Harper v. State

ELDRIDGE, Judge. The issue before us concerns the nature of an appeal from the District Court to a circuit court in a direct criminal contempt case. The District Court of Maryland, sitting in Baltimore City, found Altian Harper to be in direct criminal contempt of the court and sentenced Mr. Harper to ninety days imprisonment. The District Court’s adjudication of direct contempt was based on the Court’s findings concerning an altercation in the courtroom between Mr. Harper and several law enforcement officers.

The altercation was in the presence of the court and occurred after a preliminary hearing involving Mr. Harper. Mr. Harper took a timely appeal from the District Court judgment to the Circuit Court for Baltimore City. In the Circuit Court, Mr. Harper filed a plea of not guilty and elected a de novo trial before a jury. Following pre-trial motions and responses by both the State and the defendant, in apparent anticipation of a circuit court trial de novo, the case was called for trial in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City on October 22, 1986.

At that time the Circuit Court, apparently sua sponte, held that the defendant was not entitled to a trial de novo on appeal. The Court rejected the ³⁹⁹ defendant’s request for a trial de novo before a jury and ruled that the appeal would be on the District Court record. The Circuit Court, upon review of the District Court record, affirmed. Mr. Harper then filed in this Court a petition for a writ of certiorari, claiming that the Circuit Court for Baltimore City erred in denying him a trial de novo before a jury.

We granted the petition and shall reverse. Maryland Code (1974, 1984 Repl.Vol., 1987 Cum.Supp.), § 12-401(a) of the Courts and Judicial Proceedings Article, grants a party in a civil case and a defendant in a criminal case the right to appeal from a District Court final judgment. 1 2 Section 12-401(d), after providing that an appeal shall be on the District Court record in a specified category of civil cases and where the parties so agree, states that “[i]n every other case, including a criminal case ..., an appeal shall be tried de novo.” Section 12-401(e) provides that in a de novo criminal appeal the defendant is entitled to a jury trial if the offense is subject to a penalty of imprisonment. 2 ⁴⁰⁰ Section 12-402 of the Courts and Judicial Proceedings Article specifically authorizes any person to appeal from a District Court order adjudicating him in contempt, whether the order is final or interlocutory and whether the person is a party to the underlying action or not. 3 Finally, § 12-403 states that, in Baltimore City, appeals from the District Court shall be taken to the Circuit Court for Baltimore City. 4 Under the plain language of § 12-401(d) and § 12-401(e), Mr. Harper was entitled to a de novo trial before a jury on his appeal. Subsection (d) provides that appeals from the District Court to circuit courts are on the record only in civil cases involving more than a specified amount in controversy and in cases where the parties agree. In “every other case” the “appeal shall be tried de novo.” The instant proceeding clearly falls within the category of “every other case.” As direct criminal contempt is subject to a penalty of imprisonment, subsection (e) grants a right to a jury trial on the de novo appeal.

The State does not argue that the language of §§ 12-401(d) and 12-401(e) would not entitle the defendant to a de ⁴⁰¹ novo jury trial if those provisions were applicable to this case. Instead, the State maintains that §§ 12-401(d) and 12-401(e) are entirely inapplicable to appeals in contempt cases. The State’s position is that §§ 12-401(d) and 12-401(e) apply only to appeals authorized by § 12-401(a), and that § 12-401(a), while providing a general right of appeal from decisions of the District Court, is inapplicable to contempt cases. The reason for § 12-401(a)’s inapplicability to contempt cases, according to the State, is that § 12-402 provides for a right of appeal in contempt cases.

Consequently, the State’s argument continues, if § 12-401(a) were construed to encompass contempt appeals, § 12-402 would be rendered superfluous. 5 The State’s argument assumes that, if § 12-401, including subsections (d) and (e), are inapplicable to contempt appeals, and if such appeals are governed solely by § 12-402, the appeals would be on the record rather than de novo. The State also relies on Maryland District Rule P3 c., which specifies the contents of the “record” in direct contempt cases. 6 The State claims that this Rule would also be superfluous if contempt appeals from the District Court were de novo. 7 Finally, the ⁴⁰² State suggests that, as a policy matter, “de novo appeals are inappropriate in direct criminal contempt proceedings” because of “the need for immediate vindication of the dignity of the court.” (Respondent’s Brief, pp. 3-4). In our view, the State’s position is unsound for several reasons. Preliminarily, it is not at all clear whether or not the general right of appeal from final District Court judgments, provided for in § 12-401(a) of the Courts and Judicial Proceedings Article, applies to final judgments in contempt cases.

With regard to the general right of appeal to the Court of Special Appeals from final circuit court judgments set out in § 12-301, there is an express exception in § 12-302(b) for appeals in contempt cases. There is no comparable exception, however, to § 12-401(a) for appeals from final District Court contempt judgments. Rather, as pointed out in Burch v. State, 278 Md. 426, 428 , 365 A.2d 577 (1976), “[sjubsection (a) of § 12-401 thus grants to a criminal defendant, without qualification, the right to appeal from a final judgment in the District Court.” (Emphasis supplied). On the other hand, the language of § 12-302(b), relating to appeals in contempt cases from the circuit courts to the Court of Special Appeals, arguably suggests a legislative intention that § 12-401(a) be deemed inapplicable to District Court contempt cases because of the presence of § 12-402. 8 Based upon the legislative history ⁴⁰³ of §§ 12-401(a) and 12-402, 9 the somewhat confused Maryland history concerning the right to appeal in contempt cases, 10 and general principles regarding appealability and statutory construction, various other arguments could be advanced both for and against construing § 12-401(a) to encompass appeals in contempt cases.

