Borchardt v. State

786 A.2d 631, 367 Md. 91, 2001 Md. LEXIS 941

• Court: Court of Appeals of Maryland
• Decided: December 13, 2001
• Docket: 55, Sept. Term, 2000
• Status: Published

Opinions

WILNER, Judge.

In May, 2000, appellant, Lawrence Borchardt, Sr. was convicted by a jury in the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County of two counts each of premeditated first degree murder, first degree felony murder, and robbery with a deadly weapon. Those convictions emanated from the murder and robbery of Joseph and Bernice Ohler in their home in Baltimore County on November 26, 1998.¹ After a separate sentencing hearing, the jury imposed sentences of death for the murders of Mr. and Ms. Ohler. The court added a consecutive 20-year sentence for the armed robbery of Joseph Ohler and a concurrent 20-year sentence for the armed robbery of Bernice Ohler. In this appeal, Borchardt makes 10 complaints. We perceive no reversible error and shall therefore affirm the judgments of the Circuit Court.

BACKGROUND

The evidence presented at trial was largely uncontradicted and was more than adequate to show that, in the course of a robbery, Borchardt murdered Mr. and Ms. Ohler. Borchardt and his girlfriend, Jeanne Cascio, lived about a mile from the Ohlers, along with Borchardt’s son and the son’s girlfriend, Tammy Ent. In order to help support his addiction to heroin, Borchardt, who was unemployed, would go door-to-door in the Golden Ring area of Baltimore County with Cascio, portraying her as cancer-afflicted and seeking donations to help pay for her treatment. On two previous occasions, Borchardt had been to the Ohler home, and Mr. Ohler had given him some money. On one occasion, Mr. Ohler drove Borchardt to a pharmacy, supposedly to pick up a prescription; in fact, Borchardt made a drug buy.

Mr. Ohler’s body was discovered in his backyard on Thanksgiving night, November 26, by a neighbor. When the police arrived, they found Ms. Ohler’s body inside the house. Both had died of multiple stab wounds. Also found in the house was a promissory note for $60 from Borchardt to Mr. Ohler, a social security card and a State welfare card in the name of Cascio, the handle of a knife, and jewelry scattered on the floor. A block away, the police found Mr. Ohler’s wallet, along with keys, business and credit cards, a bloody coat, and bloody leather gloves, the left one showing a slice on the ring finger. After visiting Borchardt’s apartment and speaking with his son, the police obtained arrest warrants for Borchardt and Cascio and a search warrant for Borchardt’s apartment. In executing the search warrant, the police seized several bloody rags.

Borchardt and Cascio were arrested the next day, November 27. Borchardt had a cut on his left ring finger that corresponded to the slice found on the glove. He declined to talk with the police that day, claiming that he was suffering from drug withdrawal, but said that he would call them when he was ready to talk. He did so on December 9 — twelve days later — at which time, after being advised of his rights, he gave a seven-page written statement confessing to the murders. In that statement, Borchardt acknowledged that he needed money to buy drugs, that he went to the Ohler home and was admitted inside by Ms. Ohler, that he asked for $40 and was refused, that he then asked Ms. Ohler for some water and, while she was in the kitchen getting it, he took out his folding knife and stabbed Mr. Ohler five times, three times in the stomach and twice in the chest, that Ohler tried to escape but Borchardt knew he would not get far because of the way he was cut — his intestines were hanging out, that Borchardt then opened the desk in the hallway where he knew Mr. Ohler kept his wallet, that Ms. Ohler ran in and said that she had called the police, whereupon he stabbed her three times, aiming for the heart, that Mr. Ohler managed to get out of the door, and that Borchardt then left with the wallet, took $11 from it, and discarded the cards and keys. Borchardt added that, though wearing his fur-lined leather gloves, he had cut his finger with the knife and that he discarded the gloves as well. In addition to the written statement, Borchardt told the detectives that “he has a taste of blood now and he wants to keep killing whether it be inside or outside jail.”

Borchardt’s son confirmed that his father was unemployed and got money by asking for donations, using a collection box with Cascio’s picture. He stated that, on Thanksgiving Day, Borchardt and Cascio left their home together, to “hustle money for some more [drugs],” and that they returned about 20 minutes later. After Cascio bandaged Borchardt’s finger, they left the apartment because, according to Borchardt, he “had to stab a couple of people.” The son identified the knife handle found in the Ohler home as part of one of Borchardt’s knives. Several of the Ohlers’ neighbors identified Borchardt as having come to their homes soliciting money on behalf of a woman needing treatment for cancer. Finally, DNA testing disclosed that Joseph Ohler could not be excluded as the source of blood found on Borchardt’s jacket and shoes, although Borchardt, Cascio, and Ms. Ohler were excluded as the source. Borchardt, on the other hand, could not be excluded as the source of blood on the gloves found a block from the Ohler home, whereas the Ohlers and Cascio were excluded as sources. One fingerprint found at the scene of the murders that was suitable for comparison was identified as that of Borchardt.

We shall recite other relevant facts in our discussion of the issues raised by Borchardt.

DISCUSSION

Constitutionality of Death Penalty Law in Light of Apprendi v. New Jersey²

(1) The Maryland Capital Punishment Law

Maryland Code, Article 27, § 412(b) provides that a person who is convicted of murder in the first degree and, at the time of the murder was at least 18 years old and not mentally retarded, “shall be sentenced to death, imprisonment for life, or imprisonment for life without the possibility of parole.” Section 412(b) states further that the sentence shall be imprisonment for life unless (1) at least 30 days prior to trial the State notified the defendant that it intends to seek the death penalty and identified each aggravating circumstance upon which it intends to rely, and a sentence of death is imposed in accordance with § 413, or (2) at least 30 days prior to trial, the State notified the defendant that it intends to seek a sentence of imprisonment for life without parole.

Section 413 requires that, if the defendant is convicted of murder in the first degree and the State has given the requisite notice, a separate sentencing proceeding shall be held to determine whether the defendant shall be sentenced to death. That proceeding is to be conducted before (1) the jury that determined the defendant’s guilt, (2) a jury impaneled for the purpose if (i) the defendant was convicted on a plea of guilty, (ii) the defendant was convicted by the court sitting without a jury, (iii) the jury that determined the defendant’s guilt has been discharged for good cause, or (iv) review of an earlier sentence of death has resulted in a remand for resen-tencing, or (3) the court, without a jury, if a jury proceeding is waived by the defendant. As Borchardt was sentenced by a jury — the one that convicted him — we shall refer to the sentencing tribunal as a jury, although, as noted, it may in other cases be a judge.

Section 413(d) lists 10 aggravating circumstances, any of which, if shown beyond a reasonable doubt to exist, may make a defendant potentially eligible for the death penalty. It is only those circumstances that the State had notified the defendant it intends to rely on that may actually be considered by the jury, however. The jury’s first task under § 413(d), therefore, is to consider whether any of those circumstances relied upon by the State exist, beyond a reasonable doubt. In this instance, the State relied upon two such factors — that Borchardt committed more than one offense of murder in the first degree arising out of the same incident (No. 9), and that he committed the murders while committing or attempting to commit robbery (No. 10). Reliance on those circumstances also required the sentencing jury to determine, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Borchardt was a principal in the first degree. See § 413(e)(1)(f). If the jury does not find, beyond a reasonable doubt, that one or more of the enumerated aggravating circumstances exist, it must state that conclusion in writing, in which event a sentence of death may not be imposed. See § 413(f). If, on the other hand, the jury finds that one or more of those aggravating circumstances do exist, it must then consider and determine, by a preponderance of the evidence, whether there exist any of seven enumerated mitigating circumstances or “[a]ny other facts which the jury ... specifically sets forth in writing that it finds as mitigating circumstances in the case.” § 413(g). By case law, we have construed that eighth, catch-all, factor to include “ ‘anything relating to the defendant or to the crime which causes [the jury or any of its individual members] to believe that death may not be appropriate.’ ” Ware v. State, 360 Md. 650, 690, 759 A.2d 764, 785 (2000), cert. denied, 531 U.S. 1115, 121 S.Ct. 864, 148 L.Ed.2d 776 (2001) (quoting Harris v. State, 312 Md. 225, , 539 A.2d 637, 651 (1988), quoting, in turn, Mills v. State, 310 Md. 33, 51, 527 A.2d 3, 11 (1987), judgment vacated on other grounds, 486 U.S. 367, 108 S.Ct. 1860, 100 L.Ed.2d 384 (1988)) (alteration in original).

