Uzzle v. State

CHARLES E. MOYLAN, JR., Judge, Retired, Specially Assigned. The appellant, D’Quinta A. Uzzle, was convicted by a Prince George’s County jury, presided over by Judge William B. Spellbring, Jr., of two counts of first degree murder and one count of using a handgun in the commission of a crime of violence. On this appeal, he raises five contentions: ⁵⁵² 1. that Judge Spellbring abused his discretion in refusing to ask prospective jurors if they had such strong feelings about guns or gun owners that they might be unable to render a fair and impartial verdict; 2. that Judge Spellbring erroneously failed to suppress the appellant’s involuntary statement; 3. that Judge Spellbring erroneously failed to give relief for a discovery violation when the State failed to supply the results of a voice stress analysis of a State’s witness; 4. that Judge Spellbring erroneously failed to afford adequate relief after a witness referred to a lie detector test; and 5. that Judge Spellbring erroneously ordered the merger of a non-existent conviction. Because the appellant has not challenged the legal sufficiency of the evidence to support the verdicts, it is unnecessary for us to recount the circumstances of the crime, except to the limited extent to which the circumstances have some bearing on one or more of the contentions.

The Voir-Dire Examination The only fact about the crimes that has any possible bearing on the appellant’s first contention is that he was convicted of two murders, the modality of which was the shooting of the victims by the appellant with a handgun. Accordingly, the appellant was interested in the attitudes of the jurors about guns. At the conclusion of the voir dire questioning by the court, Judge Spellbring asked defense counsel if he had any “exception to either what I did give or what I did not give.” Counsel replied: On page [13-14] of the voir dire, what I proposed there is a series of questions on guns and weapons. I would ask the Court to ask the jurors if they have any strong feelings regarding people who own guns and if they have any strong feelings either for or against gun control, if they have any specific fear of guns that might affect their judgment in a ⁵⁵³ case where the evidence showed that the decedent died of gunshot wound.

That exchange had reference to appellant’s proposed voir dire question # 8. To be sure, defense counsel then followed his express objection to the court’s failure to give question # 8 with an apparent but halting and ambiguous reference to question # 9, and Judge Spellbring expressly stated, “I’ll decline to ask the questions cited by the defense in their voir dire, subtitled eight and nine.” Both the appellant’s subtitling of his first contention and all of his argument in support of it, however, has reference only to proposed voir dire question # 8, and we shall confine our analysis exclusively to it. Proposed question # 8, entitled “Guns/Weapons,” was actually the following set of questions: A. Does any juror have any strong feelings regarding people who own guns? If so, what are they?

B. Does any juror believe that it is a good idea to keep a gun for self-protection? C. Does any juror have any strong feelings about people who keep handguns and ammunition in their homes? If so, describe. D. Does any juror have any strong feelings about people who carry handguns?

If so, describe. E. Is there any juror having strong feelings either for or against gun control? If so describe those feelings. F. Do you have any specific fear of guns that might affect your judgment in a case where the evidence showed that the deceased died of a gun shot wound?

G. Has any juror, or his or her family or household member, received any training in the use of a handgun? A. Dingle’s Non-Retroactivity Is immaterial The appellant relies almost exclusively on Dingle v. State, 861 Md. 1 , 759 A.2d 819 (2000), for his argument that Judge ⁵⁵⁴ Spellbring committed error in declining to ask the set of questions requested in proposed voir dire # 8. At oral argument, we became distracted by the issue of whether Dingle v. State, filed on September 15, 2000, announced “new law,” and, if it did so, whether it should be applied retroactively to this case, which became “final” on December 19, 1998, thirty days after the appellant’s sentences were imposed with no appeal to this Court having been filed. Maryland Rule 8-202(a) and (f). 1 The Dingle filing, therefore, did not come until almost two years after this case had become final.

On taking a second look at Dingle v. State, however, we are persuaded that it does not even speak to the voir dire issue in front of us, quite aside from any question of its non-retroactivity. Although our tentative opinion is that Dingle would not apply retroactively to this case, which was final long before Dingle was filed, we are relieved of any necessity of making a close analysis of the issue because of our further and considered conclusion that Dingle could not help the appellant on the merits of this contention even if it did apply. B. Dingle’s Concern With the Modality of the Questioning The Dingle opinion did not devote any analysis to or even discuss the substantive merits of the voir dire questions before it. Assuming the questions to have been a proper subject for voir dire inquiry, its exclusive concern was with the two-part nature of the questions and the attendant instruction that the prospective jurors should only respond if their answers were in the affirmative to both parts of the questions.

