Oaks v. State

GILBERT, Chief Judge. Nathaniel Oaks, then a member of the House of Delegates of the Maryland General Assembly for the 41st District in West Baltimore City, was charged with theft of over $300.00, penury, failure to file a campaign report, and misconduct in office. Oaks was indicted by two separate grand juries. The charge of theft over $300 was handed up by the Baltimore City Grand Jury.

The other three charges were brought by the Grand Jury for Anne Arundel County. On motion by Oaks, the Anne Arundel County charges were removed to Baltimore City where all four charges were tried together, before a jury in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City, which convicted Oaks. As a result, he was, by operation of law, removed from public office. In this Court Oaks raises a multitude of issues, assailing the judgments of the circuit court.

We shall reverse the perjury and failure to file campaign report convictions but affirm the theft and misconduct judgments. The net result to Oaks remains the same. 1 The charges arose out of incidents which occurred over a three year period during which Oaks received monetary advances for the same expenses from both his campaign committee and the State of Maryland in order to pay hotel and travel expenses and bills for office supplies. In short, ⁵ Oaks was paid twice: once by his campaign committee and once by the State. The total sum thus received by Oaks was $10,000.

We shall discuss each issue raised in the order in which Oaks posited them to us. Further facts will be added, as necessary, to better understand a particular matter. /. “Whether the trial court erred in not dismissing the charges involving alleged violations of Article 33, as they involved an improper prosecution under inapplicable law.” Oaks contends that the State Election Code, Md.Ann. Code art. 33, is vague, unclear, and, therefore, unconstitutional. He notes that the Nilson Report 2 contains commentary on that issue. Oaks does not articulate any reasons, other than the Nilson Report, as to why the vagueness and ambiguousness assertion should be accepted by this Court.

Furthermore, Oaks does not refer to any specific sections of the Code that are allegedly void for vagueness but rather points to the entire Article 33. We decline to address the issue since Oaks makes no argument in support of his position. Mere reference to the Nilson Report simply will not suffice. Md. Rule 8-504(a)(5); Kammer v. Young, 73 Md.App. 565, 577-78 , 535 A.2d 936 (1988); Van Meter v. State, 30 Md.App. 406 , 352 A.2d 850 (1976).

II. “Whether Appellant could, as a matter of law, have committed the alleged violations of Article 33.” The issue is imprecisely framed. The question should ask whether Oaks, as a matter of law, violated ⁶ sections 26-11 and 26-15 of Article 33. For the reasons hereafter stated, we hold that Oaks, as a matter of law, did not violate those two subsections, and for that reason we reverse the perjury and failure to file campaign report convictions. Md.Ann.Code art. 33, § 26-ll(a) provides for the filing of a “statement of contributions and expenditures.” Section 26-ll(b) provides: “It is the responsibility of the candidate and treasurer, jointly and severally, if it is the statement of the candidate, and the chairman and treasurer, jointly and severally, if it is the statement of a committee, to file all reports or statements in full and accurate detail.” (Emphasis supplied.) Section 26-15 provides: “Any wilfully false, fraudulent, or misleading statement or entry made by any candidate for office, treasurer, or subtreasurer, or by any member or officer of any political committee, in any statement or account under oath as required by this article, shall constitute the crime of perjury, and be punishable as such according to the laws of this State.” (Emphasis supplied.) The campaign fund report upon which Oaks was convicted of perjury was submitted by a campaign committee styled as “Friends of Nat Oaks.” The report was signed by Oaks as the candidate and by Ronald Dillard as treasurer.

The campaign committee chairperson did not sign the report. It should have been, but was not, rejected by the State Administrative Board of Election Laws as an improperly verified report. Patently, under the provisions of § 26-ll(b), Oaks was not a proper person to sign and attest to the authenticity of the report. His signature thereon was a nullity, as was the report itself since it was not signed by the persons the law requires to sign it.

Oaks could not be convicted of perjury under § 26-15 because the campaign report submitted by Oaks and Dillard was not “a statement or account ... required by ... [art. 33].” ⁷ As a matter of law the trial judge should have granted a judgment of acquittal on the perjury count. Even though the report submitted by Oaks and Dillard was false, its falsity was immaterial since the report as submitted was not required by § 26-11. It is stated in R. Gilbert and C. Moylan, Maryland Criminal Law: Practice and Procedure, § 9.2(3) that statutory perjury is committed when there is a “[wjilful false swearing in an affidavit required to be filed with a report or return to the General Assembly or any officer of the government.” The Oaks-Dillard report was, as we have said, not required. Hence, even though Oaks may have made a false affidavit, he did not commit statutory perjury.

Additionally, he did not commit common law perjury because to do so the false statement must be “both false and material to the issue.” If the statement be false and immaterial, there is no perjury because the issue, i.e. the campaign committee report, is not affected. Gilbert and Moylan, supra, § 9.1. The campaign committee’s report that was not filed and which resulted in Oaks’s conviction for failure to file concerned a report of “Friends of Nat Oaks.” Md.Ann. Code art. 33, § 26-ll(b) makes transpicuous that the chairman and treasurer respectively of that campaign committee were the persons who should have filed the report. Oaks was not chairman nor, as we have seen, was he the treasurer.

Hence, he was not one of the two persons required to file the report. The charge was improperly laid against him. III. “Whether the trial court erred in failing to instruct the jury correctly as to the requirements of Article 33 ... and further erred in permitting the jury to determine the nature and scope of the provisions of Article 33.” The thrust of Oaks’s argument is that the trial judge should not have allowed the jury to interpret the election ⁸ law insofar as it concerned perjury and the failure to file a campaign report. The judge instructed the jury: “I also ... [instruct] you that, if there are conflicting interpretations of the law, you, the jury, ... [serve] as the final judges of both the law and the facts.

One such area of conflicting interpretations is the election laws. When you consider the election laws[,] more particularly the crimes of perjury under the election laws and failure to file campaign fund reports, my instructions are a guide and advisory only and are not binding upon you. It is your responsibility to resolve the conflicting interpretations of the law and for you to decide the