Woodlin v. State

484 Md. 253

298 A.3d 834

John Matthew WOODLIN

v.STATE of Maryland

No. 22, Sept. Term, 2022

Supreme Court of Maryland. *

July 26, 2023

Argued by Claudia A. Cortese, Asst. Public Defender (Natasha M. Dartigue, Public Defender of Maryland, Baltimore, MD), on brief, for Petitioner

Argued by Peter R. Naugle, Asst. Atty. Gen. (Anthony G. Brown, Atty. Gen. of Maryland, Baltimore, MD), on brief, for Respondent

Argued before: Fader, C.J., Watts, Hotten, Booth, Biran, Gould, Eaves, JJ.

Eaves, J.

A common law rule in American jurisprudence prohibits a government from using in the criminal prosecution of a defendant "evidence of [that] defendant's evil character to establish a probability of his [or her] guilt."¹ Such evidence includes the defendant's "prior trouble with the law, specific criminal acts, or ill name among his [or her] neighbors[.]"² This rule exists not to give a defendant a leg up in any criminal prosecution, but rather because such evidence likely will "weigh too much with the jury and ... overpersuade [it so] as to prejudge one with a bad general record[,]" denying the defendant a fair opportunity to defend against crimes alleged by the government.³

Maryland common law generally prohibits the use of character evidence to show a person's propensity to act in accordance with their character traits or prior bad acts, but sexual assault trials have long been recognized as meriting a partial exception to the bar on propensity evidence.⁴ This common law exception is limited to evidence of the defendant's other sexually assaultive conduct that is both similar to the act for which he or she currently is charged and toward the same victim.⁵

Expanding on that common law exception, the General Assembly passed the Maryland Repeat Sexual Predator Prevention Act of 2018, codified under the Courts and Judicial Proceedings Article ("CJP") (1974, 2020 Repl. Vol.) as § 10-923, to allow the State to move to introduce in a criminal trial for certain sexual offenses evidence of the defendant's "other sexually assaultive behavior" that occurred either before or after the crime currently charged. Under CJP § 10-923, the State may introduce evidence of prior sexually assaultive behavior involving different victims to help establish credibility in qualifying sexual assault cases. The statute was enacted in recognition that many sexual assault offenses occur in private and may not generate any physical evidence.⁶ The admissibility of evidence under CJP § 10-923 depends on two necessary, sequential events: (1) the State proving at a required hearing four criteria and (2) the circuit court then exercising its discretion in favor of admissibility.

John Matthew Woodlin, Petitioner, was arrested and charged with child sexual abuse and other related sexual offenses against his ten-year-old grandson, A.H.⁷ Before trial, the State timely moved pursuant to CJP § 10-923 to introduce evidence of Petitioner's 2010 conviction (by way of a guilty plea) for sexual assault against a different individual, and, after the required hearing, the circuit court granted that motion. At trial, consistent with the circuit court's ruling, the State introduced evidence of Petitioner's prior conviction, and he ultimately was convicted by a jury; he noted a timely appeal. The Appellate Court of Maryland⁸ affirmed the circuit court's decision to put before the jury evidence of Petitioner's 2010 offense and affirmed his conviction in this case.

Petitioner sought review in this Court, and we granted certiorari, 482 Md. 31, 284 A.3d 412 (2022), to answer the following questions, which we have rephrased⁹ :

1. Under CJP § 10-923(e)(4), must a circuit court consider certain specific factors in determining whether the probative value of a defendant's other sexually assaultive behavior substantially outweighs the danger of unfair prejudice?

2. How should circuit courts weigh any identified factors when conducting an analysis under CJP § 10-923(e)(4)?

3. Did the motions judge abuse his discretion when he determined that the probative value of Petitioner's 2010 conviction was not substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice?

4. If the motions judge correctly determined that the probative value of Petitioner's prior conviction was not substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice, then was either the motions judge or the trial judge nevertheless required to sua sponte limit the scope of the evidence presented to only certain details of the prior conviction?

For the reasons discussed below, we hold that there is no factor that circuit courts must consider in every case when conducting an analysis under CJP § 10-923(e)(4), and we discuss an illustrative—but not exhaustive—list of appropriate factors that circuit courts may consider. The motions judge in this case did not abuse his discretion when he determined that the probative value of Petitioner's 2010 conviction was not substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice. Lastly, Petitioner waived any argument concerning whether the circuit court had a sua sponte duty to limit evidence admitted under CJP § 10-923 because he failed to raise any such argument during any of the circuit court proceedings. Thus, for these reasons detailed below, we affirm the judgment of the Appellate Court.