At the very outset of the opinion, the Court of Appeals set forth the “issue this case presents”: ⁵⁵⁵ In his Petition for Writ of Certiorari, the petitioner asked this Court to address the following question: “Did the lower court err in approving, over defense objection, a method of voir dire (a two-part question, respond only if your answer to both parts is in the affirmative) which made the jurors, rather than the trial judge, the final arbiter of impartiality and prevented defense counsel from exercise of his challenges for cause?” 361 Md. at 3 n. 1, 759 A.2d 819 (emphasis supplied). Even if we were to attribute to the seven subjects of inquiry the implicit approval of the 4-3 majority in Dingle, moreover, the subject matter of those inquiries did not remotely involve the subject matter of the appellant’s requested voir dire # 8 in this case. Dingle summarized, 361 Md. at 3 n. 3, 759 A.2d 819 , the substance of the respective inquiries in that case. The areas of concern to the petitioner, about which the petitioner asked the court to inquire, were: 1) experience as a victim of crime; 2) experience as an accused or convicted person; 3) experience as a witness in a criminal case; 4) experience as a petit juror in a criminal case or as a member of a grand jury; 5) membership in any victims’ rights group; 6) connection with the legal profession; and 7) association with law enforcement.

The inquiries in this case were all about attitudes about 1) guns, 2) gun owners, and 3) gun control. The thrust of the Dingle opinion, far from concentrating on the subject matter of the inquiries, was that by obscuring a prospective juror’s affirmative answer to the first inquiry unless the answer to the second inquiry was also in the affirmative, the ultimate decision as to juror bias would be thereby improperly delegated by the judge to the prospective juror himself. The Dingle majority, 361 Md. at 5 , 759 A.2d 819 , explained the manner in which the jurors had been instructed to respond: You should only stand if your answer is “Yes” to both parts of the question. If your answer is “No” to either part of the ⁵⁵⁶ question, then you should not stand.

So once again, only stand if your answer is “Yes” to both parts of the question. The Court summarized, 361 Md. at 8 , 759 A.2d 819 , the defense argument as to the prejudicial nature of such an instruction: The petitioner objected to the use of the two-part format on a number of grounds, principally because he believed, and therefore argued, that asking compound questions and requiring an answer only if the prospective juror thought that he or she could not be fair, would, and, in fact did, result in a jury in which the venire persons themselves, by “unilateral decision, ” determined their fitness to serve on the jury. (Emphasis supplied). The Dingle holding focused on the impropriety of such a procedure: We shall hold that the voir dire procedure utilized in this case usurped the court’s responsibility in this regard. 361 Md. at 8-9 , 759 A.2d 819 .

The Dingle opinion assumed that the trial judge in that case recognized a logical connection between the answers to the first part of the questions and the jurors’ ability to be fair and impartial but then denied himself that necessary predicate knowledge for deciding a challenge to a juror’s fairness and impartiality in all cases where a prospective juror answered the second part of the questions in the negative. [T]he trial judge in this case apparently recognized the relevance of the experiences and associations to the venire persons’ qualification to serve on the jury. Thus, rather than inquiring into the prospective juror’s mind set in a vacuum, the trial judge, presumably understanding that “it is the correlation between the juror’s status and his or her state of mind that is dispositive when the venire person’s status [or experience] is relevant to his or her bias,” linked the question whether the venire person could be fair and impartial with the venire person’s status or experience. 361 Md. at 17 , 759 A.2d 819 (emphasis supplied). The majority opinion in Dingle simply took as a given that the trial judge recognized the relevance of the questions to the ⁵⁵⁷ discovery of likely bias but nonetheless deferred to the jurors’ own judgments as to whether their bias should disqualify them. [T]he trial judge recognized the relevance of the questions, that they were designed to uncover prejudice that would, if not discovered, deny the petitioner a fair trial. Expediency and the perceived need to limit the process, however, led the court to find a way to avoid examination of each affected venire person as to the admittedly relevant matters and allow each such person to make his or her own call as to his or her qualification to serve. 361 Md. at 14 , 759 A.2d 819 (emphasis supplied).

