Lyba v. State

CHARLES E. ORTH, Jr., Judge, Specially Assigned. The fourteen count indictment returned by the Grand Jury for the State of Maryland, sitting in Anne Arundel County, against Stanley Lyba, ranged the gamut of sexual offenses. The case went to the jury in the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County on six of the charges: first degree rape (1st count); second degree rape (2nd count); first degree sexual offense (3rd count); second degree sexual offense (4th count); third degree sexual offense (5th count); and unnatural and perverted sexual practice (9th count), all in violation of the person of a young woman, 18 years of age. 1 The jury found Lyba guilty of each of those offenses. The trial judge merged the conviction under the 2nd count into the conviction under the 1st count, and the convictions under the 4th and 9th counts into the conviction under the 3rd count.

He sentenced Lyba to life imprisonment on the 1st count, to 20 years on the 3rd count consecutive to the sentence on the 1st count, and to 5 years on the 5th count consecutive to the sentences on the 1st and 3rd counts. ⁵⁶⁷ Lyba appealed from the judgments. The Court of Special Appeals affirmed. Lyba v. State, No. 1050, September Term, 1989, filed 26 February 1990, unreported. We granted Lyba’s petition for a writ of certiorari and the State’s conditional cross-petition.

The dispositive question presented to us concerns the trial judge’s stricture of defense counsel’s cross-examination of the victim. Lyba does not challenge the sufficiency of the evidence adduced by the State to establish the corpora delicti of the crimes of which he was convicted. At trial, his defense centered on the identification of him as the criminal agent, and he claims on appeal that his defense was prejudicially hampered by the court’s adverse rulings on objections during his cross-examination of the victim. Proof of his criminal agency depended primarily upon her identification.

The attack occurred on 12 September 1987 on a dark and rainy night. The victim testified that she had left her abode and was combing the neighborhood to find her lost puppy when she was assaulted. Upon threat of having her head blown off by a gun, she was forced to engage in vaginal intercourse, to perform fellatio, to be subjected to cunnilingus, and to suffer a general pawing and mauling of her body. She promptly reported the crimes and provided police with a description of her assailant.

It was not until some nine months later, however, that Lyba was arrested. He was apprehended as a result of a chance encounter with the victim. On 18 June 1988 she was riding in Patapsco State Park with her boyfriend and another acquaintance. They stopped at a rest area and she saw her assailant in a nearby car.

There was mutual recognition. The man made a veiled threat about having a gun and then said, to the effect (she could not remember the exact words), “It’s amazing who you meet at State Parks.” That evening she informed the police of this encounter. Several days later, from a photographic array, she identified Lyba as the man she saw in the car and as her assailant. Shortly thereafter Lyba was arrested. ⁵⁶⁸ At the trial the victim recounted in detail the circumstances of her attack and of her subsequent encounter with her assailant.

She made a judicial identification of him. On cross-examination defense counsel probed her testimony. He elicited that when she gave a description of her assailant to the police shortly after the attack her “memory was probably fresh but [she] was very upset.” Defense counsel asked if she was using “any medication” on the date of her attack and she replied: “No.” Defense counsel then inquired: “How about narcotics?” The State objected and the court sustained the objection without comment. Defense counsel did not pursue the subject but moved on to other matters, questioning her in greater detail about the attack and what she observed.

Later, when his examination reached the encounter in the park, he asked: “Had you anything to drink that day?” The State objected and the court sustained the objection, again without comment. Defense counsel followed by inquiring: “What was your general condition [the day of the encounter in the park]?” She responded: “I don’t know, what do you mean, condition?” Defense counsel did not press the issue but turned to another line of questioning. The rulings by the trial judge prompted the following question presented by Lyba in his petition for certiorari: Did the trial court err when it refused to allow defense counsel to question the prosecutrix about whether she was using drugs or alcohol either at the time the offenses occurred or at the time she allegedly identified [Lyba]? The State prefers to phrase it in simpler terms: Did the trial court properly restrict Lyba’s cross-examination of the victim?

Over the years “there has evolved a standard analytical framework for Maryland courts to follow when confronted with [the issue of the restriction of cross-examination].” Smallwood v. State, 320 Md. 300, 306 , 577 A.2d ⁵⁶⁹ 356 (1990). We observed in State v. Cox, 298 Md. 173, 178 , 468 A.2d 319 (1983): [T]he trial of any case is a search for the truth. The strength of each side of an issue rests upon the believability of the evidence offered as proof. This evidence unfolds, in large measure, as testimony of the witnesses is produced at trial.

The tool available to each side to test the believability of the testimony is cross-examination. It is well accepted that cross-examination may be used for impeachment purposes. Thomas v. State, 301 Md. 294, 308 , 483 A.2d 6 (1984), cert. denied, 470 U.S. 1088 , 105 S.Ct. 1856 , 85 L.Ed.2d 153 (1985). See Williams v. Graf, 194 Md. 516, 522 , 71 A.2d 450 (1950).

We said in Cox, 298 Md. at 178 , 468 A.2d 319 : This Court