Chaney v. State

Moylan, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. A criminal justice system, by its very nature, frequently involves the delicate balancing of competing interests. A ⁵⁶⁴ society dedicated to human liberty must be ever vigilant that a suspect never be compelled to incriminate himself. That same society, legitimately concerned with protecting itself from its predators, must also be sensitive to the value of an admission or confession, properly obtained, as sometimes indispensable evidence of guilt.

But for the confession in the case at bar, a brutal sexual assault and strangulation of a ten-year-old girl might have gone forever unredressed. On December 6, 1971, ten-year-old Elizabeth Ann Metzler failed to return from school to her home in northern Anne Arundel County. On the next day, her lifeless body was found in the woods several miles from home. She had been sexually molested and strangled.

Although suspicion centered on the appellant, Richard Miles Chaney, the evidence of guilt was not sufficient to bring charges. Instead of relegating this senseless murder to the dustbin of “unsolved crimes,” the Anne Arundel County police bided their time and with patient diligence maintained the investigation. It ultimately bore fruit with the indictment of the appellant 5 Vz years later. The appellant, following a removal, was ultimately found guilty by a Calvert County jury, presided over by Judge Perry G. Bowen, Jr., of murder in the first degree.

Although bits and pieces of the case for the State were put together from a variety of sources over the course of the years, the capstone was the appellant’s confession. The prime thrust of this appeal is his challenge to its admissibility. The appellant does not maintain that the interrogation leading to his confession offended traditional voluntariness standards in contravention of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. Rogers v. Richmond, 365 U. S. 534 , 81 S. Ct. 735 , 5 L.Ed.2d 760 (1961); Culombe v. Connecticut, 367 U. S. 568 , 81 S. Ct. 1860 , 6 L.Ed.2d 1037 (1961); Jackson v. Denno, 378 U. S. 368 , 84 S. Ct. 1774 , 12 L.Ed.2d 908 (1964).

Nor does he contend that there was a violation of the judicially created prophylactic rules suggested by the Supreme Court to implement the underlying constitutional protection. Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436 , 86 S. Ct. 1602 , 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966). He does, however, urge most strenuously a violation of Maryland District Rule 723 a as interpreted by Wade Iglehart ⁵⁶⁵ Johnson v. State, 282 Md. 314 , 384 A. 2d 709 (1978). As we address that issue, we note at the outset that we are not here dealing with the question of whether Rule 723 a and Johnson v. State were satisfied, but with the very distinct question of whether Rule 723 a and Johnson v. State were applicable.

Maryland District Rule 723 a then 1 provided: “A defendant who is detained pursuant to an arrest shall be taken before a judicial officer without unnecessary delay and in no event later than the earlier of (1) 24 hours after arrest or (2) the first session of court after the defendant’s arrest upon a warrant or, where an arrest has been made without a warrant, the first session of court after the charging document is filed. A charging document shall be filed promptly after arrest if not already filed.” In implementing Rule 723 a, Johnson v. State held explicitly at 282 Md. 328 -329: “We therefore hold that any statement, voluntary or otherwise, obtained from an arrestee during a period of unnecessary delay in producing him before a judicial officer, thereby violating M.D.R. 723 a, is subject to exclusion when offered into evidence against the defendant as part of the prosecution’s case-in-chief. A statement is automatically excludible if, at the time it was obtained from the defendant, he had not been produced before a commissioner for his initial appearance within the earlier of 24 hours after arrest or the first session of court following arrest, irrespective of the reason for the delay.” Before returning to Johnson v. State, a brief detour will be appropriate to recite the circumstances surrounding the taking of the confession in this case. Detectives Gordon March and Thomas Mock, of the homicide unit of the Anne ⁵⁶⁶ Arundel County Police Department, were visiting an inmate, who was about to be paroled, at the Maryland Correctional Camp Center in Jessup on July 22, 1977.

The two detectives agreed to help that inmate get a job upon his release. The appellant, who was also about to be paroled from a sentence he was then serving on an unrelated matter, overheard the conversation. Curious, he asked Detective March for help in getting a job also and for help in dealing with various personal problems with his wife and others. Detective March responded that he would come back on another occasion and take the appellant out of the institution in order to sit down and talk about these problems.

Candidly, Detectives March and Mock admitted that they were “very happy” with this turn of events because the appellant had long been the prime suspect in the Metzler murder case and the detectives were anxious to seize the opportunity to talk to him. On July 25, 1977, Detective March obtained a “writ of habeas corpus” from District Court Judge George Taylor which instructed him to take the appellant from the camp center at 8 a.m. on July 26, 1977, and to return him thereto by midnight on July 28,1977. Pursuant to the writ, Detectives March and Mock took the appellant into custody at 8:15 a.m. on July 26. They took him to the Millersville Police Station.

The appellant was advised of his Miranda rights and signed a waiver form. After a brief discussion about personal problems, the conversation turned to the Metzler murder. The detectives asked the appellant point-blank if he had killed the little girl. The appellant responded that because of the fact that he had been drinking heavily during the period in question, he “did not know whether he did or he didn’t.” On July 26, the questioning of the appellant stopped at approximately 7 p.m.