Chief Judge Bell explained how the lack of information, resulting from the two-part nature of the questioning, would render a judge incompetent to make an informed decision as to a challenge. The trial judge’s mistake was that he failed to appreciate that, should there be a challenge, he had the responsibility to decide, based upon the circumstances then existing ... whether any of the venire persons occupying the questioned status or having the questioned experiences should be discharged for cause.... Because he did not require an answer to be given to the question as to the existence of the status or experience unless accomipanied by a statement of partiality, the trial judge was precluded from discharging his responsibility, i.e. exercising discretion, and, at the same time, the petitioner was denied the opportunity to discover and challenge venire persons who might be biased. 361 Md. at 17 , 759 A.2d 819 (emphasis supplied). C. The Obvious Limits on the Dingle Rationale As the Dingle opinion itself makes clear, however, that rationale must be applied with a delicate sense of balance, lest every proposed voir dire question be deemed mandatory.

Pushed to a logical extreme, the Dingle approach, unrestrained, could produce such a clearly unintended result. The answer to any proposed voir dire question could, in the hands ⁵⁵⁸ of an overzealous advocate, be made the basis of a challenge for cause, notwithstanding that the challenge might be farfetched. The argument could be pushed that the judge needed the benefit of the answer in order to rule properly on the challenge. At that point, a trial judge, instead of enjoying the broad direction classically entrusted to him, could only deny a proposed voir dire question at the very high risk of reversal.

Dingle obviously did not go that far. Dingle, 361 Md. at 14 , 759 A.2d 819 , recognized the inherent tension between conflicting goals. As Davis, and now this case, demonstrate, there may be, and often is, a conflict between keeping the voir dire process limited and the goal of ferreting out cause for disqualification. Far from abandoning Maryland’s traditional approach, Dingle in major measure reaffirmed it.

Maryland has adopted, and continues to adhere to, limited voir dire. It is also well settled that the trial court has broad discretion in the conduct of voir dire, most especially with regard to the scope and the form of the questions propounded and that it need not make any particular inquiry of the prospective jurors unless that inquiry is directed toward revealing cause for disqualification. 361 Md. at 13-14 , 759 A.2d 819 (emphasis supplied). Dingle, 361 Md. at 14 , 759 A.2d 819 , both cited and quoted with approval from McGee v. State, 219 Md. 53, 58-59 , 146 A.2d 194 (1959). McGee is particularly pertinent to the gun-related voir dire questions in issue here.

In McGee the Court of Appeals affirmed the decision of the trial judge not to ask five questions. Three of those five questions are tantalizingly close in their area of interest to the proposed questions at issue in this case. 1. Do you believe that a man defending his life has a right to use any weapon or weapons at his disposal? 2. Do you believe that possession of a gun makes a man liable for any consequence which the possession of the gun may have? ⁵⁵⁹ 3.

Would the fact that a defendant had illegal possession of a gun prevent you from finding him “Not Guilty” of a homicide which involved said gun, if all or a reasonable amount of the other evidence brought before you indicated his innocence? 219 Md. at 58 , 146 A.2d 194 . In affirming the trial judge’s decision not to ask those questions, Judge Hammond said (and the Dingle opinion quoted): Questions not directed to a specific ground for disqualification but which are speculative, inquisitorial, catechising or fishing”, asked in aid of deciding on peremptory challenges, may be refused in the discretion of the court, even though it would not have been error to have asked them. 219 Md. at 58-59 , 146 A.2d 194 (emphasis supplied). Burch v. State, 346 Md. 253 , 696 A.2d 443 (1997), was another case cited by Dingle, 361 Md. at 14 , 759 A.2d 819 . The question at issue in Burch went to the ability of the jurors to consider a mitigating factor in the sentencing phase of a capital case. “In considering whether to impose a life sentence with or without the possibility of parole or a death sentence, would you be able [to] consider as mitigating the fact that [appellant] was abused as a child?” 346 Md. at 292 , 696 A.2d 443 .

The appellant alleged that the question went directly to what could have been a “bias that is cause for disqualification.” Though acknowledging that the scope and content of voir dire examination is largely within the discretion of the trial court, he avers that his question was framed to identify jurors “with a bias that is cause for disqualification” and that, as a result of the court’s refusal to ask it, “one or more of the jurors may have refused even to consider, as a mitigating factor, evidence that [appellant] was abused as a child.” 346 Md. at 293 , 696 A.2d 443 . In nonetheless affirming the decision of the trial judge not to ask the question, Judge Wilner concluded: ⁵⁶⁰ A defendant has no right to question prospective jurors, under the guise of searching for disqualifying bias, to see who might be receptive to any of the myriad of potential mitigating factors he or she may choose to present. 346 Md. at 295 , 696 A.2d 443 . Also cited by Dingle, 361 Md. at 14 , 759 A.2d 819 , were Boyd v. State, 341 Md. 431, 436 , 671 A.2d 33 (1996) (“[W]e have emphasized many times before that ‘the scope of voir dire and the form of the question propounded rest firmly within the discretion of the trial judge.’ ”); and Hill v. State, 339 Md. 275, 278-79 , 661 A.2d 1164 (1995) (“[I]n Maryland, the principles governing jury voir dire are well settled. Of course, the nature and extent of the voir dire procedure, as well as the form of the questions propounded, are matters that lie initially within the discretion of the trial judge.”).

