Dorsey v. State

BELL, Chief Judge. This case presents the issue of the propriety of a circuit court’s dismissal of criminal charges against a defendant for failure of the State to bring the defendant to trial within 180 days, as required by Maryland Code (1971, Repl.Vol.1996), Article 27, § 591 1 and Maryland Rule 4-271 2 , notwithstanding that it was the defendant’s failure to appear on the scheduled trial date that resulted in the postponement of the case beyond the prescribed 180-day period. Stated differently, we must determine whether § 591 and Rule 4-271 impose a duty on the State to seek a postponement of trial beyond the 180-day limit and obtain a finding of good cause from the county administrative judge or that judge’s designee, when a petitioner, either voluntarily or involuntarily, absents him or herself from trial. We shall hold that, where a criminal defendant ⁶⁹³ fails to appear at trial, that defendant bears the burden of going forward with evidence demonstrating that his or her failure to appear was not voluntary, but that the ultimate burden proof on the issue rests on the State; the State has the ultimate responsibility to prove that the defendant’s absence was a voluntary action and, thus, tantamount to seeking and consenting to a trial date in violation of § 591 and Rule 4-271.

I. On October 2, 1995, the petitioner, Larry Emmanuel Dorsey, was indicted by a grand jury in the Circuit Court for Prince George’s County on charges of child abuse and battery. On October 20, 1995, he was arraigned. Defense counsel entered her appearance on the petitioner’s behalf on November 2, 1995. Section 591 and Rule 4-271, commonly referred to as the Hicks Rule, an eponym of the seminal case, State v. Hicks, 285 Md. 310 , 403 A.2d 356 , on motion for reconsiderar tion, 285 Md. 334 , 403 A.2d 368 (1979), requires that the trial date be set within 30 days, and that a criminal defendant be brought to trial within 180 days, after the earlier of the defendant’s first appearance before the circuit court or the first appearance of defense counsel.

Consequently, in this case, the 180-day period began to run on October 20,1995, the date of the petitioner’s arraignment. His trial was scheduled to commence on April 1, 1996, sixteen (16) days prior to the expiration of that period. On the day of trial, however, the petitioner, who had been released on bail, failed to appear. Defense counsel informed the trial court and the prosecutor that, on the previous evening, pursuant to counsel’s advice, the petitioner had voluntarily turned himself in to Montgomery County authorities on an outstanding warrant in an unrelated case and was being held at that county’s detention center.

Presented with that information, the trial judge postponed the trial, revoked petitioner’s bond, and issued a bench warrant to serve as a detainer on the petitioner following the resolution of the charges in Montgomery County. As indicated, § 591 and Rule 4-271 require postponements to be granted by the County administrative judge or the administrative judge’s ⁶⁹⁴ designee. That judge was neither the administrative judge nor the administrative judge’s designee. Between April 1, 1996, the date of the postponement, and April 17, 1996, the date on which the 180-day period expired, the State did not request the administrative judge or his designee to make a finding of good cause to postpone the petitioner’s trial beyond the 180-day period.

Nor did the State seek to have a writ issued to have the petitioner brought to Prince George’s County so that he may be tried within the 180-day period. The petitioner was not transported to Prince George’s County until May 30, 1996, and no trial date having been set before the petitioner’s return, trial was rescheduled by the trial court to commence on July 30, 1996, more than three months after the expiration of the prescribed period. Prior to the commencement of trial, on June 19, 1996, the petitioner filed a Motion to Dismiss all charges against him on the grounds that, by failing to bring him to trial within the prescribed statutory period, and by failing to obtain a good cause finding and a postponement of the trial from the administrative judge or his designee during the period between the initial trial date and the expiration of the 180-day period, the State violated § 591 and Rule 4-271. Relying primarily on Hicks and its progeny, the petitioner argued: “[T]he State had from April 1, 1996 to April 17, 1996 to either bring [the petitioner] to [t]rial by issuing a writ to have him brought to Prince George’s County from Montgomery County since they were aware of his location or having the Administrative Judge or his designee continue the case or find good cause.