The Apprendi issue posited by Borchardt arises from § 413(h), dealing with the weighing of aggravating and mitigating circumstances. That section provides that, if the jury finds that one or more mitigating circumstances exist, “it shall determine whether, by a preponderance of the evidence, the aggravating circumstances outweigh the mitigating circumstances.” (Emphasis added). If the jury finds that they do, the sentence is death; if it finds that the aggravating circumstances do not outweigh the mitigating circumstances, a sentence of death may not be imposed. The ultimate determination must be unanimous and in writing. See § 413(i). Borchardt contends that, under Apprendi, due process requires a determination that the aggravating circumstances outweigh any mitigating circumstances to be made beyond a reasonable doubt and not by a mere preponderance of evidence.

Section 414, as supplemented by Maryland Rule 8-306, provides for automatic appellate review by this Court whenever the death penalty is imposed. In addition to considering any errors alleged by the defendant, we are required by § 414(e) to consider the imposition of the death sentence itself, including (1) whether the sentence was imposed under the influence of passion, prejudice, or other arbitrary factor, (2) whether the evidence supports the jury’s finding of a statutory aggravating circumstance under § 413(d), and (3) whether “the evidence supports the jury’s or court’s finding that the aggravating circumstances outweigh the mitigating circumstances.”

(2) Apprendi and its Antecedents

Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466, 120 S.Ct. 2348, 147 L.Ed.2d 435 (2000) was a five-four decision that produced five separate opinions and a great deal of controversy. See, for example, Apprendi Symposium, 38 Am.Crim. L.Rev. 241 (2001). It was not a death penalty case, it did not involve a capital punishment sentencing scheme, and the five Justices forming the majority made clear their view that the rulings enunciated in the case did not serve to invalidate any capital punishment laws. Borchardt nonetheless urges that the case has precisely that effect.

Ultimately, of course, it is the Supreme Court that will have to determine the impact of its Apprendi decision on the various capital punishment laws enacted by Congress and the States. We can do no more than examine what the Court said, in the context of the issue before it and the earlier decisions that it cited and discussed. That examination convinces us that Apprendi does not render § 413(h) or any other part of the Maryland capital punishment law unconstitutional.

To appreciate the import of Apprendi, we need to begin with several earlier cases, the first being In re Winship, 397 U.S. 358, 90 S.Ct. 1068, 25 L.Ed.2d 368 (1970). The Winship Court made clear that the reasonable doubt standard for determining guilt in a criminal (or juvenile delinquency) case, long established under common law tradition, was required also as an aspect of Constitutional due process. The Court explained that the reasonable doubt standard “is a prime instrument for reducing the risk of convictions resting on factual error ” and that it “provides concrete substance for the presumption of innocence....” Id. at 363, 90 S.Ct. at 1072, 25 L.Ed.2d at 375 (emphasis added). Its express holding was that the due process clause “protects the accused against conviction except upon proof beyond a reasonable doubt of every fact necessary to constitute the crime with which he is charged.” Id. at 364, 90 S.Ct. at 1073, 25 L.Ed.2d at 375 (emphasis added).

In Mullaney v. Wilbur, 421 U.S. 684, 95 S.Ct. 1881, 44 L.Ed.2d 508 (1975), the Court applied Winship to hold unconstitutional a Maine statute that presumed malice aforethought from an intent to kill and required a defendant charged with murder who sought to reduce the homicide to manslaughter to bear the burden of proving, by a preponderance of the evidence, that he acted in the heat of passion or with sudden provocation. In seeking to distinguish Winship, Maine urged that the absence of heat of passion or sudden provocation was not a “fact” necessary to the crime of felonious homicide. The Court rejected that argument, noting the importance of the differing degrees of culpability between murder and manslaughter and holding that, if Winship were limited to only those facts that constitute a crime as defined by State law, a State could undermine many of the interests of that decision by simply redefining the elements that constitute different crimes as factors bearing only upon punishment. Winship, the Court said, was concerned with substance and not “this kind of formalism.” Id. at 699, 95 S.Ct. at 1890, 44 L.Ed.2d at 519.

In Patterson v. New York, 432 U.S. 197, 97 S.Ct. 2319, 53 L.Ed.2d 281 (1977), the Court dispelled some of the suppositions that lower courts had drawn from Mullaney and sustained, against an attack based on Winship and Mullaney, a requirement of New York law that a statutory affirmative defense to the crime of second degree murder be established by the defendant, by a preponderance of the evidence. The attack, essentially, was on any scheme that required the defendant to prove a fact that would lessen or mitigate criminality, that relieved the State of having to negate the existence of that fact beyond a reasonable doubt. Limiting the breadth of Mullaney, the Court declined to adopt as a constitutional imperative “that a State must disprove beyond a reasonable doubt every fact constituting any and all affirmative defenses related to the culpability of an accused,” leaving it, rather, to the State legislatures to allocate the burden of establishing such defenses. Id. at 210, 97 S.Ct. at 2327, 53 L.Ed.2d at 292. The Court concluded that, subject to some undefined Constitutional limits, if the State “chooses to recognize a factor that mitigates the degree of criminality or punishment, we think the State may assure itself that the fact has been established with reasonable certainty.” Id. at 209, 97 S.Ct. at 2326, 53 L.Ed.2d at 291. It declined to read Mullaney as holding “that the State may not permit the blameworthiness of an act or the severity of punishment authorized for its commission to depend on the presence or absence of an identified fact without assuming the burden of proving the presence or absence of that fact ... beyond a reasonable doubt.” Id. at 214-15, 97 S.Ct. at 2329, 53 L.Ed.2d at 294-95.

Patterson was a prelude to McMillan v. Pennsylvania, 477 U.S. 79, 106 S.Ct. 2411, 91 L.Ed.2d 67 (1986), which was cited extensively in Apprendi. In McMillan, the Court found no Constitutional defect in a Pennsylvania statute that subjected a person convicted of certain felonies to a mandatory minimum prison sentence of five years if the sentencing judge found, by a preponderance of evidence, that the defendant “visibly possessed a firearm” during the commission of the offense. McMillan’s argument was that visible possession of a firearm was an element of the offense itself and, under Winship and Mullaney, had to be proved beyond a reasonable doubt.

The statute in question specifically provided that visible possession of a firearm was not an element of the underlying offense, and the Court was content to accept that legislative judgment. The Court noted that the statute before it neither altered the maximum sentence available for the enumerated offenses nor created any separate offense calling for a separate penalty but merely operated “to limit the sentencing court’s discretion in selecting a penalty within the range already available to it without the special finding of visible possession of a firearm” by “raising to five years the minimum sentence which may be imposed within the statutory plan.” Id. at 88, 106 S.Ct. at 2417, 91 L.Ed.2d at 77. Although acknowledging that some States had made possession of a weapon an element of various aggravated offenses, the Court found it permissible for Pennsylvania to adopt a different approach and regard such possession as merely a sentencing factor. Citing Proffitt v. Florida, 428 U.S. 242, 96 S.Ct. 2960, 49 L.Ed.2d 913 (1976), the Court noted that sentencing courts necessarily consider the circumstances of an offense in selecting the appropriate punishment, and that it had “consistently approved sentencing schemes that mandate consideration of facts related to the crime.” McMillan, 477 U.S. at 92, 106 S.Ct. at 2419, 91 L.Ed.2d at 80. On those bases, the Court found no Constitutional violation, either of due process or the Sixth Amendment right to jury trial, in the judge making the requisite finding by a mere preponderance of the evidence. The Court noted, in the course of its opinion, that the law in question did not subject the defendant to any greater punishment than was attached to the offense generally and that McMillan’s claim “would have at least more superficial appeal if a finding of visible possession exposed [him] to greater or additional punishment.” Id. at 88, 106 S.Ct. at 2417, 91 L.Ed.2d at 78.

The next important case in the chain leading to Apprendi is Walton v. Arizona, 497 U.S. 639, 110 S.Ct. 3047, 111 L.Ed.2d 511 (1990), a case of special significance because it did involve an attack on a capital punishment law and was the product of much discussion in the Apprendi opinions. Under Arizona law, after a defendant was convicted of first degree murder, a separate sentencing proceeding was held before a judge to determine whether the sentence should be death or life imprisonment. The judge was directed to determine the existence or non-existence of any of the aggravating or mitigating circumstances set forth in the statute. The burden of proving an aggravating factor was on the State; the burden of proving a mitigating factor was on the defendant. The judge was directed to return a special verdict setting forth his or her findings as to aggravating and mitigating circumstances and then impose a sentence of death if the judge found one or more aggravating circumstances “and that there are no mitigating circumstances sufficiently substantial to call for leniency.” Id. at 644, 110 S.Ct. at 3052, 111 L.Ed.2d at 522. Upon the imposition of the death penalty, the Arizona Supreme Court was required to conduct an independent review of the sentence to ensure that aggravating factors were proven beyond a reasonable doubt and all appropriate mitigation was considered.

