Fowler v. State

GARRITY, Judge. Robert Wayne Fowler, the appellant, was convicted by a Baltimore County jury of the first degree murder of Susan Sullivan. He was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. In this appeal it is contended that the trial judge erred by: 1.

Refusing to suppress the appellant’s confession; 2. Refusing to suppress the evidence found in the search of the appellant’s automobile; 3. Refusing to suppress the evidence found in the search of the appellant’s apartment; 4. Refusing to give the jury a defense requested instruction; and 5.

Imposing the sentence in an unconstitutional manner. Factual Background About 10:30 on the morning of August 11, 1987, John Wortham went to visit his friends, Jack and Susan Sullivan. The Sullivans were brother and sister and both were in their twenties. They lived with their mother, Ann Sullivan, in a patio garden apartment on Lord Byron Lane in Baltimore ⁵²⁰ County.

When Mr. Wortham approached the apartment he noticed that the patio door was ajar. He looked into the living room and saw Susan lying “face down in a pool of blood.” Death, it was later determined, had been caused by fifty-eight stab wounds. Most of the wounds were to the head and face. A few of the wounds were to the hands and lower part of the body and were determined by the medical examiner to be “defensive” wounds.

The police began an immediate investigation. They quickly located James McGovern, age sixteen, who lived across the road from the Sullivan apartment. McGovern told the police that he had been up late the prior evening watching television. Around 3 a.m. he heard a “high pitched” girl’s voice and looked outside his window.

Over the course of a few minutes he observed two men exit the Sullivan apartment through a window, one of whom was carrying a knife in a towel. The two men went to a car and tried to start it. Upon its failure, one of the men opened the hood, did something and started the engine. Although the description that McGovern gave of the man with the knife did not match the appellant’s appearance, the general description of the second man did.

Further investigation led the police to Paula Bayne, who was a friend of Susan Sullivan. She had been with Susan the night before the homicide at Susan’s apartment. She told the police that the appellant and his friend, Roger Blake, had also been with them at the apartment. Miss Bayne explained that she left the group in time to be at work at 10 p.m.

At the time she left, she understood that Susan intended to go to a local night club with the appellant and his friend. Miss Bayne said she had never before met Roger Blake. The police inspected the Sullivan apartment. The apartment was in disarray, but no property was stolen.

Officer John Kilgor, one of the investigating officers, expressed the opinion that it looked as if there had been a violent struggle in the apartment. ⁵²¹ The police also learned that the appellant owned a blue Duster automobile and that the Duster’s ignition was broken. They located the car that evening and observed blood in it. They also procured a warrant to search the appellant’s apartment. In the course of the search, which was conducted the next day, they found blood-soaked clothing.

Mrs. Sullivan and her son Jack were in Ocean City when Susan was murdered. When the police were able to talk with Mrs. Sullivan, she related further information which implicated the appellant. She explained that the appellant was a long-time friend of the family and was at their apartment on August 9, 1987. At that time she told the appellant that she and Jack were going to Ocean City and that Susan would be staying home alone.

The appellant pressed Mrs. Sullivan for details of the trip and expressed particular interest in learning how long Susan would be in the apartment alone. As the appellant was more Jack’s friend than Susan’s, Mrs. Sullivan thought it was unusual for the appellant to show such interest in Susan. I. Suppression of Statement Detective Philip Marll of the Baltimore County Police Department arrested the appellant at 9:25 on the morning of August 12, 1987 and took him to the Towson police station for questioning. Before he began the formal questioning, the detective conversed with the appellant and learned that he was twenty-one years old, had a seventh grade education, and could read and write.

The detective then explained to the appellant the Miranda 1 rights. The appellant stated that he understood his rights and, in the detective’s view, responded in a manner which suggested that the appellant, in fact, did understand his rights. When the detective asked the appellant if he wanted to talk about the murder, the appellant answered that “he had to.” ⁵²² The police, of course, knew that two men had been seen leaving Miss Sullivan’s apartment on the night of the murder. At the time of the appellant’s arrest, they did not have any idea who the second man was, but they were anxious to learn his identity.

Consequently, when Detective Marll began his questioning, he told the appellant that the police wanted to know who the second man was. The testimony presented at the suppression hearing was unclear as to how this subject was raised or exactly what was said. Nevertheless, at some time during the early part of the interrogation, Detective Marll advised the appellant that he should disclose the other man’s name because if he did, “the weight could be shared.” As the appellant chose not to testify, there is no evidence of how he interpreted the comment. In any event, Detective Marll explained that he had not intended the comment as an inducement, but that he meant only to convey the idea that if the police could learn the second man’s identify, the second man would also be charged.