The State chose to neither continue the case nor find good cause. The State chose to do neither of these. In State v. Cook, 322 Md. 93, 107 [ 585 A.2d 833, 840 ](1991) the Court of Appeals stated that, ‘if there is postponement by the County Administrative Judge or designee, for good cause, that results in the case being set for [t]rial beyond the 180 day limit, the section and the rule are not violated; if there is no postponement meeting these criteria, setting a trial date beyond the 180 day limit constitutes a violation of the section and rule, for which ⁶⁹⁵ dismissal is the appropriate remedy.’ Therefore, for all reasons given, the ... case should be dismissed.” The State did not dispute that, under § 591 and Rule 4-271, the trial judge was not authorized to postpone the trial beyond 180 days. Rather, the State argued that, “[a] judge need not make an express finding of good cause for it to exist” when, quoting our decision in State v. Parker, 338 Md. 203, 210 , 657 A.2d 1158, 1161 , republished, 347 Md. 533, 540 , 702 A.2d 217, 220 (1995), “it is patently obvious that [the] unavailability of the defendant for trial constitutes good cause for a postponement.” At the motions hearing, the State further argued that the issuance of a bench warrant to serve as a detainer on the petitioner effectively tolled the 180-day period.

Unconvinced by the State’s arguments, on June 28, 1996, the circuit court granted the petitioner’s motion to dismiss, stating: “This is the defendant Larry Emmanuel Dorsey’s motion to dismiss the indictment against him, for an alleged violation of Rule 4-271, a mandate that he come to trial within 180 days either within his first appearance of the Court, or first appearance of counsel, unless the matter is continued by the Administrative judge or his designee for good cause shown. “My review of the Court file and the documents submitted into evidence allows me to make the following findings of fact. On October 5th, 1995, Mr. Dorsey appeared before the Court for an arraignment, that was his first appearance before the Circuit Court on these charges. A trial was set for April 1st, 1996. “Mr. Dorsey did not appear for that trial, having turned himself in on a bench warrant the day before in Montgomery County. That on April 1st, 1996, counsel for Mr, Dorsey notified both the Court and the prosecuting counsel that Mr. Dorsey was being held in the County Detention Center in Montgomery County. “On April 1st, 1996, the trial judge, Judge Ahalt, issued a bench warrant as a detainer on these charges to hold Mr. Dorsey pending resolution of the charges in Montgomery County.

April 17th, 1996, 180 days from Mr. Dorsey’s first ⁶⁹⁶ appearance on October 20th, 1996—that should be ’95. On April 1st, 1996, Judge Ahalt was neither the Administrative Judge of the Circuit Court of Prince George’s County, nor the administrative judge’s designee for the purpose of Rule 4-271. “There had been no finding of good cause by either the Administrative Judge or his designee within the 180 days mandated by Rule 4-271. That Mr. Dorsey was not brought to trial within the 180 days as mandated by Rule 4-271. Consequently, I find a violation of Rule 4-271, and that mandates that I dismiss the indictment against Larry Emmanuel Dorsey, and I do so.” The State noted an appeal to the Court of Special Appeal.

That court reversed the trial court’s judgment. State v. Dorsey, 114 Md.App. 678 , 691 A.2d 730 (1997). The intermediate court offered three “alternative and independent” reasons for the reversal. First, it concluded that “[tjhere is a distinction ... between conscious requests for postponements and deliberate decisions to grant postponement, on the one hand, and other legal decisions that do not implicate ‘postponement policy’ in any way, on the other hand, but which may, coincidentally, produce postponements.” Dorsey, 114 Md.App. at 693 , 691 A.2d at 737 .

Elaborating on that point, the court observed: “We have not been provided a transcript of the colloquy before the judge that morning, but we have no indication that the attorneys were requesting a postponement or arguing the pros and cons of postponement. The issue advertently before the court was not whether a postponement should be granted, but whether the trial could proceed in the absence of the defendant. A postponement might be the inevitable consequence of a negative decision on a trial in absentia, but it was not the key issue before the court. It was simply a possible consequence of another decision on another issue.” Id. at 696 , 691 A.2d at 739 .

