Jackson v. State

Orth, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The issue for decision is whether the accidental killing of a hostage by a law enforcement officer attempting to apprehend robbers fleeing from an armed robbery while holding the hostage at gunpoint constitutes murder in the first degree on the part of the robbers under the Maryland felony murder statute. We hold that it does. The issue stems from the contention of each of William Henry Jackson and James Wells, Jr. on direct appeal to the Court of Special Appeals that his plea of guilty of the murder in the first degree of Bernard Sugar was accepted by the Circuit Court for Worcester County 1 improperly because “the factual statement serving as a basis for the guilty plea failed to demonstrate guilt of the crime for which the plea was entered.” Upon acceptance of the pleas, the court found each defendant guilty of murder in the first degree and sentenced him to life imprisonment.

In an unreported opinion, the Court of Special Appeals affirmed the judgments. It found no error in the acceptance of the pleas because it thought that the killing of Sugar was attributable to Jackson and Wells as murder in the first degree under the felony murder statute ⁴³² of this State. We granted certiorari. The issue for decision was raised by the sole question presented in the petition for the writ: “Did the Court of Special Appeals err in concluding that the Maryland Felony Murder Statute makes a felon liable for a policeman’s killing of a victim?” I When the case came on for trial, Jackson and Wells pleaded "guilty to murder in the first degree” under the first count in the indictment returned against them.

The prosecutor informed the court that the pleas were tendered pursuant to a plea bargain whereby the State agreed to recommend that a life sentence be imposed as to each defendant and to nol pros all other outstanding charges relating to the robbery and murder. 2 The court, through extensive inquiry of the defendants, placed on the record an affirmative showing that the plea of each of them was made voluntarily, unconditionally, and with an intelligent understanding of the nature of the offense and the possible consequences of the effect of the pleas. There remained, in order for the pleas to be effectively accepted as meeting the constitutional standard, that the State demonstrate a strong factual basis for them. See Williams v. State, 10 Md. App. 570, 571-574 , 271 A.2d 777 (1970), cert. denied, 261 Md. 730 (1971); McCall v. State, 9 Md. App. 191, 194-202 , 263 A.2d 19 , cert. denied, 258 Md. 729 (1970). To do this, the State proffered the evidence it would adduce were it to present its case in chief.

We summarize this proffer. Bernard Sugar and Charlotte Farber operated a jewelry shop located in a shopping area in the 9100 block of the Baltimore National Pike in Howard County. About 9:30 a.m. on 29 April 1977 Jackson and Wells came in. Each brandished a handgun and forced Sugar and Farber to lie on the floor.

The robbers took jewelry valued at more than $10,000 from a safe and display cabinets. At 10:05 a.m. one Charlene Kelly entered the store, asked for Farber, and was told by Wells that she was not there but ⁴³³ would return in half an hour. Suspicious, Kelly left the store and contacted the police. Leonard Shipley, a mailman, •appeared on the scene.

He also became suspicious, but as he attempted to leave the store Wells stopped him at gunpoint. The two men struggled, Wells struck Shipley on the head and forced him to join Sugar and Farber on the floor. At 10:15 a.m. Howard County policemen arrived on the scene and announced their presence.

Wells started to leave by the front door, saw the police, and ran back in. Both Wells and Jackson attempted to leave by the rear door, were deterred by the police and retreated into the store. Unable to find another escape route, Wells grabbed Farber, held his handgun to her neck and said, “You do what I do. I walk, you walk, I run, you run.

If they shoot me, you’re dead. If they shoot me I’m going to kill you.” Wells held her in a headlock and kept the gun to her neck. Jackson grasped Sugar, holding him in a similar manner at gunpoint. Jackson and Wells, using Farber and Sugar as shields, left the store by the rear door, disregarding the order of the police to stop and release their hostages.

The robbers forced Farber and Sugar to get in a police car with them and drove away. Before the car reached the exit from the shopping area, gunfire by the police disabled it. The felons stole another police car, and with Jackson at the wheel and their hostages still held at gunpoint, drove away amid a fusilade of shots by the police. They pulled into the westbound lane of State Route 99, forced a civilian to stop her car, entered it with the hostages and, with Jackson driving, speeded away, pursued by members of the Howard County Police Department and the Maryland State Police.

