] where the Court of Appeals affirmed the convictions of two defendants for felony murder where a hostage taken in a robbery was killed by a law enforcement officer. Appellant quotes from the opinion, stating that "there must be a causal relationship between (the defendant's) act and the harm sustained for which he is prosecuted." We agree. He then argues that Johnson v. State, 427 Md. 356 (2012), is determinative. Id. at 376. The defendant in Johnson was convicted of, among other things, assault with intent to murder, a charge that was not included in the indictment returned by the Grand Jury. Id. at 362. The Court of Appeals held that the defendant's conviction was inherently illegal because he was convicted of a charge not included in the indictment. Finally, he cites Ridgeway v. State, 369 Md. 165 (2002) as analogous. In Ridgeway, the Court of Appeals upheld a decision by the trial court to vacate the defendant's sentences on three out of five counts of assault. Id. at 168-69. The Court held that sentencing the defendant on the three counts was inherently illegal because he had been acquitted on those counts. Id. at 171.

We observe that a...