The intermediate court’s second reason was that, even if the trial court made a deliberate decision to postpone the trial ⁶⁹⁷ date within the meaning of § 591 and Rule 4-271, that decision was “substantively unassailable” because a defendant’s unavailability constitutes good cause for a postponement, as a matter of law. Id. at 698, 691 A.2d at 740 . Moreover, the Court of Special Appeals went on to hold that a good cause finding by the administrative judge or that judge’s designee was unnecessary because, relying upon its holding in Simms v. State, 83 Md.App. 204, 210 , 574 A.2d 12, 15 , cert. denied, 321 Md. 68 , 580 A,2d 1077 (1990), “[t]here was no special ‘expertise’ or policy consideration or calendar overview that an administrative judge could have contributed.” Dorsey, 114 Md.App. at 701 , 691 A.2d at 741 . Stated differently, because the trial judge had no discretion to exercise, no choice but to postpone the trial in the petitioner’s absence or, in a rare case, try the petitioner in absentia, an option not reserved exclusively for exercise by the administrative judge, the Court of Special Appeals opined that “[t]he administrative judge [wjould have done nothing different.” Id.

The final independent and alternative reason that the Court of Special Appeals offered for reversing the trial court’s grant of the motion to dismiss was its conclusion that the petitioner’s actions clearly demonstrated that the petitioner sought a trial date in violation of the Hicks’s 180-day rule. The court explained: “[T]he [petitioner], by his deliberate actions, sought to bring about the necessary postponement of his scheduled April 1 trial. He only turned himself in to Montgomery County authorities the evening before trial after consulting his attorney. We conclude that he was fully appraised of the necessary consequences that would flow from that action.

Whether he deliberately sought to manipulate the system so as to cause a Hicks problem or whether he simply sought to avoid trial on April 1, the common denominator end that he sought was that he would not go to trial on that day.” “Whatever his motive, noble or ignoble, [the petitioner] consciously and deliberately and with full advice of counsel ⁶⁹⁸ sought to forfend his scheduled trial date of April 1. His was no mere verbal request which could have been denied. He, rather, created a situation where the end he was seeking was a guaranteed result. His calculated actions made the result inevitable.

He may not now reap the reward of never having to answer for his crimes because the judge who was forced to deliver to him the very result he sought happened to be an ordinary judge rather than an administrative judge.” ' Id. at 703, 691 A.2d at 742 (emphasis in original). The petitioner sought review of the decision of the Court of Special Appeals by filing in this Court a Petition for Certiorari. We granted the petition in order once again to clarify the application of the Hicks Rule. Dorsey v. State, 346 Md. 242 , 695 A.2d 1230 (1997).

In this Court, as he did in the trial court, the petitioner argues that “[b]ecause the postponement that carried [his] case beyond the 180-day limit was not granted or approved by the administrative judge or by that judge’s designee, and because ‘[t]he statute and rule do not contemplate or permit the exercise of postponement authority by anyone other than one with the authority of an administrative judge,’ Capers v. State, [ 317 Md. 513, 520-21 , 565 A.2d 331, 334 (1989) ], the charges' against [him] were properly dismissed.” The petitioner challenged the intermediate appellate court’s rationale seriatim. Addressing the Court of Special Appeals’ first rationale, the petitioner contends that the record in this case does not support the conclusion that the issue “advertently” before the trial court on April 1, 1996 was whether he should be tried in absentia rather than whether the trial should be postponed. To the contrary, he insists further, the trial court’s decision and actions' at the initial trial date “constitute[ ] a postponement within the meaning of § 591 and Md. Rule 4-271 regardless of whether or not it represents a ‘deliberate’ decision to grant a postponement.” Respecting the intermediate appellate court’s second rationale, the peti ⁶⁹⁹ tioner maintains that Simms “is in direct conflict with the long line of decisions of this [Clourt holding that under § 591 and Rule 4-271 every postponement of the trial date must be granted or approved by the administrative judge or his designee.” The petitioner is no more persuaded by the third and final basis of the Court of Special Appeals’ decision. While he acknowledges that dismissal of the charges is inappropriate where the defendant “seeks or expressly consents” to a trial date in violation of § 591 and Rule 4-271, that does not apply here, the petitioner submits; the record, he asserts, does not support such a conclusion. “The record,” he points out, “does not show when the Montgomery County bench warrant was issued or how long Petitioner or defense counsel had known of its existence.” Furthermore, he proffers: “The State introduced no evidence that defense counsel’s purpose in advising Petitioner to turn himself in on the Montgomery County warrant was to obtain a postponement of the April 1 trial date in this case or that Petitioner turned himself in for that purpose, and [the trial judge] made no such finding of fact.