Just as the trial judge may not delegate to a prospective juror the decision as to whether the juror is qualified to serve, neither may the trial judge delegate to defense counsel the decision as to whether a particular line of inquiry may likely reveal juror partiality or bias. Perry v. State, 344 Md. 204 , 686 A.2d 274 (1996), was also cited by Dingle, 361 Md. at 13 , 759 A.2d 819 . In Perry, Judge Rodowsky pointed out that, as a necessary restraint on the process, the trial judge must assess whether there is a reasonable likelihood that a given line of inquiry will reveal a basis for disqualification. Consequently, Perry’s contention really is addressed to whether the inquiries requested by him were “reasonably likely to reveal cause for disqualification,” based upon partiality or bias.

Davis, 333 Md. at 35, 633 A.2d at 871. Under the circumstances of the instant matter, there was not “á demonstrably strong correlation between the status in [Perry’s expanded voir dire ] question and a mental state [of a venireperson] that gives rise to cause for disqualification.” 344 Md. at 218-19 , 686 A.2d 274 (emphasis supplied). Absent such a reasonable likelihood, there is no necessity to pursue the inquiry, notwithstanding the possibility that some conceivable basis for disqualification might be revealed. ⁵⁶¹ A trial court’s process of deteimining whether a proposed inquiry is reasonably likely to reveal disqualifying partiality or bias includes weighing the expenditure of time and resources in the pursuit of the reason for the response to a proposed voir dire question against the likelihood that pursuing the reason for the response will reveal bias or partiality. 344 Md. at 220 , 686 A.2d 274 (emphasis supplied). D. Judge Spellbring’s Decision in this Case It was within Judge Spellbring’s discretion to assess that reasonable likelihood, described by Perry, in this case.

Looking at the set of questions embraced by the appellant’s voir dire request # 8 as a totality, it is clear that the appellant sought a far-ranging, almost open-ended, exploration of juror attitudes, experiences, and philosophies that might have been of immeasurable value in guiding the appellant’s use of his peremptory challenges. A quick revisiting of four of the subsumed seven questions reveals how open-ended, and how potentially wide-ranging and time consuming, they could potentially have been. A. Does any juror have any strong feelings regarding people who own guns? If so, what are they?

C. Does any juror have any strong feelings about people who keep handguns and ammunition in their homes? If so, describe. D. Does any juror have any strong feelings about people who carry handguns? If so, describe.

E. Is there any juror having strong feelings either for or against gun control? If so describe those feelings. (Emphasis supplied). In deciding whether Judge Spellbring abused his discretion in declining to ask the appellant’s requested voir dire # 8, it is illuminating to look at the larger context of which requested ⁵⁶² voir dire # 8 was a part.

The appellant had submitted to the court ten such sets of questions, filling seventeen typed pages, and consisting of approximately one hundred individual questions plus numerous attendant requests for elaboration. The requested voir dire in this case was not in line with the limited voir dire traditionally, and still, practiced in Maryland. As listed in Dingle, 361 Md. at 10 n. 8, 759 A.2d 819 , there are certain limited areas of inquiry that are mandatory. This Court has identified areas of mandatory inquiry: [1] racial, ethnic and cultural bias, [2] religious bias, [3] predisposition as to the use of circumstantial evidence in capital cases, and [4] placement of undue weight on police officer credibility.