Among the arguments made by Walton, who was convicted and sentenced to death pursuant to that procedure, was “that every finding of fact underlying the sentencing decision must be made by a jury, not by a judge.” Id. at 647, 110 S.Ct. at 3054, 111 L.Ed.2d at 524. The Court noted that, in prior decisions, it had “soundly rejected” the argument “that the Constitution requires that a jury impose the sentence of death or make the findings prerequisite to imposition of such a sentence.” Id. (quoting Clemons v. Mississippi, 494 U.S. 738, 745, 110 S.Ct. 1441, 1446, 108 L.Ed.2d 725, 736 (1990) and citing as well Hildwin v. Florida, 490 U.S. 638, 109 S.Ct. 2055, 104 L.Ed.2d 728 (1989), Spaziano v. Florida, 468 U.S. 447, 104 S.Ct. 3154, 82 L.Ed.2d 340 (1984), and Proffitt v. Florida, supra, 428 U.S. 242, 96 S.Ct. 2960, 49 L.Ed.2d 913). The Court found no persuasive distinction between the Florida approach, where the jury merely recommended a sentence to the judge but made no specific factual findings with regard to the existence of aggravating or mitigating circumstances, and the Arizona law. Nor did the Court find merit in Walton’s contention that, under the Arizona approach, aggravating circumstances constituted elements of the offense rather than sentencing considerations. In that regard, the Court iterated its statement from Poland v. Arizona, 476 U.S. 147, 156, 106 S.Ct. 1749, 1755, 90 L.Ed.2d 123, 132-33 (1986):

“Aggravating circumstances are not separate penalties or offenses, but are ‘standards to guide the making of [the] choice’ between the alternative verdicts of death and life imprisonment. Thus, under Arizona’s capital sentencing scheme, the judge’s finding of any particular aggravating circumstance does not of itself ‘convict’ a defendant (i.e., require the death penalty), and the failure to find any particular aggravating circumstance does not ‘acquit’ a defendant (i.e., preclude the death penalty).”

Walton, 497 U.S. at 648, 110 S.Ct. at 3054, 111 L.Ed.2d at 525.

In Almendarez-Torres v. United States, 523 U.S. 224, 118 S.Ct. 1219, 140 L.Ed.2d 350 (1998), the Court considered the interplay between two provisions in a Federal statute — one, 8 U.S.C. § 1326(a), making it a crime, punishable by up to two years in prison, for a deported alien to return to the United States without permission, and another, § 1326(b) authorizing a prison term of 20 years if the deportation followed a conviction for an aggravated felony. The indictment against the defendant referenced § 1326 generally but made no allegation that he had been deported following conviction of an aggravated felony. The issue articulated by the Court was whether § 1326(b), enacted 36 years after § 1326(a), defined a separate crime or simply authorized an enhanced penalty, for, if it defined a separate crime, the element of a prior conviction for aggravated felony would have to be alleged in the indictment. The Court characterized § 1326(b) as a recidivist provision which, in its view, was “as typical a sentencing factor as one might imagine.” Id. at 230, 118 S.Ct. at 1224, 140 L.Ed.2d at 359. As a matter of statutory construction, the Court found, for various reasons, that the intent of Congress was not to make the aggravating factor in § 1326(b) an element of a separate offense.

The Court turned, then, to whether, under Winship and Mullaney, it was an element as a matter of Constitutional law. Winship the Court found irrelevant and, to the extent language in Mullaney might support the defendant’s position, it had been circumscribed in Patterson, which the Court regarded as requiring “scarcely any sentencing factors” to be treated as elements of the offense. Id. at 241, 118 S.Ct. at 1229, 140 L.Ed.2d at 366. Though noting a distinction between the case at hand, where the second statute increased a maximum penalty, and McMillan, where the statute under attack created a mandatory minimum sentence, the Court regarded that distinction as favorable to the defendant and therefore not requiring a different result. In closing, the Court noted that, because the defendant had conceded his prior conviction for an aggravated felony, he made no separate argument concerning the standard of proof applicable to the aggravating factor, and it therefore expressed no view on “whether some heightened standard of proof might apply to sentencing determinations that bear significantly on the severity of sentence.” Id. at 248, 118 S.Ct. at 1233, 140 L.Ed.2d at 371.

The common issue in these cases was whether, from a Constitutional perspective, a fact that, if shown to exist or not exist, might or would increase or decrease either the degree of criminality or punishment, constituted an element of the offense charged. That issue was dealt with in four different, though obviously related, contexts: who had the burden of persuasion in the matter, the standard of proof applicable to establishing the fact, whether a dispute over the fact was for the trier of fact to resolve or could be resolved by the judge alone as a sentencing factor, and whether the fact had to be alleged in the charging document. Those contexts came together in Jones v. United States, 526 U.S. 227, 119 S.Ct. 1215, 143 L.Ed.2d 311 (1999), the most pertinent precursor to Apprendi.

Jones involved the Federal carjacking statute, 18 U.S.C. § 2119, which, in a stem paragraph defined the conduct constituting the offense and then provided, in three further paragraphs, that (1) the offender was subject to imprisonment for up to 15 years, (2) if serious bodily injury resulted, the offender was subject to imprisonment for up to 25 years, and (3) if death resulted, the offender was subject to imprisonment for life. The indictment against Jones mentioned § 2119 generally but did not charge that any serious injury resulted and did not mention § 2119(2). At arraignment, he was told that he faced a penalty of 15 years. A pre-sentence report filed after his conviction recommended a sentence of 25 years because serious injury resulted to one of the victims whereupon, over Jones’s objection, the judge found the existence of serious injury and imposed a sentence of 25 years. The specific issue before the Supreme Court was whether the statute effectively created three separate offenses, thereby making the existence of serious injury or death elements of an offense, or, conversely, those facts were merely sentencing considerations. The Court noted at the outset that “[mjuch turns on the determination that a fact is an element of an offense rather than a sentencing consideration, given that elements must be charged in the indictment, submitted to a jury, and proven by the Government beyond a reasonable doubt.” Id. at 232, 119 S.Ct. at 1219, 143 L.Ed.2d at 319 (emphasis added).

After analyzing the text and structure of the statute and considering both its legislative history and how Congress had treated the consequence of serious injury or death in other statutes, the Court concluded, as a matter of statutory construction, that the intent of Congress was to create separate offenses and not to make serious injury or death merely sentencing considerations. In support of that conclusion, the Court observed that a contrary construction would raise serious Constitutional issues and that it was obliged to construe the statute to avoid that problem.

The significance of Jones, in contrast to Castillo v. United States, 530 U.S. 120, 120 S.Ct. 2090, 147 L.Ed.2d 94 (2000) (reaching a similar conclusion based solely on statutory construction regarding 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1), prohibiting the use of firearms in the commission of a crime of violence), lies in the Court’s explanation of the Constitutional concerns that would flow from regarding the additional facts as simply sentencing considerations. The concern most prominently addressed emanated from the Sixth Amendment right of jury trial. Noting its prior admonitions that there were limits on the State’s (and Congress’s) ability to define facts serving to increase criminality or punishment as sentencing considerations, the Court observed that, if a potential penalty might rise from 15 years to life based on a non-jury determination, the role of the jury would be significantly diminished: “The point is simply that diminishment of the jury’s significance by removing control over facts determining a statutory sentencing range would resonate with the claims of earlier controversies, to raise a genuine Sixth Amendment issue not yet settled.” Jones, 526 U.S. at 248, 119 S.Ct. at 1226, 143 L.Ed.2d at 329 (emphasis added).