In short, the record does not support the Court of Special Appeals’s conclusion that postponement of the trial in this case was the end that Petitioner was seeking when he turned himself in on the Montgomery County warrant.” These are matters that the petitioner views as critical to the factual determination necessary to a finding that he sought or expressly consented to a trial date in violation of the 180 day period. The State, in opposition, essentially reiterates the points and observations made by the Court of Special Appeals. It urges this Court to affirm that court’s judgment. We shall affirm the decision of the intermediate appellate court; however, we do so for reasons different than those relied upon by that court.

That we affirm, therefore, is neither an adoption nor an endorsement of the intermediate appellate court’s three alternative rationales or grounds. ⁷⁰⁰ II. (a) Article 27, § 591, originally enacted by the General Assembly in 1971, see ch. 212, Acts of 1971, and Maryland Rule 4-271, the successor of former Maryland Rules 746 and Rule 740, adopted by this Court in 1977 and 1972, respectively, codify and implement the chief legislative objective that “there should be a prompt disposition of criminal charges in the circuit courts.” Hicks, 285 Md. at 334 , 403 A.2d at 369 . Indeed, in that case, commenting on the legislative intent underlying § 591, we stated: “Section 591 is plainly a declaration of legislative policy designed to obtain prompt disposition of criminal charges; its enactment manifested the legislature’s recognition of the detrimental effects to our criminal justice system which result from excessive delay in scheduling criminal cases for trial and in postponing scheduled trials for inadequate reasons.” Id. at 316, 403 A.2d at 359 . The same point has been reiterated in subsequent cases, often quoting that passage.

See e.g., Goins v. State, 293 Md. 97, 108 , 442 A.2d 550, 556 (1982); State v. Cook, 322 Md. 93, 96, 585 A.2d 833, 834 (1991). Similarly, with respect to Rule 4-271, we have observed that “[t]he purpose of the rule is to promote the expeditious disposition of criminal cases,” Rosenbach v. State, 314 Md. 473, 479 , 551 A.2d 460, 463 (1989), and “to ‘put teeth’ into the statutory requirements governing the assignment of criminal cases for trial.” State v. Frazier, 298 Md. 422, 427 , 470 A.2d 1269, 1272 (1984) (quoting Hicks 285 Md. at 318 , 403 A.2d at 360 ). See also Goins, 293 Md. at 109 , 442 A.2d at 556 (“[Rjules of procedure setting forth requirements in mandatory terms are not guides to the practice of law but precise rubies established to promote the orderly and efficient administration of justice and ... are to be read and followed.”) (quoting State v. Ricketts, 290 Md. 287, 292 , 429 A.2d 1025, 1027 (1981) (quoting Countess v. State, 286 Md. 444, 463 , 408 ⁷⁰¹ A.2d 1302, 1311 (1979))), and cases cited therein (internal quotation marks omitted) Consistent with, and to facilitate the achievement of, their objective, both § 591 and Rule 4-271, “set forth a definite time requirement for the trial of criminal cases and an explicit procedure for postponing a case beyond the 180-day limit.” Goins, 293 Md. at 109 , 442 A.2d at 556 . Both mandate that a criminal defendant must be brought to trial within 180 days after the earlier of the arraignment of the defendant or the appearance of defense counsel.

In the event that a defendant cannot be brought to trial within 180 days, the county administrative judge or his designee must make a finding of good cause justifying the postponement of the trial date beyond the prescribed time limit. Accordingly, postponements that cause the scheduling of a criminal trial beyond the 180 day period must be granted by the county administrative judge or his designee and must be supported by good cause. State v. Brown, 307 Md. 651, 657-58 , 516 A.2d 965, 968 (1986). “Neither the accused nor the prosecution nor the trial court are empowered to dispense with the mandates of § 591 and Rule [4-271].” Id. Hence, we have determined that the mechanism established by the statute and the rule meet the intended objectives as it affords reasonably prompt trials, and eliminates excessive scheduling delays and unjustifiable postponements.

See id.; Farinholt v. State, 299 Md. 32, 41 , 472 A.2d 452, 456 (1984). Additionally, the mechanism of the Hicks Rule serves as a means of protecting society’s interest in the efficient administration of justice. The actual or apparent benefits of § 591 and Rule 4-271 confer upon criminal defendants are purely incidental. See Calhoun v. State, 299 Md. 1, 11-12 , 472 A.2d 436