The fleeing felons evaded a roadblock by driving across a plowed field and eventually proceeded on Interstate 70 towards Baltimore with the police close behind. Wells, holding Farber by the neck and keeping his gun to her head, forced her to kneel on the back seat with her face in the rear window, thus exposing her to gunfire from the pursuing police cars. The chase continued on Interstate 70, on the Baltimore Beltway and east on Route 40 to IngledMe Avenue in Baltimore County. Gunshots by the ⁴³⁴ police had punctured the fleeing vehicle’s tires, and it was finally brought to a halt by a roadblock.

Police manning the roadblock, unaware of the presence of the hostages, fired at the car. Law enforcement officers of three counties and the State converged on the scene and placed the car under heavy gunfire. Officer Wayne White of the Howard County Police Department, armed with a shotgun, ran to the car and jumped on its hood. At that moment Wells had his arm out of a window of the car, waving a revolver in his hand.

White swung his shotgun across the top of the car in an attempt to strike Well’s arm and knock the revolver from his hand. The shotgun discharged. Sugar was lying on the front seat of the car. The pellets from the shotgun struck him in the back of his neck, and he died as a result of that wound.

After a struggle, Jackson was seized from the driver’s seat of the vehicle. Wells was taken from the rear seat. Two .38 caliber revolvers were recovered. The one located in the area in which Jackson was taken into custody contained five live rounds and one spent round.

It was cocked. The other gun was found on the rear seat. It was fully loaded. Jackson and Wells had no “additions or alterations” to make to the proffer.

Defense counsel said: “We would stipulate that that is what the State’s witnesses would say if they were called to testify.” The court stated that it did not have “any problem then in finding each of [the defendants] guilty under the First Count,” which charged the murder of Sugar in the first degree. The court observed: I think any jury would have found you guilty of murder in the first degree, and, of course, you would have been found guilty, unquestionably, of the kidnapping charges. You have run afoul of the felony-murder rule in Maryland. And if one is killed as a result of the perpetration of a crime of the character in which you two perpetrated in Ellicott City, then you are guilty of murder in the first degree. ⁴³⁵ The court characterized the case as “strange” and “unusual” in that the fatal shot had not been fired by either Jackson or Wells and was “apparently accidental.” II At the common law, to which the inhabitants of Maryland are entitled, Md. Const.

Declaration of Rights, Art. 5, homicide is the killing of a human being by another human being; criminal homicide is homicide without lawful justification or excuse; criminal homicide with malice aforethought is murder; malice aforethought is established, inter alia, upon commission of criminal homicide in the perpetration of, or in the attempt to perpetrate, a felony. 3 State v. Frye, 283 Md. 709, 712-713 , 393 A.2d 1372 (1978); Newton v. State, 280 Md. 260, 268-269 , 373 A.2d 262 (1977); Stansbury v. State, 218 Md. 255, 260-261 , 146 A.2d 17 (1958); Wood v. State, 191 Md. 658, 666-667 , 62 A.2d 576 (1948); Warren v. State, 29 Md. App. 560, 566 , 350 A.2d 173 (1976); Evans v. State, 28 Md. App. 640, 700 , 349 A.2d 300 (1975), aff’d, 278 Md. 197 , 362 A.2d 629 (1976); 4 W. Blackstone, Commentaries ¹⁹⁵-201; Clark and Marshall, A Treatise on the Law of Crimes §§ 10.04 —10.07 (7th ed. 1967); R. Perkins, Criminal Law pp. 28-45 (2d ed. 1969). Thus, at common law, homicide arising in the perpetration of, or in the attempt to perpetrate, a felony is murder whether death was intended or not, the fact that the person was engaged in such perpetration or attempt being sufficient to supply the element of malice. Stansbury, 218 Md. at 260 . “The doctrine has repeatedly been recognized and applied in this country, and is to be regarded as still in force, except where it has been ⁴³⁶ expressly abrogated by statute.” Clark and Marshall, supra, § 10.07, p. 657. The doctrine has not been abrogated by statute in this State.

The Maryland statutes with respect to murder “do not create any new crime, but merely classify murder, as it was known at common law, into degrees____ [T]he ‘common law sense is left unimpaired; the measure of punishment only is sought to be graduated according to the circumstances under which it was committed.’ ” Stansbury at 260 , quoting Davis v. State, 39 Md. 355, 374 (1874). At common law, there were no degrees of murder. Wood, 191 Md. at 666 ; Clark and Marshall, supra, § 10.09, p. 681. It is by the prescriptions of the so-called “felony-murder” statute, Md. Code (1957, 1976 Repl.