Davis v. State explained that these mandatory areas of inquiry involve “potential biases or predispositions that prospective jurors may hold which, if present, would hinder their ability to objectively resolve the matter before them.” The line of inquiry contended for by the appellant in this case did not remotely involve any of those four sensitive areas of mandatory inquiry. The appellant secondarily .relies on the two post -Dingle cases of State v. Thomas, 369 Md. 202 , 798 A.2d 566 (2002), and Sweet v. State, 371 Md. 1 , 806 A.2d 265 (2002). Unlike the very peripheral probing of attitudes in this case, the critical question in State v. Thomas, 369 Md. at 204 , 798 A.2d 566 , went directly to the question of juror bias and unequivocal disqualification. “Does any member of the jury panel have such strong feelings regarding violations of the narcotics laws that it would be difficult for you to fairly and impartially weigh the facts at a trial where narcotics violations have been alleged?” (Emphasis supplied). The critical question that was not asked in Sweet v. State, 371 Md. at 9 , 806 A.2d 265 , similarly went straight to the heart of juror disqualification. ⁵⁶³ “Do the charges stir up strong emotional feelings in you that would affect your ability to be fair and impartial in this case?” We hold that in declining to propound appellant’s requested voir dire #8, Judge Spellbring did not abuse the broad discretion still entrusted to him in such matters.

The Voluntariness of an Oral Admission The appellant also contends that Judge Spellbring erroneously failed to suppress his confession. Before we become hopelessly enmired in a weighty discussion of confession law, it behooves us to note the significant limitations on the issue in this case. A. The Limited Nature of the Contention Simply to put the issue in perspective, what is before us is not a signed or mitten statement but several brief oral responses and/or emotional reactions to several questions asked of the appellant by a police interrogator. What is involved, moreover, is not a confession of guilt in any sense of thé word, but several admissions or reactions of more circumstantial import.

There are several other limitations as well. The murders in this case took place on the streets of Prince George’s County at approximately 2:30 A.M. on the morning of October 13, 1996. Detective Sergeant Dwight Deloatch, of the Prince George’s County Police Department, ultimately interviewed the appellant on two occasions. The first occasion was on August 21, 1997, ten months after the crimes, and at the Rockwall County, Texas, Detention Center, about twenty miles southeast of Dallas.

The appellant was under arrest there on charges of felony marijuana possession. Although a warrant for the appellant’s arrest for murder in Maryland had been issued on October 16, 1996, he was not located by the Prince George’s County Police Department until a “crime solver’s tip” on July 21, 1997, alerted them to the fact that he was in jail in Texas under an alias. A subsequent fingerprint ⁵⁶⁴ check verified his identity. The second interview was on October 3, 1997, in Prince George’s County, immediately following the appellant’s waiver of extradition to Maryland and the service on him of the Maryland arrest warrant for murder.

Although at the September 9, 1998, suppression hearing before Judge Spellbring, the appellant formally challenged the voluntariness of any of his responses to both 1) the August 21 interrogation in Texas and 2) the October 3 interrogation in Maryland, on this appeal he only challenges the voluntariness of his responses to the October 3 interrogation in Maryland. By way of a further limitation, the appellant concedes that the federal constitutional requirements pursuant to Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 , 86 S.Ct. 1602 , 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966), were fully complied with, both in Texas and in Maryland. The contention, therefore, is now limited to the claim that the appellant’s allegedly compromising responses on October 3 were not voluntary within the contemplation of Maryland common law. One final limitation is that the appellant is objecting only to the ruling of Judge Spellbring at the conclusion of the suppression hearing.

Although both the admissibility and the weight of the appellant’s responses to Sergeant Deloatch could have been challenged before the jury, they were not. The motion to exclude the appellant’s “statement” was not renewed. The cross-examination of Sergeant Deloatch at the trial on the merits, moreover, did not challenge or seek to erode in any way the voluntariness of the appellant’s October 3 responses to him. No jury instruction was sought or given on the subject of whether 1) the jury should consider or 2) how it should weigh the appellant’s responses.

Indeed, one exchange between Judge Spellbring and counsel just after the jury instructions had been given casts the entire contention into doubt. Judge Spellbring first asked the State if it had any exceptions to any instructions he had either given or not given. The State had two such exceptions, the second of which is of current interest. ⁵⁶⁵ Second of all, defense counsel stipulated that his client’s statements were voluntary. If you look at the instruction on statement of a defendant, they go through a litany to determine if they were voluntary.

I think that needs to be—I think the fact that the statements are voluntary and that the defendant is conceding that they’re voluntary has to be made to the jury. (Emphasis supplied). The exchange at the bench then wandered off into a discussion of the State’s first exception but finally returned to the apparent concession as to voluntariness. MS.

ALVES: My second was you were going to give an instruction that the statements that the defendant made were voluntary. THE COURT: It’s not an issue. MR. TRAINOR: I will not argue that.

THE COURT: It is not an issue. MS. ALVES: Okay. (Emphasis supplied).

