Tehohney v. State

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JEREMIAH TEHOHNEY v. STATE OF MARYLAND

No. 2329-2022

Court of Special Appeals of Maryland

April 18, 2024

IN THE APPELLATE COURT OF MARYLAND^[*]

Circuit Court for Baltimore City Case No. 120174043

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

OPINION

Sharer, J.

A jury in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City convicted Appellant, Jeremiah Tehohney, of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, four counts of illegal handgun possession, and three counts of use of a firearm in the commission of a crime of violence. At sentencing, the court granted the parties' joint request to vacate the guilty findings for use of a firearm in the commission of a crime of violence. The court then sentenced Appellant as follows: three years of incarceration for one count of illegal handgun possession, and a consecutive life sentence for conspiracy to commit murder. As to the remaining illegal handgun possession convictions, the court sentenced Appellant to concurrent three-year sentences.

On appeal, Appellant presents three questions for our review, which we rephrase as follows:^[1]

1. Did the trial court err in admitting multiple jail telephone calls?

2. Did the trial court err in admitting surveillance video footage?

3. Was the evidence sufficient to sustain the convictions?

For the reasons to follow, we shall affirm the judgments of the circuit court.

BACKGROUND

On the evening of March 28, 2020, Officer Sherif Kellogg responded to the 1100 block of Washington Boulevard in Baltimore City where he "observed a male lying in the street[.]" Officer Kellogg noticed multiple wounds on the male's back and "put a chest seal on the gunshot wound in the back and . . . began doing compressions on him and rescue breaths."

Sergeant Melvin Jones was assigned as the primary investigator. En route to the scene, Sergeant Jones learned that there were four victims of the shooting: Anthony Covington, Jerrell Harris, Trayvon Cole, and Damonte Dolman. Covington was pronounced dead at the hospital. The remaining victims sustained non-fatal gunshot wounds. Dr. Donna Vincenti, an Assistant Medical Examiner at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, was admitted as an expert in the field of forensic pathology. Dr. Vincenti performed an autopsy on Covington and concluded that his "cause of death was multiple gunshot wounds" and that his "manner of death was homicide."

Crime Laboratory Technician Erica Harden photographed the scene and recovered the following evidence: "twenty-eight cartridge cases, eleven metal fragments, and three projectiles." Detective Kyle Johnson testified that he obtained video footage from two businesses near the scene: New City Mart and Bob's Bar. The video footage shows a sedan that stopped in front of the New City Mart. Three individuals exited from the sedan and discharged firearms in the direction of the persons who were standing in front of the New City Mart. The shooters then returned to the sedan, which drove away at high speed, followed by a truck. The video depicted one of the shooters wearing a blue sweatsuit. Sergeant Jones testified about the videos as follows:

So, you can see in the vehicle that there was a silver or gray Infiniti M35 that pulled into the block. There was three shooters that you can see on camera that exit the vehicle. They are all discharging firearms. The second vehicle behind is a dark gray with a black top with a silver box in it that's following behind. Evidence on the scene indicates that someone exited from the passenger side of that vehicle and was discharging a firearm along at the victims. So, there was three active shooters that were observed on the camera, and there was one that's from my training and expertise and the evidence on the scene indicate that there was another shooter from the truck. If you watch the video closely, the truck is trailing the Infiniti very close when they start to take off at a high rate of speed.

Detective John Gregorio was assigned to the Southern District Intelligence Detective position, and, as part of his duties he "monitor[ed] Instagram^[2] for people who [he] kn[e]w to frequent the Southern District[.]" Detective Gregorio explained the difference between Instagram stories and Instagram wall posts. Instagram stories "are temporary postings that expire after twenty-four hours." By contrast, one can post "a picture or video to [one's] wall, which would be similar to like your Facebook wall." Detective Gregorio viewed a cell phone video of the surveillance footage of the shooting and "noticed one of the shooters in the incident had a complete blue jumpsuit."