The Court’s discussion of Constitutional issues, as noted, was solely in the context of its statutory construction analysis, and it took pains to announce that its decision did “not announce any new principle of constitutional law, but merely interprets a particular federal statute in light of a set of constitutional concerns that have emerged through a series of our decisions over the past quarter century.” Id. at 251 n. 11, 119 S.Ct. at 1228 n. 11, 143 L.Ed.2d at 331 n. 11. It nonetheless restated its view, from the earlier cases, that “under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment and the notice and jury trial guarantees of the Sixth Amendment, any fact (other than prior conviction) that increases the maximum penalty for a crime must be charged in an indictment, submitted to a jury, and proven beyond a reasonable doubt.” Id. at 243 n. 6, 119 S.Ct. at 1224 n. 6, 143 L.Ed.2d at 326 n. 6 (emphasis added).

Having ventured into the Constitutional realm, the Court expressly noted several cases dealing with fact-finding in capital punishment cases that permitted a level of fact-finding to be made by the judge, rather than the jury, but did not regard them as pertinent. In Walton, it said, “[t]he Court ... characterized the finding of aggravating facts falling within the traditional scope of capital sentencing as a choice between a greater and a lesser penalty, not as a process of raising the ceiling of the sentencing range available.” Id. at 251, 119 S.Ct. at 1228, 143 L.Ed.2d at 331 (emphasis added). That point was made as well in the concurring opinions of Justices Stevens and Scalia, both of whom noted their Constitutional concern over removing from the jury the assessment of facts that increase “the prescribed range of penalties to which a criminal defendant is exposed.” Id. at 252, 119 S.Ct. at 1228, 143 L.Ed.2d at 332 (concurring opinion by Stevens, J.) and at 253, 119 S.Ct. at 1229, 143 L.Ed.2d at 332 (concurring opinion by Scalia, J.).

This brings us to Apprendi, in which the defendant was convicted, on a plea of guilty, of using a firearm for an unlawful purpose, a second-degree offense under New Jersey law that carried a sentence range of five to ten years in prison. There was evidence, which Apprendi disputed, that his offense was racially motivated — that he fired shots into the home of an African-American family because he did not want them as neighbors. New Jersey had a separate “hate crime” statute that increased the punishment for a second-degree offense to a prison term of 10 to 20 years if the judge found, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the defendant committed the underlying offense with a purpose to intimidate an individual or group because of race, color, gender, handicap, religion, sexual orientation, or ethnicity. Apprendi was not charged under the hate crime law, and, though pleading guilty to the underlying offense, he objected to the sentence enhancement under that law. The judge rejected the challenge and sentenced Apprendi to 12 years.

The Supreme Court believed that the case was controlled by the footnote statement made in Jones — that under the 14th Amendment (as under the Fifth and Sixth, which applied to the Federal prosecution in Jones) “any fact (other than prior conviction) that increases the maximum penalty for a crime must be charged in an indictment, submitted to a jury, and proven beyond a reasonable doubt.” Apprendi, 530 U.S. at 476, 120 S.Ct. at 2355, 147 L.Ed.2d at 446 (quoting from Jones, 526 U.S. at 243 n. 6, 119 S.Ct. at 1224 n. 6, 143 L.Ed.2d at 326 n. 6). Consistently with that statement, it announced its holding:

“Other than the fact of a prior conviction, any fact that increases the penalty for a crime beyond the prescribed statutory maximum must be submitted to a jury, and proved beyond a reasonable doubt. With that exception, we endorse the statement of the rule set forth in the concurring opinions in [Jones ]: ‘[I]t is unconstitutional for a legislature to remove from the jury the assessment of facts that increase the prescribed range of penalties to which a criminal defendant is exposed. It is equally clear that such facts must be established by proof beyond a reasonable doubt.’ 526 U.S. at 252-53, 119 S.Ct. 1215 (opinion of Stevens, J.); see also 526 U.S. at 253, 119 S.Ct. 1215 (opinion of Scalia, J.).”

Apprendi, 530 U.S. at 490, 120 S.Ct. at 2362-63, 147 L.Ed.2d at 455 (emphasis added).

Against that standard, the Court determined that the enhanced penalty imposed by the hate crime statute was not merely a sentencing consideration but effectively “tum[ed] a second-degree offense into a first-degree offense, under the State’s own criminal code” (id. at 494, 120 S.Ct. at 2365, 147 L.Ed.2d at 457) and therefore constituted “an unacceptable departure from the jury tradition that is an indispensable part of our criminal justice system.” Id. at 497, 120 S.Ct. at 2366, 147 L.Ed.2d at 459. The Court made clear, however, that it was not impermissible “for judges to exercise discretion— taking into consideration various factors relating both to offense and offender — in imposing a judgment within the range prescribed by statute” and noted that judges have long “exercised discretion of this nature in imposing sentence within statutory limits in the individual case.” Id. at 481, 120 S.Ct. at 2358, 147 L.Ed.2d at 449 (emphasis in original).

The impact of the argument made by Apprendi on capital sentencing laws — at least those that allow the judge to determine and weigh aggravating and mitigating factors — -was clearly of concern to both the litigants and the Court. Amicus briefs filed by the United States and the Anti Defamation League cited Walton and the cases approving the Florida capital punishment scheme as authority for treating the racial motive as a sentencing consideration properly determined by a judge, and the issue was raised by several of the Justices at oral argument.

In response, the Court, citing Walton, expressly noted in its opinion that it “has previously considered and rejected the argument that the principles guiding our decision today render invalid state capital sentencing schemes requiring judges, after a jury verdict holding a defendant guilty of a capital crime, to find specific aggravating factors before imposing a sentence of death.” Id. at 496, 120 S.Ct. at 2366, 147 L.Ed.2d at 459. In explanation of why the capital cases were not controlling on the issue before it, the Court, quoting from the dissenting opinion filed by Justice Scalia in AlmendarezTorres v. United States, supra, 523 U.S. at 257 n. 2, 118 S.Ct. at 1237 n. 2, 140 L.Ed.2d at 377 n. 2, stated that those cases do not permit a judge “to determine the existence of a factor which makes a crime a capital offense” but hold only that “once a jury has found the defendant guilty of all the elements of an offense which carries as its maximum penalty the sentence of death, it may be left to the judge to decide whether that maximum penalty, rather than a lesser one, ought to be imposed.” Apprendi 530 U.S. at 497, 120 S.Ct. at 2366, 147 L.Ed.2d at 459.

(3) Post-Apprendi Cases

Not surprisingly, despite the Supreme Court’s unambiguous attempt to distance its death penalty jurisprudence from the rulings enunciated in Jones and Apprendi, efforts have been made throughout the country to use those cases — Apprendi in particular — to impale capital punishment laws. All such efforts, to date, have been unsuccessful.

In Burch v. Corcoran, 273 F.3d 577 (4th Cir.2001), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit had before it the very issue raised here by Borchardt — whether the preponderance of evidence standard mandated by § 413(h) for the weighing process made the Maryland capital sentencing procedure invalid under Apprendi. Although the court held that Burch’s failure to raise that issue in earlier State proceedings precluded consideration of it by the Federal court in a habeas corpus action, the court made clear that,

“[e]ven if we could address the merits of Burch’s claim that Apprendi renders Maryland’s capital punishment sentencing provisions unconstitutional, his contention would fail. In explaining the basis and reach of Apprendi, Justice Stevens rejected the notion that Apprendi rendered state death-penalty statutes unconstitutional [citation omitted].

Burch was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder at the guilt phase of his state court trial in Maryland. Each element of those capital crimes was proven tó the jury beyond a reasonable doubt. When the sentencing jury, pursuant to the provisions of section 413(h) of the Maryland Code, determined by a preponderance of the evidence that the aggravating circumstances outweighed the mitigating circumstances and that therefore a death sentence was warranted, it was simply selecting the appropriate sentence from a range of penalties that already included the death penalty. As such, Burch’s sentence of death did not violate Apprendi because every fact necessary to the capital murder charges already had been ‘submitted to a jury, and proved beyond a reasonable doubt.’ ”

Id. at 584 n. 6 (quoting Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466, 490, 120 S.Ct. 2348, 2363, 147 L.Ed.2d 435, 455 (2000)).