Vol., 1979 Cum. Supp.) Art. 27, § 410, that, in this State, “[a]ll murder which shall be committed in the perpetration of, or attempt to perpetrate” certain designated felonies, including “kidnapping as defined by [§ 337 of Art. 27]... shall be murder in the first degree.” Ill The evidence as proffered was sufficient to prove the corpus delicti of murder in the first degree if the killing of Sugar may be attributed to Jackson and Wells. It is manifest that, at the time Sugar was killed, Jackson and Wells were perpetrating a felony. Their seizing Sugar and Farber and carrying them to some other place was the felony of kidnapping proscribed by Md. Code (1957, 1976 Repl.

Vol.) Art. 27, § 337. Midgett v. State, 216 Md. 26, 38-40 , 139 A.2d 209 (1958). The killing was, of course, homicide, as it was the killing of a human being by another human being. It was, as to Jackson and Wells, criminal, being neither justifiable nor excusable.

Because the criminal homicide was committed in the perpetration of a felony, malice was established, making it murder. The murder was in the first degree because the felony being perpetrated in its commission was kidnapping. The issue for decision, therefore, boils down to whether Jackson and Wells were criminal agents in the murder. If the murder were legally attributable to them, the pleas of guilty to murder in the first degree would have a factual basis, and as they otherwise met the constitutional standard, the trial ⁴³⁷ court would not have erred in accepting them.

In short, the question here becomes one of causal relationship. As the trial judge observed, the case is unusual in that the fatal shot was fired accidently by a police officer and not by the felons perpetrating the kidnapping. But the case is not unique. Application of the felony-murder doctrine to circumstances other than those in which a death is directly caused by the felon perpetrating the underlying felony or his accomplice has harassed courts and excited commentators to critical analyses.

See cases collected in Annot., 56 A.L.R.3d 239 (1974). See, e.g.: Crum, Causal Relations and the Felony-Murder Rule, 1952 Wash. U.L.Q. 191; Hitchler, The Killer and his Victim in Felony-Murder Cases, 53 Dick.L.Rev. 3 (1948); Moesel, A Survey of Felony Murder, 28 Temp. L.Q. 453 (1955); Morris, The Felon’s Responsibility for the Lethal Acts of Others, 105 U.Pa.L.Rev. 50 (1956); Perkins, The Law of Homicide, 36 J.Crim.L., C. & P. S. 391 (1946); Perkins, A Re-Examination of Malice Aforethought, 43 Yale L.J. 537 (1934); The Felony Murder Rule: In Search of a Viable Doctrine, 23 Cath.Law. 133 (1978); 24 Ark.L.Rev. 342 (1970); 9 Duq.L.Rev. 122 (1970); 22 Hastings L.J. 1327 (1971); 14 Santa Clara L. 97 (1973); 22 Stan.L.Rev. 1059 (1970); 21 Syracuse L.Rev. 1321 (1970); 5 Val.L.Rev. 676 (1971).

Courts have followed tortuous paths endeavoring to arrive at a sound rationale applicable to a variety of circumstances in determining whether those persons perpetrating the underlying felony are responsible for the lethal act. For example, California enunciated as a test to ascertain if a defendant is guilty of murder when, during the perpetration of a felony, someone is killed by a person other than the defendant or an accomplice, whether the killing was in response to malicious conduct additional to the underlying felony. People v. Washington, 62 Cal.2d 777 , 402 P.2d 130 , 44 Cal. Rptr. 442 (1965); People v. Gilbert, 63 Cal.2d 690 , 408 P.2d 365 , 47 Cal.

Rptr. 909 (1966). But then it made the test inapplicable to cases where the victim was being used by the defendant or an accomplice as a shield. It declared that the function of the test was “to provide the trier of fact with a guideline for determining whether the malicious conduct, ⁴³⁸ rather than the underlying felony, proximately caused the victim’s death. In a shield case this determination may be made without employing that test.” Pizano v. Superior Court of Tulare Cty., 21 Cal.3d 128 , 577 P.2d 659, 661 , 145 Cal.

Rptr. 524, 526 (1978). Cf. People v. Antick, 15 Cal.3d 79 , 539 P.2d 43 , 123 Cal. Rptr. 475 (1975); Taylor v. Superior Court, 3 Cal.3d 578 , 477 P.2d 131 , 91 Cal.

Rptr. 275 (1970). Pennsylvania,