Detective Gregorio testified that he "recognized that jumpsuit as having been posted the day prior" to the shooting on Appellant's Instagram account and that he "observed an Instagram story posted to [Appellant's] account of [Appellant] . . . wearing a blue jumpsuit" in a video posted on March 27, 2020. In addition, Detective Gregorio observed that Appellant's Instagram account contained a wall post of a photo, which showed Appellant wearing the blue jumpsuit. After the shooting, Detective Gregorio viewed Appellant's Instagram account and "observed that this photo had been removed from the wall post of the defendant." Detective Gregorio testified about the deleted Instagram wall post: "Well, it was initially up on the 29th, but then it was taken down a short time later. So, either later on the 29th or the 30th. But when I had gone back to review again, it was removed."

On April 3, 2020, Sergeant Jones went to Tony Jones's house and interviewed him because, according to Sergeant Jones, "[t]here was an incident that took place the night before that resulted in the ballistic evidence matching from there to the murder scene." Tony Jones testified that on April 1, 2020, Rayquel Jones, "J-Money[,]" and another individual came to Jones's house. Tony Jones recognized that a photo of Appellant from Appellant's Instagram account was "[a] picture of J-Money." Detective Gregorio testified that he monitored Rayquel Jones's Instagram account, which also contained photographs of Rayquel Jones wearing a blue jumpsuit. Similarly, on cross-examination by Appellant's counsel, Tony Jones testified that Rayquel Jones's Instagram account contained photos of Rayquel Jones wearing a blue jumpsuit.

Sergeant Jones alleged that Rayquel Jones and two other persons of interest were involved in the shooting, but there was insufficient evidence to charge them. As a result of Sergeant Jones's conversation with Tony Jones, Sergeant Jones developed Appellant as a suspect. On April 4, 2020, Sergeant Jones interviewed Appellant, who denied any involvement in the shooting. Appellant also denied that his alias was J-Money.

At trial, several recorded jail calls were heard by the jury which, the State asserted, were placed by Appellant while he was in pre-trial detention. The State moved to admit "a letter of certification in reference to calls made by the defendant, and . . . the CD containing those calls." Appellant's counsel objected to the letter of certification and the CD, arguing that "there has to be somebody -- they have to lay the foundation [to] authenticate the calls, somebody who is going to come here and say that they know, or how they know the calls came from my client." The prosecutor responded as follows:

Well, Your Honor, I'll start with the calls where he's using his own ID number and he talks about creating other ID numbers. I mean, we'll go out of the timeline, and then go back to the other calls. Because [Appellant] talks -- on these calls, he says -- because they start talking about the case and he says, "Don't talk about it on this ID number. I'm going to call you back on a different ID number." And then he gets on the other ID number and he says, "Hey, it's okay. You can talk about it now because this isn't my ID number. They won't find this."

The prosecutor also noted that Appellant's "voice in and of itself is so unique that you recognize his voice on every call."

In all, ten jail calls were played at trial. For consistency and clarity, we refer to the calls by the numbering assigned to the calls in the trial court. In call 5 from April 8, 2020, the caller identifies himself as Jeremiah and J-Money, and the caller indicates that he has three other IDs to make phone calls. In call 7 from April 9, 2020, the caller again identifies himself as J-Money. Based on those two calls, the court determined that "we have an admission at the beginning of call five and seven that it's him. And it's his voice. I mean, he's been identified multiple times as J-Money by multiple witnesses." The court concluded:

And what we have now is we have two calls where the defendant identifies himself in his voice and that is foundational evidence, and at this point, unless the voices are completely different which I'm sure that they're not, the jury can make its own conclusion, but it has a basis for concluding, reasonably concluding that it's his voice at that point.

For the eight other calls, the court told the prosecutor to stop the recording after the caller identified himself, and then the court found that each call was authenticated. Those calls were presented in the following order at trial.

In call 8, on April 9, 2020, the caller identified himself as "Oooooh[,]" stated "[i]t's not my first body[,]" and indicated that police showed him an Instagram picture that he had deleted.

In call 14, from April 4, 2020, the caller identified himself as "Ooooh[,]" he indicated that police had shown him pictures from his Instagram account, and he asked the recipient of the phone call to delete parts of the caller's Instagram account and to change the username associated with the...