IBACKGROUND

Before addressing the merits of this appeal, we provide an overview of some pertinent evidentiary principles, as well as the facts and procedural history of Petitioner's case.

A. Admissible Evidence Generally, Historical Exceptions For Prosecution Of Sexual Crimes, And CJP § 10-923

To appreciate how CJP § 10-923 operates in context, we first discuss admissible evidence generally and our State's treatment of admissible evidence in the prosecution of sexual crimes.

1. Evidence Generally

Our rules make clear: relevant evidence is generally admissible; evidence that is not relevant is inadmissible.¹⁰ Md. Rule 5-402. Two exceptions to Rule 5-402's general policy of admission of relevant evidence are Rule 5-404(b), which bars, absent an applicable exception, the introduction of "[e]vidence of other crimes, wrongs, or other acts ... to prove the character of a person in order to show action in the conformity therewith[,]" otherwise known as "propensity evidence," and Rule 5-403, which excludes relevant evidence if its probative value is substantially outweighed by, among other things, the danger of unfair prejudice.

The policy consideration underlying Rule 5-404(b) is to avoid tainting the jury into thinking that the defendant is a bad person "who should be punished regardless of his [or her] guilt of the charged crime, or to infer that he [or she] committed the charged crime due to a criminal disposition." Thompson v. State , 412 Md. 497, 503, 988 A.2d 1011 (2010) (quoting Acuna v. State , 332 Md. 65, 75, 629 A.2d 1233 (1993) ). Despite that prohibition, such evidence historically has been admissible to prove things other than a defendant's general propensity to commit a crime, such as "proof of motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, common scheme or plan, knowledge, identity, [or] absence of mistake or accident[.]"¹¹ Md. Rule 5-404(b) ; see Merzbacher v. State , 346 Md. 391, 407, 697 A.2d 432 (1997) (noting that Rule 5-404(b) "incorporates well recognized exceptions" to the general prohibition of propensity evidence).

We do not exclude relevant evidence merely because it is prejudicial, as "[a]ll evidence, by its nature, is prejudicial." Williams v. State , 457 Md. 551, 572, 179 A.3d 1006 (2018). Rule 5-403 instead excludes relevant evidence when its unfairly prejudicial nature substantially outweighs its probative value. Under Rule 5-403, unfair prejudice outweighs a piece of relevant evidence's probative value if it "tends to have some adverse effect ... beyond tending to prove the fact or issue that justified its admission." Montague v. State , 471 Md. 657, 674, 243 A.3d 546 (2020) (alteration in original) (quoting State v. Heath , 464 Md. 445, 464, 211 A.3d 458 (2019) ).

By its plain language, CJP § 10-923 necessarily contemplates the introduction of some propensity evidence against a defendant. But the statute is not a radical departure from Rule 5-404(b)'s underlying policy. Indeed, this is not the first time we have treated propensity evidence differently in the prosecution of sexual offenses.¹²

2. Common law exception for the prosecution of sexual crimes

In 1989, this Court held that in Maryland, there exists a " ‘sexual propensity’ exception to the rule excluding evidence of other crimes[.]" Vogel v. State , 315 Md. 458, 462, 554 A.2d 1231 (1989). In reaching this holding, the Court noted that the exception "is strictly limited to the prosecution for sexual crimes in which the prior illicit sexual acts are similar to the offense for which the accused is being tried and involve the same victim." Id. at 466, 554 A.2d 1231. The rule announced in Vogel was, therefore, a narrow common-law exception to the general exclusionary rule for propensity evidence. See Thompson , 412 Md. at 503–04, 988 A.2d 1011 (acknowledging and discussing the rule established in Vogel ).

Years later, we declined to extend Vogel to admit evidence of similar sexual acts committed against a person other than the victim in the current criminal proceeding. See Hurst v. State , 400 Md. 397, 415, 929 A.2d 157 (2007) ("[T]he State urges that ... this Court should extend its holding in Vogel ... and allow evidence of a defendant's prior rapes and sexual assaults to show such a propensity beyond the limitations we expressed in Vogel . We decline to do so."). We clearly stated that if the scope of our rule in Vogel was to be expanded, then such a change would need to come from the General Assembly "or by this Court, sitting in its legislative capacity, exercising its authority to enact Rules of Practice and Procedure and Rules of Evidence[,]" id. at 418, 929 A.2d 157, "not by judicial fiat[,]" id. at 417, 929 A.2d 157. Since...