On the following day, the appellant was questioned for approximately one hour in the morning. He was taken out to lunch at 11:15 a.m. Following that, he was taken to view the murder scene and was returned to the police station at sometime between 3 and 4 p.m. At 5 p.m., he was taken to dinner.

At 6:30 p.m., the final interrogation began. The ⁵⁶⁷ confession was completed at about 8 p.m. on July 27. These facts must now be measured against the standard of Rule 723 a and Johnson v. State. The very thorough analysis by Judge Levine for the Court of Appeals in Johnson makes it explicit that the Johnson rule represents the adoption in Maryland of the so-called McNabb-Mallory rule. 282 Md. 320 -332.

The Supreme Court cases of Mallory v. United States, 354 U. S. 449 , 77 S. Ct. 1356 , 1 L.Ed.2d 1479 (1957), and McNabb v. United States, 318 U. S. 332 , 63 S. Ct. 608 , 87 L. Ed. 819 (1943), along with Upshaw v. United States, 335 U. S. 410 , 69 S. Ct. 170 , 93 L. Ed. 100 (1948), mandated in the federal courts the per se exclusion of a confession taken during a period of unnecessary delay following an arrest. The Court of Appeals points out, at 282 Md. 323 : “The Supreme Court has itself acknowledged that the McNabb-Mallory rule is not derived from the Constitution, but rather is the product of the exercise of the Court’s supervisory authority over the administration of criminal justice in the federal courts.... Consequently, the rule is not binding on the states.” (Citations omitted) After thoroughly analyzing the pros and cons of the McNabb-Mallory rule, the majority of the Court of Appeals adopted it explicitly. Indeed, the dissenting opinion of Chief Judge Murphy, joined in by Judge Smith and Judge Orth, is equally explicit as to the per se adoption of the so-called McNabb-Mallory rule, saying at 282 Md. 342 -343: “As the majority readily acknowledges, the per se exclusionary rule is not constitutionally mandated but derives from an exercise by the Supreme Court of the United States of its supervisory authority over the lower federal courts.

McNabb v. United States, 318 U. S. 332 , 63 S. Ct. 608 , 87 L. Ed. 819 , decided in 1943; Upshaw v. United States, 335 U. S. 410 , 69 S. Ct. 170 , 93 L. Ed. 100 , decided in 1948; and Mallory v. United States, 354 U. S. 449 , 77 S. Ct. 1356 , 1 L.Ed.2d 1479 , decided in 1957, collectively make clear ⁵⁶⁸ that it was the Supreme Court’s view that the right of an accused person to prompt presentment before a judicial officer following arrest would be most effectively protected by a rule which automatically excluded from evidence confessions obtained during a period of ‘unnecessary delay’ in presenting the accused for arraignment.” Since the rule of Johnson is, in effect, the local application of the federal McNabb-Mallory rule, we have the benefit of the large body of case law interpreting McNabb-Mallory and available to us, at least persuasively. Turning to the Supreme Court itself as the ultimate expositor of McNabb-Mallory, we have no difficulty in holding that the JohnsonMcNabb-Mallory rule does not apply to the case before us. In United States v. Carignan, 342 U. S. 36 , 72 S. Ct. 97 , 96 L. Ed. 48 (1951), the Supreme Court was dealing with a situation very similar to the one in this case. Carignan was being lawfully detained on charges of assault with intent to rape when he was questioned by the police about the murder for which he was ultimately convicted.

Claiming that he had been interrogated in violation of the rule in McNabb and Upshaw (Mallory had not yet been decided), he obtained a reversal of his conviction in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Carignan v. United States, 185 P. 2d 954 . On certiorari, the Supreme Court reversed the Ninth Circuit and reinstated the conviction holding that the McNabb-Upshaw principle did not apply when the subject of the interrogation is already in custody on other charges. The Supreme Court stated the problem at 342 U. S. 41 -42: “[TJhis Court in recent years has enforced a judicially created federal rule of evidence, to which the label ‘McNabb rule’ has been applied, that confessions shall be excluded if obtained during ‘illegal detention due to failure promptly to carry a prisoner before a committing magistrate, whether or not the “confession is the result of torture, physical or psychological.” ’ Violation of the McNabb rule, in the view of the Court of Appeals, not the assertedly ⁵⁶⁹ involuntary character of the confession, caused that court to reverse the conviction.

Our problem in this review is whether the McNabb rule covers this confession or, if not, whether that rule of evidence should now be judicially extended to these facts.” In then holding that the McNabb rule did not apply to circumstances where the subject of the interrogation was already in lawful detention on other charges, the Supreme Court explained at 342 U. S. 43 -44: “One cannot say that this record justifies characterization of this confession as given during unlawful detention. Rule 5, Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, does not apply in terms, because Carignan was neither arrested for nor charged with the murder when the confession to that crime was made. He had been arrested and committed for the assault perpetrated six weeks after the murder. His detention, therefore, was legal.

Further, before the confession, there was basis for no more than a strong suspicion that Carignan was the murderer. That suspicion arose from a doubtful identification by a person who had in passing seen a man resembling the respondent at the scene of the murder and from a similarity of circumstances between the murder and the assault. The police could hardly be expected to make a murder charge on such uncertainties without further inquiry and investigation. This case falls outside the reason for the rule, i.e., to abolish unlawful