In State v. Hoskins, 199 Ariz. 127, 14 P.3d 997 (2000), cert. denied, — U.S.-, 122 S.Ct. 386, 151 L.Ed.2d 294 (2001), the defendant contended that the Arizona death penalty law was unconstitutional because it eliminated jury consideration in the sentencing process. The court dismissed the challenge on the basis of Walton. It indicated its awareness of Appren-di, Castillo, and Jones, but observed that none of them involved capital punishment and concluded that it would continue to follow Walton until such time as the Supreme Court expressly overruled it. See also State v. Ring, 200 Ariz. 267, 25 P.3d 1139, 1150-52 (2001), petition for cert. filed, Sept. 18, 2001 (holding to the same effect); People v. Ochoa, 26 Cal.4th 398, 110 Cal.Rptr.2d 324, 28 P.3d 78, 86-87 (2001) (applying Walton and specifically rejecting application of Apprendi in capital cases). In People v. Anderson, 25 Cal.4th 543, 106 Cal.Rptr.2d 575, 22 P.3d 347 (2001), the defendant made two complaints implicating Apprendi, one being precisely the argument made here by Borchardt. Anderson argued that the California death penalty law was unconstitutional because it did not require “(3) findings that aggravation outweighs mitigation beyond a reasonable doubt, or (4) findings that death is the appropriate penalty beyond a reasonable doubt.” Id. 106 Cal.Rptr.2d 575, 22 P.3d at 386. Though clearly aware of Apprendi, the court rejected that challenge based on its earlier case law. Anderson also complained that the trial court failed, sua sponte, to instruct the jury on the substance of the crimes of murder and robbery, used as an- aggravating factor. The court found no merit in that argument either, noting that it was not persuaded otherwise by Apprendi. In that regard, it concluded:

“[Ujnder the California death penalty scheme, once the defendant has been convicted of first degree murder and one or more special circumstances has been found true beyond a reasonable doubt, death is no more than the prescribed statutory maximum for the offense; the only alternative is life imprisonment without possibility of parole .... Hence, facts which bear upon, but do not necessarily determine, which of these two alternative penalties is appropriate do not come within the holding of Apprendi.”

Id. 106 Cal.Rptr.2d 575, 22 P.3d at 378 n. 14 (citation omitted).

In Weeks v. State, 761 A.2d 804 (Del.2000), the defendant, in a post conviction proceeding, claimed that Delaware’s capital punishment law was unconstitutional under Apprendi because it allowed the judge to find a statutory aggravating factor •without being bound by a jury verdict on allegedly underlying issues of fact. Quoting from Apprendi, itself, the court responded that it was “not persuaded that Apprendi’s reach extends to ‘state capital sentencing schemes’ in which judges are required to find ‘specific aggravating factors before imposing a sentence of death.’ ” Weeks, 761 A.2d at 806 (quoting Apprendi, 530 U.S. at 496, 120 S.Ct. at 2366, 147 L.Ed.2d at 459).

A similar holding was made in Mills v. Moore, 786 So.2d 532 (Fla.), cert. denied, 532 U.S. 1015, 121 S.Ct. 1752, 149 L.Ed.2d 673 (2001). There, too, a defendant who received the death penalty challenged, in a habeas corpus proceeding, the constitutionality of the Florida statute to the extent that it allowed a judge to find specific aggravating factors. The court observed that “[n]o court has extended Apprendi to capital sentencing schemes, and the plain language of Apprendi indicates that the case is not intended to apply to capital schemes.” Id. at 537. Relying on comments made in Justice O’Connor’s dissenting opinion and Justice Thomas’s concurring opinion in Apprendi, Mills urged that Apprendi had, indeed, overruled Walton, to which the Florida court responded that the majority had not overruled Walton and, citing Agostini v. Felton, 521 U.S. 203, 237, 117 S.Ct. 1997, 2017, 138 L.Ed.2d 391, 423 (1997), made clear that it was not for the Florida court to do so. The court held that the majority opinion in Apprendi “preserves the constitutionality of capital sentencing schemes like Florida’s.” Mills, 786 So.2d at 537.

In North Carolina, the State is not obliged to inform the defendant prior to trial of the aggravating circumstances upon which it intends to rely. In State v. Golphin, 352 N.C. 364, 533 S.E.2d 168 (2000), cert. denied, 532 U.S. 931, 121 S.Ct. 1379, 149 L.Ed.2d 305 and 532 U.S. 931, 121 S.Ct. 1380, 149 L.Ed.2d 305 (2001), a defendant sentenced to death complained that the failure to allege those aggravating factors in the indictment made the law unconstitutional under Apprendi. The court rejected that complaint, holding that Apprendi did not affect its prior holdings that those factors did not need to be alleged in the indictment. See also State v. Braxton, 352 N.C. 158, 531 S.E.2d 428, 438 (2000), cert. denied, 531 U.S. 1130, 121 S.Ct. 890, 148 L.Ed.2d 797 (2001) (rejecting argument that short-form indictment for murder authorized under North Carolina law was unconstitutional under Apprendi and Jones because it did not specifically allege premeditation, deliberation, and intent to kill), and State v. King, 353 N.C. 457, 546 S.E.2d 575, 585 (2001) (same).

The Missouri Supreme Court rejected an Apprendi challenge in State v. Storey, 40 S.W.3d 898 (Mo.), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 122 S.Ct. 272, 151 L.Ed.2d 199 (2001). Storey, whose previous death sentences had been set aside, averred that, in one of the earlier proceedings, the jury had failed to find the aggravating factor that the murder was committed for pecuniary gain, and he complained, on double jeopardy grounds, about the submission of that factor in the proceeding on remand. Although in Poland v. Arizona, supra, 476 U.S. 147, 106 S.Ct. 1749, 90 L.Ed.2d 123, the Supreme Court had rejected that kind of argument, Storey contended that Jones and Apprendi suggested that the Court had begun to reexamine the application of double jeopardy to sentencing. The court disposed of that argument with the statement that “[t]o the contrary, the Apprendi Court specifically rejected the contention that its ruling had any effect on the finding of aggravating factors in capital cases.” Id. at 915. Accord People v. Ochoa, supra, 110 Cal.Rptr.2d 324, 28 P.3d at 86-87.

Several Federal courts have reached a similar conclusion. In United States v. Allen, 247 F.3d 741, 759 n. 5 (8th Cir.2001), the court rejected a number of Apprendi challenges to the Federal Death Penalty Act, including complaints that statutory and non-statutory aggravating factors should have been presented to the grand jury and alleged in the indictment. The court’s response was that those aggravating factors were not elements of the offense and did not serve to increase the penalty beyond the statutory maximum. See also United States v. Bin Laden, 126 F.Supp.2d 290, 296 n. 6 (S.D.N.Y. 2001) and United States v. Nichols, 132 F.Supp.2d 931 (D.Colo.), aff'd by unreported opinion, No. 99-1438, 2000 WL 1846225, 2000 U.S.App. Lexis 33183 (10th Cir.), cert. denied, 532 U.S. 985, 121 S.Ct. 1632, 149 L.Ed.2d 493 (2001).

The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in a Federal habeas corpus proceeding, dealt with the same issue presented to the Florida court in Mills v. Moore, supra, 786 So.2d 532, and arrived at the same conclusion — that the Idaho capital punishment law was not unconstitutional under Apprendi because it allowed the judge to determine the existence of aggravating circumstances. See Hoffman v. Arave, 236 F.3d 523 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, -U.S.-, 122 S.Ct. 323, 151 L.Ed.2d 241 (2001). Though noting the Apprendi dissenters’ concern that the ruling may have implicitly overruled Walton, the court observed that “[t]he Supreme Court has specifically directed lower courts to ‘leav[e] to this Court the prerogative of overruling its own decisions’ ” and that it was not the court of appeals’s place “to engage in anticipatory overruling.” Id. at 542 (quoting Agostini v. Felton, supra, 521 U.S. 203, 237, 117 S.Ct. 1997, 2017, 138 L.Ed.2d 391, 423).

In the face of this solid block of cases, from six State Supreme Courts and three Federal appellate courts, Bor-chardt urges us to follow the decision of an intermediate appellate court panel in Illinois that did not involve the death penalty. In People v. Nitz, 319 Ill.App.3d 949, 254 Ill.Dec. 281, 747 N.E.2d 38 (2001), the defendant was charged with non-capital murder under a statute that provided a maximum penalty of 60 years in prison unless the judge found that the killing was accompanied by brutal or heinous behavior, in which event, the maximum penalty was life imprisonment. The trial judge found that circumstance to exist and imposed a life sentence. Holding that the judge’s factual finding “expose[d] Nitz to a greater punishment than that authorized by the jury’s guilty verdict,” the appellate court found the sentence invalid under Apprendi and modified it to 60 years. Id. 254 Ill.Dec. 281, 747 N.E.2d at 54. But see People v. Ford, 198 Ill.2d 68, 260 Ill.Dec. 552, 761 N.E.2d 735 (2001) (upholding enhanced sentence of 100 years based on finding by sentencing judge, on a standard less than beyond a reasonable doubt, that murder was accompanied by wanton cruelty). Apart from the non-pertinence of Nitz to the issue before us, it appears that the question addressed in that case may have been resolved in a different way by the Illinois Supreme Court.³

(3) Analysis

The issue of whether § 413(h) violates due process by excusing the State from the burden of proving, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the aggravating circumstances found by the jury outweigh any mitigating circumstances it finds to exist has been resolved by this Court on numerous occasions, beginning with Tichnell v. State, 287 Md. 695, 729-34, 415 A.2d 830, 848-50 (1980), and ending, most recently, in Ware v. State, 360 Md. 650, 712-13, 759 A.2d 764, 797 (2000), cert. denied, 531 U.S. 1115, 121 S.Ct. 864, 148 L.Ed.2d 776 (2001). We have consistently found no due process violation in the provision directing that the weighing process be based on a preponderance of the evidence. That is the scheme ordained by the Legislature, and we have declared, at least 12 times, that it complies with the requirements of due process. The only question is whether Apprendi sub silentio overturns all of those rulings and requires a different result.