Nevertheless, in this case we shall assume arguendo that § 12-401(a) is inapplicable to appeals from final District Court contempt judgments. The fact that the right to appeal in District Court contempt cases may be granted by § 12-402 rather than § 12-401(a) does not render §§ 12-401(d) and 12-401(e) inapplicable to such appeals. Sections 12-401(a) and 12-402 deal with the right to appeal from the District Court, and §§ 12-401(d) and 12-401(e) deal with the nature of appeals from the District Court to the circuit courts. Nothing in the language of §§ 12-401(d) and 12-401(e) suggests that those sections only specify the nature of appeals authorized by § 12-401(a), and that the nature of District Court appeals authorized by some other provision of law is delineated elsewhere.

There are no other statutory provisions setting forth the type of appeals from the District Court to the circuit courts. By their very terms, §§ 12-401(d) and 12-401(e) govern the nature of all appeals from the District ⁴⁰⁴ Court to the circuit courts. Section 12-401(d) broadly states that, except for certain civil cases and cases containing an agreement otherwise, “in every other case, including a criminal case” the appeal from the District Court is to be de novo. If we were to construe §§ 12-401(d) and 12-401(e) as excluding criminal contempt cases, we would be inserting an exception not made by the General Assembly.

In construing statutes, however, courts should be reluctant to “insert exceptions not made by the legislature.” Coleman v. State, 281 Md. 538, 546 , 380 A.2d 49 (1977), and cases there cited. Therefore, regardless of the applicability of § 12-401(a) to appeals from final judgments in District Court contempt cases, the nature of appeals from the District Court to the circuit courts, including appeals in contempt cases, is delineated by §§ 12-401(d) and 12-401(e). Under those sections, the defendant Harper was entitled to a trial de novo before a jury. Moreover, even if we were to agree with the State that §§ 12-401(d) and 12-401(e) are inapplicable to appeals in contempt cases, the result would not be different.

As previously indicated, apart from §§ 12-401(d) and 12-401(e), neither § 12-402 nor any other statutory provision specifies the nature of appeals from the District Court to the circuit courts. There is no statutory language indicating that appeals from the District Court to the circuit courts in contempt cases are to be on the record. Section 12-402 merely grants a right of appeal; the section is silent concerning the characteristics of that appeal. It may be that, in the context of an appeal from a trial court of general jurisdiction to the Court of Special Appeals or to this Court, the word “appeal” itself would connote a consideration of the case on the trial court record.

The same is not true, however, in the context of an appeal from a trial court of limited jurisdiction, like the District Court, to a so-called “superior court” or trial court of general jurisdiction, like a circuit court. An appeal from a trial court of ⁴⁰⁵ limited jurisdiction to a trial court of general jurisdiction in Maryland has traditionally meant a trial de novo in the latter court. See, e.g., Harding v. State, 250 Md. 188, 192 , 242 A.2d 135 (1968); Montgomery Ward v. Herrmann, 190 Md. 405, 409 , 58 A.2d 677 (1948); Zitzer v. Jones, 48 Md. 115, 117 (1878); Borden Mining Co. v. Barry, 17 Md. 419, 428-429 (1861); Gott v. Carr, 6 G. & J. 309, 315 (1834); A. Thomas, Supplement to Procedure in Justice Cases § 483, p. 102 (1909); Code (1957, 1968 Repl.Vol.), Art. 5, §§ 30, 43; Code (1860), Art. 5, § 50. It was not until the creation of the District Court by constitutional amendment, 11 and the enactment of what is now § 12-401(d) by Ch. 528 of the Acts of 1970, effective the first Monday in July 1971, that Maryland law recognized a specified area of appeals on the record from a trial court of limited jurisdiction to a circuit court. 12 Moreover, it was not until the creation of the District Court in 1971 that any provision was made to record or transcribe the testimony in cases tried in courts of limited jurisdiction.

Contempt cases are no exception to the traditional practice that appeals from trial courts of limited jurisdiction ⁴⁰⁶ to trial courts of general jurisdiction are de novo. For example, Weaver v. State, 244 Md. 640 , 224 A.2d 684 (1966), like the instant case, originated as a direct criminal contempt proceeding in a court of limited jurisdiction. The defendant Weaver was found by the Municipal Court of Baltimore City to be in direct contempt of that court and was fined $25 plus costs. Weaver appealed to the Criminal Court of Baltimore 13 which upheld the determination of the Municipal Court and imposed the same sentence.

Upon a further appeal to this Court, the judgment was reversed because of procedural error relating to the lack-of proper notice. While there was no discussion in this Court’s Weaver opinion concerning the nature of the appeal from the Municipal Court to the Criminal Court, the briefs and record extract before this Court disclose that the appeal was a trial de novo in the Criminal Court. 14 The entire record extract consisted of the defendant’s election in the Criminal Court of a court trial rather than a jury trial and of the testimony in the Criminal Court. The facts concerning the case set forth in the Court’s opinion, including the recitation of what happened in the Municipal Court, were all taken from the testimony of witnesses at the Criminal Court trial de novo. Under traditional principles, not only would a criminal appeal from a trial court of limited jurisdiction to a trial court of general jurisdiction be de novo, but there would be a right to a jury