After the preliminaries were completed, the appellant spoke with the detective for about two hours, during which time he orally confessed to the crime. Detective Marll testified that during the interrogation, the appellant was “calm and collected” and wanted to talk about the crime. Although the appellant confessed to the crime, he did not disclose the name of the second man. After the appellant completed his oral statement, he agreed to give a written statement.

Before doing so, however, Detective Marll reexplained the Miranda rights and had the appellant sign a written waiver of those rights. The appellant then dictated his written statement. Although it had taken about two hours for the oral statement, the written statement was completed in less than ten minutes. In the course of giving the written statement, the appellant related that the other man who had been with him was Roger Blake.

The appellant argues that Detective Marll’s statement about “sharing the weight” was an inducement because it ⁵²³ suggested that the police would give him some benefit in exchange for his information. A defendant’s confession is admissible into evidence only if it is “the product of a free and unconstrained will and [is] not extracted by any sort of threat or violence or obtained by direct or psychological coercion.” Hines v. State, 58 Md.App. 637, 658 , 473 A.2d 1335 (1984). The Court of Appeals in Hillard v. State, 286 Md. 145, 153 , 406 A.2d 415 (1979), explained that if an accused is told, or it is implied, that making an inculpatory statement will be to his advantage, in that he will be given help or some special consideration, and he makes remarks in reliance on that inducement, his declaration will be considered to have been involuntarily made and therefore inadmissible. There is no dispute in this case about whether Detective Marll made the statement to the appellant about “sharing the weight.” Both parties agree, and the trial judge found, that the comment was made.

There is a dispute, however, as to the effect which the comment had upon the appellant. The trial judge concluded that the comment had no coercive effect upon the appellant because his statement was not made in reliance upon the detective’s comment. He reached this conclusion because the comment was made only once; that the appellant was, on several occasions, fully advised of his rights and waived them; the conditions under which the interview was conducted were not coercive; the appellant was totally cooperative; and the appellant had expressed a desire to talk about the incident. We are now called upon to decide whether the trial judge’s ruling was correct.

In making this determination we are required to make an independent, reflective constitutional judgment based on the facts presented at the suppression hearing. Trusty v. State, 308 Md. 658, 670 , 521 A.2d 749 (1987). We are required to give great weight to the hearing judge’s first-level facts, but “we must make our own independent judgment as to what to make of those ⁵²⁴ facts; we must, in making that independent judgment, resolve for ourselves the ultimate, second-level fact — the existence or nonexistence of voluntariness.” Walker v. State, 12 Md.App. 684, 695 , 280 A.2d 260 (1971). There is no direct evidence in the record that Detective Marll coerced the appellant.

All that we have is speculation. The appellant speculates that he could have inferred from the comment that he would be rewarded for disclosing his confederate’s name and as a consequence was induced into giving the statement. We think it significant that after the alleged inducement had been made, the appellant spoke with the detective for two hours. During this time he fully confessed to the crime, but never gave the detective the confederate’s name.

If the appellant had thought that he should confess because he was going to gain some benefit by disclosing his confederate’s name, we expect he would have disclosed the name while giving the oral statement. Indeed, if the appellant were to be rewarded for disclosing the confederate’s name, he could not expect to receive such reward until he disclosed the name. The fact that the appellant deferred in giving Mr. Blake’s name until he had dictated the written statement convinces us that the detective’s comment did not have a coercive effect upon the appellant and that the trial judge’s ruling to that effect was correct.

II

Search of Automobile The appellant asseverates that the police conducted an improper search and seizure of his automobile because the police failed to secure a warrant. We shall examine the circumstances leading to the search and seizure of the car. Officers John Kilgor and Edward Henry began the investigation of the murder at Miss Sullivan’s apartment. They met James McGovern and he related his observations as previously detailed.

The police also spoke with Jack Sullivan. He advised them that the appellant was one of his friends and that the appellant had owned a blue Duster ⁵²⁵ which matched the description of the car James McGovern had seen. Sullivan further related that the appellant’s car had a broken ignition and that the appellant sometimes started it from under the hood. The Sullivan apartment was in disarray.

After inspecting it the officers formed the opinion that a “fierce struggle” had taken place there, but that the apartment had not been ransacked. The fingerprint