Perhaps the easiest answer lies in the unequivocal statement by the Apprendi majority that its decision did not render invalid State capital sentencing schemes, such as approved in Walton, that allowed the judge, not sitting as the trier of fact, to find and weigh specific aggravating factors. If it is permissible under Apprendi for the law to remove that fact-finding and fact-weighing process entirely from the jury and leave it to the judge as a legitimate sentencing factor, without specifying a reasonable doubt standard, it can hardly be impermissible for a jury that has found the prerequisite aggravating factors beyond a reasonable doubt to apply a preponderance standard in weighing them against any mitigating circumstances. The Walton scheme, in other words, is in far greater direct conflict with the underpinning of Apprendi than the Maryland approach. Thus, if the aggravating circumstances do not constitute elements of the offense or serve to increase the maximum punishment for the offense in the Walton context, they cannot reasonably be found to have that status under the Maryland law. If Apprendi renders the Maryland law unconstitutional, then, perforce, it likely renders most of the capital punishment laws in the country unconstitutional.4 We cannot conceive that the Supreme Court, especially in light of its contrary statement, intended such a dramatic result to flow from a case that did not even involve a capital punishment law.⁵

Beyond that simple comparative, it is clear to us for more basic reasons that the Maryland scheme does not run afoul of Apprendi. The actual holding in Apprendi, based on Jones and applying the principles of Winship, Mullaney, and the other cases noted above, is that “[o]ther than the fact of a prior conviction, any fact that increases the penalty for a crime beyond the prescribed statutory maximum must be submitted to a jury, and proved beyond a reasonable doubt.” Apprendi supra, 530 U.S. at 490, 120 S.Ct. at 2362-63, 147 L.Ed.2d at 455 (emphasis added). Although not involved in Apprendi, it would seem clear from Jones and Almendarez-Torres that, if the fact in issue falls within that ambit, it also must be alleged with some particularity in the indictment.

As noted, Maryland law makes death the maximum penalty for first degree murder. Under § 412(b), death is the high end of the statutory range that has life imprisonment as the low end and life imprisonment without possibility of parole as the median. Neither the existence of an aggravating circumstance, nor the absence of any mitigating circumstances, nor the jury’s determination that the aggravating circumstance(s) it has found to exist outweighs any mitigating circumstances, serves to increase in any way “the prescribed statutory maximum” or, indeed, the statutory range. The existence of those circumstances and the relative weight to be given to them are nothing more than standards that, pursuant to Supreme Court mandate, the Legislature has required to be applied in determining which sentence within the statutory range is to be imposed.

Citing Johnson v. State, 362 Md. 525, 766 A.2d 93 (2001), a case never mentioned by Borchardt, notwithstanding that it was filed three months before oral argument in this case, the dissent urges that life without parole and death are, indeed, “enhanced” sentences and therefore must follow at least some of Apprendi’s dictates. Borchardt was quite correct in ignoring Johnson, for it has nothing whatever to do with the matter before us. The issue in Johnson was whether life without parole was a permissible sentence for one convicted of conspiracy to commit first degree murder. Under Maryland Code, Article 27, § 38, a sentence for conspiracy may not exceed “the maximum punishment provided for the offense he or she conspired to commit.” Johnson claimed that, for purposes of § 38, the maximum punishment was life imprisonment, and we agreed with him.

The issue was purely one of statutory construction — whether the Legislature could possibly have intended to make life without parole an available sentence upon a conviction of conspiracy — and we found nothing in the language or the legislative history of either § 38 or of § 412(b), authorizing the life without parole sentence upon a conviction for first degree murder, to indicate such an intent. Until amended in 1961, § 38 authorized a maximum sentence of 10 years for conspiracy, which allowed a longer sentence for that crime than for many of the substantive crimes that could be the subject of a conspiracy, and it was to correct that problem, we said, that the Legislature tied the maximum sentence for conspiracy to that provided for the substantive offense. At the time, life without parole was not an available sentence for first degree murder, or for any other crime. In subsequently providing for life without parole upon a conviction of first degree murder, the Legislature made clear that that penalty was needed as “a sentencing option” — not, incidentally, as an element of the offense, “in first degree murder cases.” Johnson, 362 Md. at 534, 766 A.2d at 98.

Noting that the greater sentences of life without parole and death “cannot be imposed unless certain special conditions are met,” id. at 529, 766 A.2d at 95, we characterized those sentences as “enhanced” sentences for first degree murder and concluded, on the basis of well-established Maryland law that, “for purposes of this limitation on the sentences for conspiracy and attempt, the reference to the maximum sentence for substantive or target offenses means the basic maximum sentence and does not include any enhanced penalty provisions.” Id. at 530, 766 A.2d at 96.

The dissent seizes on that characterization of life without parole and death as “enhanced” punishments as a basis for applying Apprendi, ignoring, of course, the entirely different context in which the statement was made, the clearly stated view of the Apprendi majority that their decision did not affect death penalty statutes, the unanimous view of all post-Apprendi courts to that same effect, and, indeed, the language in the Apprendi opinion itself. Life without parole and death obviously are enhanced punishments, just as, in sentencing for any crime, the highest penalty allowed is an enhancement over a lesser penalty allowed — 20 years is an enhancement over 10 years, one year is an enhancement over a fine or probation. The point missed by the dissent is that both life without parole and death are part of the sentencing range authorized by the Legislature for the crime of first degree murder. Unlike the situation in Apprendi, the death sentence is not in excess of the maximum statutory penalty for the offense. We made clear in Gary v. State, 341 Md. 513, 517-18, 671 A.2d 495, 497 (1996), cited in Johnson, that “a sentence of life imprisonment for conspiracy to commit first degree murder is the lowest of the statutory penalties for first degree murder.” (Emphasis added). The dissent turns Gary on its head by effectively treating life imprisonment not just as the lowest of the statutory penalties for first degree murder, but also as the highest. Under Johnson and Gary, life without parole and death are within the range of penalties allowed by the Legislature upon a conviction for first degree murder.

That is precisely the point made by the Apprendi majority in quoting from Justice Scalia’s dissent in Almendarez-Torres — that once the jury has found the defendant guilty of all of the elements of an offense that carries as its maximum penalty the sentence of death, the determination of whether to impose that penalty, as opposed to a lesser one also within the statutory range, is properly a sentencing factor-not subject to the Apprendi strictures. It follows as well from the concepts and holdings in Winship (requiring “every fact necessary to constitute the crime with which [the defendant] is charged” to be proved by the State beyond a reasonable doubt, to reduce the risk of “convictions resting on factual errors”), Mullaney (expressing concern over States redefining elements that constitute different crimes as factors bearing only on punishment), Patterson (allowing State to permit severity of punishment authorized for an offense to depend on identified facts without assuming burden of proving presence or absence of those facts beyond reasonable doubt), and, of course, Jones.

