Thornton v. State

876 A.2d 142

162 Md. App. 719

Tamere Hassan THORNTON v. STATE of Maryland.

No. 1608, September Term, 2003.

Court of Special Appeals of Maryland.

June 15, 2005.

Nancy S. Forster (Eve L. Brensike, Asst. Public Defenders, on the brief), Baltimore, for appellant.

Rachel Marblestone Kamins (J. Joseph Curran, Jr., Atty. Gen., on the brief), Baltimore, for appellee.

Panel: MURPHY, C.J., KRAUSER, JOHN C. ELDRIDGE, (Retired Specially Assigned) JJ.

KRAUSER, J.

Following a bench trial in the Circuit Court for Baltimore County, sixteen-year-old Tamere Hassan Thornton was convicted of the second-degree murder of seventeen-year-old Kevin Taylor as well as carrying a weapon openly with the intent to injure.¹ Sentencing the youth to a term of fourteen years' imprisonment for second-degree murder, the court lamented:

I think the word most used about this case is the word tragedy, and maybe another word is sad because, you know, you have two kids who went to school, who worked, played sports, listened to their parents, went to church, they go to the mall, they shop for school, I mean, it's unbelievable. They argue. Kids argue all the time. They're teenagers. They have a fight. Teenagers fight, a right of passage, and in a flash, you know, one of them is dead and the other is in jail. I mean, these are not street wise kids. . . .

After concluding this sad commentary, the court merged, for sentencing purposes, carrying a weapon openly with the intent to injure with second-degree murder and imposed sentence.

Appellant now challenges his conviction for second-degree murder, presenting three questions for our consideration:

I. Is the evidence that appellant stabbed the victim one time in the leg with a folding knife insufficient to sustain a conviction for second-degree murder?

II. Did the trial court err when it convicted appellant of second-degree murder based on a diluted and erroneous interpretation of the required mens rea?

III. Did the trial court improperly reject appellant's imperfect self-defense claim based on an incorrect definition of the elements of that defense?

For the reasons that follow, we shall affirm the judgment of the circuit court as to the second-degree murder conviction, but vacate the circuit court's judgment as to the carrying a weapon openly with intent to injure charge.

FACTS

On the evening of August 30, 2002, appellant was with a group of male friends, shopping at the Towson Town Center in Towson, Maryland, as was the victim, Kevin Taylor. When the two groups met inside the mall, there was an exchange of words between a friend of appellant's, Orion Brandon Beard, and a friend of Taylor's, who was identified only as "Jason." The two knew each other and apparently had never gotten along. When they were asked to leave by a manager of one of the mall's stores, they agreed to take the argument "outside." They left, followed by their respective friends, which included appellant and Taylor.

Once outside the mall, the argument became heated. Fists flew and the two young men fell to the ground and began to wrestle. Mathew Mayer, on a "smoke break" from a nearby mall restaurant when he witnessed the fight, stated: "I am hesitant to call it a fight so much as a tussle in that . . . it was more posturing than fighting . . . they were wrestling lot of grabbing and trying to see who could, you know, take each other to the ground but it wasn't . . . I'm going to beat this guy to a pulp."

While Beard and Jason tussled, appellant purportedly yelled at the other group, "which one of you niggers wants to get in on this." Responding to the challenge, Taylor took off his shirt and walked towards appellant. As Taylor approached, appellant pulled a folding knife. It had two blades; each was three inches long. When Taylor did not back off, appellant stabbed Taylor in the thigh, apparently twice, leaving two wounds — one three inches deep, the full length of the knife's blade and another one-half inch deep. Taylor then froze, staggered backwards and fell down, whereupon appellant ran from the scene. Taylor was eventually transported to the shock trauma unit of the University of Maryland Medical Center, where he died twenty-one hours later.

Doctor Patricia Aronica-Pollak, an Assistant Medical Examiner in Maryland's Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, performed an autopsy on Taylor. She testified at trial that she found two stab wounds and one "cutting" wound on Taylor. One stab wound was to the left "inguinal" or groin area. Three inches deep, it cut into two major blood vessels, the "left external iliac artery and vein," causing extensive bleeding. The other stab wound was to the "anterior lateral aspect of the left thigh." One-half inch deep, it cut into only skin and soft tissue. The cutting wound was located on the right forearm and it too injured only skin and soft tissue. Based upon her examination, Dr. Pollak concluded that the "wounds with complications" caused Taylor's death.

