Dixon v. State

Gilbert, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. At approximately 6:15 o’clock on the morning of February 24, 1974, in Baltimore City, a Hong Kong citizen was robbed at gun point by two men, forced to perform fellatio upon one of her attackers, and she was raped by the same individual. The actual rape was interrupted by the arrival of the police. The criminals fled, but one of the assailants was apprehended within a short distance of the scene of the crime.

The other culprit, the appellant, Carlton Carl Dixon, was identified by the prosecutrix from police identification photographs, and he was arrested at his home. He was ⁴⁴⁵ subsequently convicted in the Criminal Court of Baltimore by a jury presided over by Judge Robert L. Karwacki. On appeal to this Court appellant poses four issues for our review. He asserts: “I. The Appellant was denied his right ‘to be confronted with the witnesses against him’ when the trial judge failed to hear testimony from the jurors or to grant a new trial where, in a prosecution for rape, the Appellant did not take the witness stand, yet the jurors were advised by another juror as evidenced by Officer Pullen’s Affidavit that the Appellant had a prior rape conviction.

II

The In-Court identification was so tainted by the line-up identification made by the prosecuting witness since the only two men in the line-up who did not have facial hair were the two Defendants.

III

The viewing by the prospective jurors of the Defendants in handcuffs and accompanied by jail guards was so prejudicial as to deny the Defendants a fair and impartial trial.

IV

The denial of the deposition of the prosecuting witness, requested in order that trial counsel have a fair opportunity to prepare for trial, was an abuse of judicial discretion and a denial of due process of law.” The sufficiency of the evidence necessary to sustain the conviction is not here attacked by appellant, and therefore, no useful purpose, will be gained by a recitation of the sordid facts surrounding the commission of the crimes. We shall recount only such facts as may be necessary to a resolution of the particular issue under discussion. I. The primal contention of the appellant is that the trial court erred in refusing to grant appellant a new trial ⁴⁴⁶ because a member of the jury panel made affidavit that the jury was informed by one of the jurors that appellant had a prior record for rape. 1 At the hearing on the motion for a new trial the appellant’s trial counsel produced an affidavit of William Earl Pullen, a juror in appellant’s trial. The affidavit reads: “AFFIDA VIT OF OFFICER JAMES [sic] P ELLEN I was one of the jurors who sat in the case of State of Maryland v. Carlton Dixon.

After all testimony and argument of counsel, the jury retired to the jury room to begin deliberations. During those deliberations, one of the female jurors stated that Carlton Dixon had a prior conviction for rape. I believe in my own mind that the knowledge of this prior conviction affected the jury’s decision in returning guilty verdicts. s/ William Earl Pullen t 2 l Officer James Pullen I SOLEMNLY DECLARE AND AFFIRM under the penalties of perjury that the above information is true and accurate. s/ William Earl Pullen Officer James Pullen” The theme of appellant’s argument at the time of the hearing on the motion for a new trial and here is that the “female juror’s” alleged remark to the balance of the jury panel denied appellant his Constitutional “right to be confronted with the witnesses against him and to enjoy a trial by an impartial jury.” The general rule is that a juror will not be heard to impeach his own verdict. The rule was given “its initial ⁴⁴⁷ impetus as early as 1758 by Lord Mansfield in Vaise v. Delaval, 1 T.R. 11, 99 Eng.

Rep. 944.” Williams v. State, 204 Md. 55, 68 , 102 A. 2d 714 (1954). The Iowa Supreme Court relaxed in Wright v. Illinois and Mississippi Telegraph Co., 20 Iowa 195 (1866) the Lord Mansfield Rule with the articulation of what is still styled the “Iowa Rule”. That rule allows both “affidavits and testimony of jurors for the purpose of correcting a clerical mistake in the jury’s uttered verdict or to avoid the verdict because of irregularities of conduct, among which are intoxication, separation, private view, consultation of witness or party, acceptance of bribes, and reading of illegal documents.” Williams v. State, supra, 204 Md. at 68 . The Supreme Court of the United States, fifteen years before the promulgation of the “Iowa Rule”, in United States v. Reid, 53 U. S.