Although the dissenters in Apprendi perhaps had some reason for concern as to whether a Walton-type scheme might be jeopardized, in the sense that the determination of whether aggravating or mitigating circumstances exist is in the nature of a fact-finding process, in which the ultimate determination must be based on evidence, it is a stretch to apply that concern, as Borchardt and the dissent would do, to the weighing process provided for in § 413(h). Notwithstanding the language in § 414(e)(3) directing this Court, on appellate review, to determine whether “the evidence supports the jury’s ... finding that the aggravating circumstances outweigh the mitigating circumstances,” the weighing process is not a fact-finding one based on evidence. Mitigating circumstances do not negate aggravating circumstances, as alibi negates criminal agency or hot blood negates malice. The statutory circumstances specified or allowed under § 413(d) and (g) are entirely independent ff’om one another — the existence of one in no way confirms or detracts from another. The weighing process is purely a judgmental one, of balancing the mitigator(s) against the aggravator(s) to determine whether death is the appropriate punishment in the particular case. This is a process that not only traditionally, but quintessentially, is a pure and Constitutionally legitimate sentencing factor, one that does not require a determination to be made beyond a reasonable doubt. See Gerlaugh v. Lewis, 898 F.Supp. 1388, 1421-22 (D.Ariz.1995), aff'd, 129 F.3d 1027 (9th Cir.1997), cert. denied, 525 U.S. 903, 119 S.Ct. 237, 142 L.Ed.2d 195 (1998) (Constitution does not require weighing beyond a reasonable doubt); State v. Sivak, 105 Idaho 900, 674 P.2d 396 (1983), cert. denied, 468 U.S. 1220, 104 S.Ct. 3591, 82 L.Ed.2d 887 (1984); Miller v. State, 623 N.E.2d 403, 409 (Ind.1993) (weighing is a balancing process, not a fact to be proven; reasonable doubt standard does not apply).

The incongruity of applying Apprendi to this process is particularly apparent with respect to the requirement that, if the determination that aggravating circumstances outweigh mitigating circumstances is treated as an element that must be proved by the State beyond a reasonable doubt, it also must be sufficiently alleged in the indictment. Borchardt has made that argument under both Federal due process and Article 21 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights. No case, to our knowledge, has required that aggravating circumstances, mitigating circumstances, or a weighing of them be set forth in the indictment, yet, if Apprendi and Jones are applicable, that clearly would be so under Federal due process and likely would be so as well under Article 21.⁶

Maryland law, as noted, requires that the State give advance written notice of the aggravating factors upon which it intends to rely, and that, of course, is possible for the State to do. It is quite impossible, however, other than in a blanket and meaningless denial, for the State to negate the existence in an indictment of all possible mitigating circumstances, which the defendant has the burden at trial of identifying and establishing, especially in light of the fact that, under § 413(g)(8), a mitigating circumstance can be anything any juror finds appropriate. How can the State effectively charge, in the indictment, that the aggravating circumstances it alleges outweighs any mitigating circumstances if it is impossible at that point to know what mitigating circumstances the jury might find to exist?

As individual judges, we might well entertain the personal belief that it would be more fair, or better public policy, for the jury to apply a reasonable doubt standard in determining that aggravating circumstances outweigh mitigators — to be that convinced before sentencing a person to death. That is a judgment for the Legislature to make, however, and, unlike its counterparts in other States, which have legislatively imposed a reasonable doubt standard, the Maryland General Assembly has chosen a different approach — one that we have consistently upheld as Constitutional. To apply Apprendi as Borchardt urges would be nothing less than a substitution of our judgment of what the law ought to be for what the Legislature has said it is. That is not our function.

Prior Consistent Statement of Tammy Ent

Borchardt’s son testified as a State’s witness. He stated that, on the day of the murders, he and Tammy Ent, his then-girlfriend, were living in a two-bedroom apartment with his father and Jeanne Cascio. That evening, Borchardt said that he had got some “bad stuff,” meaning heroin, and that he and Cascio had to go out “and hustle money for some more.” When they returned about 20 minutes later, the son saw Cascio bandaging his father’s finger and Borchardt said to him that he and Cascio would have to leave for a while because he “had to stab a couple of people.” Borchardt also instructed his son that “[i]f anybody comes looking for me, tell uhm you haven’t seen me for a week.”

When asked what Borchardt and Cascio were wearing when they first left the apartment to hustle money, the son said that he could not remember. On cross-examination, the son acknowledged that, in a statement he had given to the police, he said that his father had worn a black leather jacket. Bor-chardt was wearing a black leather jacket when he was arrested the next day.

The next witness was Tammy Ent. She confirmed the living arrangements, that Borchardt and Cascio left the apartment and returned together, and that, upon their return, she heard Borchardt tell his son that “if anybody came looking for him, they hadn’t been there in a week.” On direct examination, she said that, when they left again, Cascio was wearing black leggings, a red sweater, and a black wool sport coat with white speckles, and that Borchardt had on jeans, a short-sleeve button-up shirt, and a leather coat. She said that he “could have” been wearing a red, white, and blue windbreaker that she identified. She also identified a sweater and leggings that she said Cascio was wearing.

On cross-examination, Ent said that she did not recall the color of Cascio’s jeans or of Borchardt’s shirt, although she thought it was blue. Counsel called her attention to a statement she had given to the police the day after the murders, in which she said that Borchardt was wearing a red and white shirt. She admitted that she had not actually seen Borchardt wearing the red, white, and blue windbreaker and that she had told the police he was wearing a black leather jacket. On redirect examination, Ms. Ent identified the statement she gave to the police and acknowledged that her memory was better when she gave that statement than it was on the day of trial. At that point, over a general objection, the full statement was admitted into evidence and read to the jury. Included in that document, in addition to her description of the clothing worn by Cascio and Borchardt, was the statement that, after Borchardt and Cascio left the second time, the son told her that Borchardt and Cascio were leaving for a few days and that, when she asked why, “he told me that his father had stabbed one or more people, possibly killed them,” and, when she again asked why, “he said probably to get a drug.”

Borchardt regards that part of the written statement as inadmissible and “grossly prejudicial” hearsay that warrants a reversal of the judgments against him. The statement was multiple hearsay — the witness’s recounting of what her boyfriend told her his father had told him — and was collateral to the matter brought up on cross-examination, which dealt only with the clothes Borchardt and Cascio were wearing. Although acknowledging the dreadfully inculpatory statement Borchardt himself gave to the police, he urges that the voluntariness of that statement was contested and that Ms. Ent’s statement could not, therefore, be regarded as harmless error. The State contends that the issue was not preserved, that the statement was admissible as a prior consistent statement, and that any error was, indeed, harmless.

We believe that the issue was preserved by the general objection, that the challenged part of the statement, on its face, was double-level hearsay and, as such, was inadmissible, and that it was not rendered admissible as a prior consistent statement offered to rehabilitate the witness following impeachment. Without belaboring the matter, it is not at all clear that Ms. Ent was impeached, and thus in need of rehabilitation, by anything she said on cross-examination. We are unable to find anything she said on cross-examination that was substantially inconsistent with her direct testimony or that otherwise put her credibility into doubt. Even if there was some impeachment regarding the clothes she saw Borchardt and Cascio wearing, her statement regarding what the son told her had utterly no relevance to that issue and had no rehabilitative value whatever.

The admission of that one passage in the police statement was error, but, on this record, it was, beyond any reasonable doubt, harmless. See Dorsey v. State, 276 Md. 638, 350 A.2d 665 (1976). Apart from Borchardt’s own statement that was in evidence, in which he admitted not only the stabbings but having told his son that he “had done something stupid and stabbed somebody,” Ms. Ent’s recitation of what Borchardt’s son told her came immediately after the same testimony, without objection, was given from the son, whom Borchardt made no attempt to impeach. Coupled with the overwhelming physical evidence tying Borchardt to the killings, this one corroborative hearsay statement from Ms. Ent could not possibly have influenced the verdicts.

Other Crimes Evidence

Borchardt complains about the admission, during both his trial as to guilt or innocence and at the sentencing proceeding, of part of the statement he gave to the police following his arrest and about two other statements attributed to him — one relayed by officials at the Baltimore County Detention Center and the other by his son and former wife — that were included in the pre-sentence investigation report presented at his sentencing hearing. All three statements, he avers, constituted inadmissible “other crimes” evidence, the prejudice of which outweighed any probative value they might have. The State responds that these complaints were not properly preserved and that, in any event, they have no merit.

The first statement came into evidence through the testimony of Detective West who, after giving Borchardt his Miranda warnings, took a statement from him, in which Borchardt described in some detail how he had killed the Ohlers. The statement was dictated by Borchardt and written down by Detective Landsman, following which Borchardt reviewed the document and signed and dated each page. After reading the statement into evidence, Detective West was asked whether Borchardt said anything else that evening, to which, over objection, West responded:

“Mr. Borchardt told us that he has a taste of blood now and he wants to keep killing, whether it be inside or outside of jail. For the past several weeks he’s been wanting to hurt somebody. He had his friend, Paul ... sharpen his knife.”