Because that apparent concession as to voluntariness may not have been an ultimate concession for all purposes (we cannot tell) but only a more limited procedural concession, within the context of jury instructions and jury argument, we shall entertain the appellant’s challenge to Judge Spellbring’s ruling at the suppression hearing as an issue still properly before us. We shall consider Judge Spellbring’s ruling in terms of the traditional assessment of voluntariness, which is all that was raised or argued before Judge Spellbring. Indeed, at the conclusion of the suppression hearing, the sum total of the statement made by defense counsel was: Your Honor, I have explained to my client his right to testify at this hearing, and he does not wish to do so, so we will rest. And I can tell you I will submit on the issue of ivhether the State has made a prima facie case by a preponderance of the evidence on the issue of compliance ⁵⁶⁶ with Miranda and voluntariness, and ask the Court to just consider the totality of the circumstances.

(Emphasis supplied). B. The Appellant’s October 3 Responses That Are In Issue At about 4:30 P.M. on the afternoon before the murders, 1) the appellant; 2) Kenneth Smith; and the two ultimate murder victims, 3) Clinton Roberts and 4) Parris Mickens were “hanging around” on Nova Street in the Capitol Heights area of Prince George’s County. A female cousin of the appellant was insulted by Roberts and the appellant took offense at the insulting remark. An argument ensued and Roberts at one point threatened to get his Glock, a type of handgun.

The argument subsided, however, and the group adjourned. The same four males gathered again between approximately 8 P.M. and 10 P.M. They talked and they drank alcohol. The key State’s witness, Kenneth Smith, testified to the foregoing narrative, and the appellant, in his statements of August 27 and October 3, readily acknowledged that that much of the narrative was true. The respective versions of events parted company diametrically, however, as to what happened after 10 P.M. Smith testified that the foursome remained together and went to buy marijuana at about 2:30 A.M. As the four stopped at one point to pool their money, the appellant, according to Smith, suddenly pulled a silver .357 revolver and shot both Roberts and Mickens.

Smith fled the scene and did not see the appellant again. On both August 27 and October 3, the appellant, without hesitation, acknowledged the pre-10 P.M. part of Smith’s narrative. He steadfastly insisted, however, that he left the group at about 10 P.M. and never returned. The appellant consistently denied having shot Roberts and Mickens.

The only thing that happened in the October 3 interrogation that was not an essential replay of the August 27 interrogation ⁵⁶⁷ in Texas was the following response of the appellant at about 10:10 P.M. Sergeant Deloatch testified: He kept denying that he, that he shot anybody. And I asked him, the statement that I got from Jo-Jo [Kenneth Smith], was Jo-Jo telling the truth? And he said, no, and I asked him what he meant and he just dropped his head. He didn’t really say anything.

And he kept telling me—the more I kept talking to him about the subject, he kept telling me he had nothing to say. So I just kept talking to him and just kept talking to him. And basically he just got somewhat emotional. He dropped his head down and tears began to come to his eyes.

And I asked him was he sorry for the death of the two guys? And he dropped his head and he said yes. And then he also told me that he knew he had messed up his life. And he further told me that I had Jo-Jo’s statement.

C. The Test Remains One of Voluntariness The test of admissibility of a defendant’s statement under Maryland law remains, as it always has been, traditional voluntariness. As Judge Wilner explained in Williams v. State, 375 Md. 404 , 825 A.2d 1078 (2003): The test under the statute, and under the Constitution, remains voluntariness. Deliberate, violations of the rule, as we shall explain, bear heavily on whether a resulting statement is voluntary, but they do not, of themselves, form an independent basis for rendering inadmissible a statement that is otherwise voluntary and admissible. To conclude otherwise would be tantamount to ignoring the statute, which, in the absence of some Constitutional defect, we are not permitted to do.

(Emphasis supplied). D. Judge Spellbring’s Findings and Ruling Judge Spellbring ruled that the appellant’s responses to Sergeant Deloatch on October 3 were voluntary. He made assessments of credibility and findings of fact supportive of his ruling. Both the ruling and the findings are entitled, of ⁵⁶⁸ course, to great deference by us.

With respect to the October 3 interrogation, Judge Spellbring found and ruled: This is the defense motion to suppress [an] oral statement made by Mr. Uzzle ... in Maryland on October 3, 1997. I have had an opportunity to observe the State witnesses, Detectives Deloatch and Clark. Having had that opportunity, I find that they are credible witnesses. And based on their