(12 How.) 361 (1851), modified the Lord Mansfield Rule and accepted a distinction between the juror’s mental processes and extraneous acts which influence the juror’s decision. The Court allowed evidence as to the latter and not the former. Subsequently the Court in Mattox v. United States, 146 U. S. 140 , 13 S. Ct. 50 , 36 L. Ed. 917 (1892) established the “Iowa Rule” as the rule to be used in the federal courts. Then Chief Judge Sobeloff of the Court of Appeals of Maryland, in Williams v. State, supra, stated that the Supreme Court in McDonald v. Pless, 238 U. S. 264 , 35 S. Ct. 783 , 59 L. Ed. 1300 (1915) seemed “in language at least, to tend toward return to the stricter rule of exclusion formulated by Lord Mansfield.” Judge Sobeloff said: “While there has been some criticism of the federal rule as declared in McDonald v. Pless (see Jorgensen v. York Ice Machinery Corporation, 160 F. 2d 432, 435 , cert. denied 332 U. S. 764 ; Note, 47 Col.

L. Rev. 1373), ‘it is beyond doubt a settled rule that jurors in the federal courts will not be heard “for the purpose of impeaching the verdict returned where the facts sought to be shown are such that they essentially inhere in the verdict,” ’ Rakes v. ⁴⁴⁸ United States, 169 F. 2d 739, 745 , cert. denied 335 U. S. 826 ; Edwards v. District of Columbia, 68 A. 2d 286, 288 . The federal rule has been summarized by Wigmore as making inadmissible jurors’ misunderstandings, motives, beliefs and improper remarks and the like. See 8 Wigmore, Sec. 2349.” 204 Md. at 70 . Maryland, however, has not deviated from the rule that what occurs in the jury room, generally, remains in the jury room.

That is to say that jurors cannot ordinarily be heard to impeach their own verdict “whether the conduct objected to be misbehavior or mistake.” Williams, supra at 70 . See also 2 J. Poe, Pleading and Practice at Law § 348 (5th ed. H. Tiffany, 1925); Kelly v. Huber Baking Co., 145 Md. 321, 328 , 125 A. 782 (1924); Brinsfield v. Howeth, 110 Md. 520, 530 , 73 A. 289 (1909), Ford v. State, 12 Md. 514, 546 (1859); Bosley v. Chesapeake Insurance Company, 3 G. & J. 450, 473 , footnote (1831). The reasoning behind the Maryland Rule is that public policy forbids the disclosure of jury secrets inasmuch as such a disclosure opens wide the door for possible fraud, penury and tampering.

Therefore, the law has wisely guarded against an invasion by litigants or others of the jury room, and the law has continuously endeavored to safeguard and hold inviolate the secrets of the jury deliberation. Courts, however, are reluctant to lay down an ironclad rule which would, under all circumstances, preclude jurors from impeaching their own verdict. This is so, in the words of Chief Justice Taney, because “cases might arise in which it would be impossible to refuse . . . [the affidavits of jurors impeaching their own verdict] without violating the plainest principles of justice.” United States v. Reid, supra at 366. See also United States v. Rees, 193 F. Supp. 861 (D. Md. 1961).

We, in Maryland, have recognized that “a juror’s affidavit, or testimony tending to prove the fact set forth in t'he affidavit, might be introduced in an appropriate independent criminal proceeding.” Williams v. State, supra at 71. Chief Judge Sobeloff concluded in Williams at 71 , ⁴⁴⁹ however, that “under no circumstances” is a juror’s affidavit or testimony “admissible to impeach the juror’s (non verdict at the hearing of the motion for a new trial.” (Emphasis supplied). To the same effect see also Kelly v. Huber Baking Co., supra, at 329 wherein it is stated, “under no circumstances could” a juror’s “affidavit be considered for the purpose [impeachment of the verdict] at the hearing of the motion for a new