I.

Appellant attacks the sufficiency of the evidence, employing a two-step strategy. First, he redefines second degree murder to include an additional element, which, in effect, narrows the definition of that offense. Then, having limited the applicability of this form of homicide, he argues that the killing of which he has been convicted falls outside that definition.

To be more precise, he recasts second-degree murder so that more than just proof that victim's death was the result of the "intentional infliction of serious bodily harm" is required. He adds that proof must be presented that the victim's death was the likely result of that harm. Then, turning to the specific facts of his case, he minimizes the deadliness of the injury he inflicted, dismissing it as "single stab wound" to an unspecified portion of Taylor's leg. His vagueness as to the exact location of the wound he inflicted is understandable, as a more detailed account of that wound swiftly exposes its potential lethality. In any event, neither step in appellant's two-step analysis advances his cause.

Maryland law, appellant asserts, defines the form of second-degree murder of which he was convicted as the "killing of another person with . . . the intent to inflict such serious bodily harm that death would be the likely result." That definition, he argues, is incompatible with his conviction for second-degree murder, since, in his words, "[n]o rational fact-finder could conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that `the likely' consequence of a single stab wound to the leg [would be] death." In brief, his argument is this: Second-degree murder of the "intentional infliction of serious bodily harm" variety requires a finding that the victim's death was the likely result of the serious bodily harm intentionally inflicted. Taylor's death was not the likely result of "the single stab wound" to the leg appellant inflicted. Therefore, he was not guilty of second-degree murder. This syllogism does not survive inspection. Its major premise — that second-degree murder requires a separate finding that death was the "likely result" of the serious bodily harm inflicted — is flawed. It does not reflect either past or current Maryland law.

In short, appellant misconstrues Maryland law, though, in fairness to him, his misconstruction is understandable. Maryland Criminal Pattern Jury Instruction ("MCrPJI") 4:17 does state, as he claims, that, to prove second-degree murder, the State must show that death not only resulted from the harm but that it was the "likely" result of the harm. That instruction provides:

Second degree murder is the killing of another person with either the intent to kill or the intent to inflict such serious bodily harm that death would be the likely result. Second degree murder does not require premeditation or deliberation. In order to convict the defendant of second degree murder, the State must prove:

(1) that the conduct of the defendant caused the death of (victim); and

(2) that the defendant engaged in the deadly conduct either with the intent to kill or with the intent to inflict such serious bodily harm that death would be the likely result.

MCrPJI 4:17.

Although that instruction states that "[s]econd degree murder is the killing of another person with . . . the intent to inflict such serious bodily harm that death would be the likely result[,]" we find no support for appellant's thesis that that instruction substantively changed the law in Maryland. It is well settled in Maryland that, to prove second-degree murder, the evidence need only show that the death of the victim resulted from the intentional infliction of serious bodily harm. See Webb v. State, 201 Md. 158, 162, 93 A.2d 80 (1952); Davis v. State, 237 Md. 97, 104, 205 A.2d 254 (1964); State v. Ward, 284 Md. 189, 199, 396 A.2d 1041 (1978),overruled on other grounds by Lewis v. State, 285 Md. 705, 404 A.2d 1073 (1979); Goodman v. State, 6 Md.App. 187, 193, 250 A.2d 684 (1969). And while Mitchell v. State, 363 Md. 130, 147, 767 A.2d 844 (2001) and Burch v. State, 346 Md. 253, 274, 696 A.2d 443 (1997), two cases which appellant cites in support of his proposition, do define second degree murder, as it is articulated in MCrPJI 4:17, they do so only perfunctorily and in passing, as a part of a prefatory synopsis of various forms of second-degree murder. Neither case addresses the question of what constitutes "intentional infliction of serious bodily harm" second-degree murder. Nor should they have because that issue was not before the Court in either instance.

Furthermore, the pattern jury instruction at issue did not and could not have changed Maryland law. Jury instructions in Maryland are merely advisory. Their "main purpose . . . is to aid the jury in clearly understanding the case and considering the testimony; to provide guidance for the jury's deliberations by directing their attention to the legal principles that apply to and govern the facts in the case; and to ensure that the...