Borchardt had moved, unsuccessfully, to suppress his entire statement to the police, including this passage, on the ground that it was involuntary, and, when this additional response was presented at trial, he made a general objection to it. The State’s non-preservation argument is based on Borchardt’s omission to make a specific objection that the challenged passage constitutes impermissible other crimes evidence. We believe that the issue was preserved.⁷

There was, however, no error. For one thing, the passage in question did not constitute “other crimes” evidence. The rule invoked by Borchardt is that “[generally, ‘evidence of a defendant’s prior criminal acts may not be introduced to prove that he is guilty of the offense for which he is on trial.’ ” State v. Faulkner, 314 Md. 630, 633, 552 A.2d 896, 897 (1989) (quoting Straughn v. State, 297 Md. 329, 333, 465 A.2d 1166, 1168 (1983)). The challenged passage did not implicate Borchardt in the commission of any crime other than the one for which he was then on trial.

Borchardt cites Snyder v. State, 361 Md. 580, 762 A.2d 125 (2000) in support of his complaint, and, to that extent, it would appear that he is seeking to invoke the declaration of Md. Rule 5-404(b) that “[ejvidence of other crimes, wrongs, or acts is not admissible to prove the character of a person in order to show action in conformity therewith,” coupled with the provisions of Md. Rules 5-403 that allow a trial judge to exclude relevant evidence if its probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice. He contends that the statement was not relevant to guilt but went only to propensity and that, even if there was “marginal relevance” to the evidence, its prejudicial effect outweighed any probative value. That also avails him naught. To the extent that the challenged passage even falls within the ambit of Rule 5-404(b), it was part of his confession to the crime. The last sentence of the statement, about having wanted to hurt someone and having had his knife sharpened, was clearly relevant to the issues of premeditation and deliberation. The first sentence was also directly relevant to his criminal agency — the blood that he tasted was that of the Ohlers. The statement was, therefore, relevant to his guilt and was properly admitted.

Over a general objection, all evidence presented at the guilt-innocence trial was admitted, in bulk, at the sentencing proceeding, including that part of his statement to the police. The only complaint Borchardt makes in that regard is that the admission of the statement at the guilt-innocence stage “also infected the sentencing hearing.” He does not tell us, and we are unable to discern, how it “infected” the sentencing proceeding. Certainly, the statement that Borchardt had tasted blood and would kill again is highly relevant to (1) whether Borchardt was a principal in the first degree, and (2) the mitigating circumstance under § 413(g)(7) of whether he was likely to engage in further criminal activity that would constitute a continuing threat to society.

Also admitted at the sentencing proceeding was a pre-sentence investigation report prepared by the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services Division of Parole and Probation. Such a report, by statute, is admissible. See § 413(c)(l)(iv). Included in the report, under the part dealing with Institutional History, was the following note pertaining to Borchardt’s stay at the Baltimore County Detention Center:

“1/11/99 Incident Report reveals that, while being moved to suicide watch on 2-C, the defendant threatened nurse Linda Keyser, telling her he would cut out her eyes and her heart if he got the chance. He also reported he would look her up in the phone book and kill her. This incident reportedly occurred after he refused to take his insulin. As a result of the incident, he was placed in a restraint chair, due to lack of space. Found guilty of the charges, he was issued a verbal warning.”

Under the part dealing with Personal History was a report from Borchardt’s former wife that “he was making threatening comments should he not get his girlfriend’s furniture,” and a report from his son about similar threats regarding the furniture, including a threat to send some one over “to fuck us up because we did him wrong.”

Borchardt complains that these notes also constitute inadmissible “other crimes” evidence that were grossly prejudicial to him. Even assuming that they do constitute “other crimes” evidence, which is not at all clear, they were directly relevant to the issues then before the jury. When so relevant, other crimes evidence, bad act evidence, and evidence of a defendant’s institutional adjustment are generally admissible in a capital sentencing proceeding. See Hunt v. State, 321 Md. 387, 431-33, 583 A.2d 218, 239-40 (1990); Conyers v. State, 354 Md. 132, 182-83, 729 A.2d 910, 937, cert. denied, 528 U.S. 910, 120 S.Ct. 258, 145 L.Ed.2d 216 (1999).

Adequacy of Voir Dire Examination

The voir dire examination of prospective jurors was conducted in two phases. After certain introductory comments, the court first asked the entire panel a series of questions designed to elicit ability to serve and bias. No complaint is made about that part of the process. Following that group examination, the court asked each remaining prospective juror, individually, five questions regarding his or her views about capital punishment:

(1) whether the juror had strong feelings either that the death penalty should be imposed in every case of first degree murder, regardless of the facts and circumstances, or that it should never be imposed regardless of the facts and circumstances;

(2) whether any feelings that the juror had about the death penalty would prevent or substantially impair him or her from making an impartial decision about Borchardt’s guilt or innocence;

(3) whether any such feelings would prevent or substantially impair the juror in sentencing Borchardt in accordance with the evidence and the law;

(4) whether, after listening to the evidence and applying the law, if convinced that the appropriate sentence should be death, the juror would be able to vote for the death penalty; and

(5) whether, after listening to the evidence and applying the law, if not convinced that the appropriate sentence should be death but convinced that the appropriate sentence should be life imprisonment, the juror would vote for life imprisonment.

If any juror, in response to those questions, expressed a position about the death penalty, one way or the other, individual follow-up questions were allowed.

Defense counsel had prepared a far more extensive list of voir dire questions, including 43, some of which were multi-part, dealing with the death penalty. Some of those questions were included in the ones asked by the court; many were not. Borchardt complains about some of the ones that were not asked, in particular those that informed the jurors, in some detail, of the various aggravating and mitigating factors, and asked whether, as to each statutory mitigating circumstance and as to eight possible non-statutory mitigating circumstances, the juror would be able to follow the court’s instruction and consider and weigh such a factor. We shall not lengthen this opinion with a recitation of everything that was requested but note, by way of example, questions such as whether evidence of Borchardt’s troubled childhood, mental development, or addiction to drugs or alcohol, or the harshness of prison conditions or the circumstances of the victims’ death would make a difference in sentencing and, if so, how. At that point, of course, the prospective jurors had utterly no factual information regarding any of those considerations— what kind of childhood Borchardt had, what his mental development was, or .what the circumstances were of the victims’ death.

Borchardt contends that the court’s refusal to propound those questions — to “address the role of mitigating and aggravating factors” and “explain to the jury in any detail ... how the Maryland sentencing scheme operated” — constituted a violation of the mandate of the Supreme Court in Morgan v. Illinois, 504 U.S. 719, 112 S.Ct. 2222, 119 L.Ed.2d 492 (1992). He urges, as well, that the voir dire was insufficient under this Court’s holding in Dingle v. State, 361 Md. 1, 759 A.2d 819 (2000). We disagree with both assertions.

As we explained in Evans v. State, 333 Md. 660, 672, 637 A.2d 117, 123, cert. denied, 513 U.S. 833, 115 S.Ct. 109, 130 L.Ed.2d 56 (1994), the Morgan Court had before it whether a “reverse Witherspoon ” question was required on voir dire in a death penalty case. At the State’s request, and in conformance with Witherspoon v. Illinois, 391 U.S. 510, 88 S.Ct. 1770, 20 L.Ed.2d 776 (1968), the trial court had asked prospective jurors whether any of them had moral or religious principles so strong that they could not impose the death penalty regardless of the facts. The court refused to ask the converse, however — whether, if they found Morgan guilty, they would automatically vote to impose the death penalty, regardless of the facts. The court asked, instead, whether the jurors could be impartial, give both sides a fair trial, and follow the court’s instructions on the law even if they disagreed with those instructions, and the State urged that those instructions were sufficient.

The Supreme Court disagreed. The point at issue, it said, was the defendant’s ability to exercise intelligently his right to challenge for cause “those biased persons on the venire who as jurors would unwaveringly impose death after a finding of guilt,” and its response was that, if voir dire were not available to support the foundation for a “challenge for cause against those prospective jurors who would always impose death following conviction,” the defendant’s right not to be tried by such jurors would be rendered nugatory. Morgan, supra, 504 U.S. at 733-34, 112 S.Ct. at 2232, 119 L.Ed.2d at 505-06. General questions as to fairness, impartiality, or ability to follow instructions, the Court held, did not suffice, for, in its view, any juror who would impose the death penalty regardless of the facts and circumstances “cannot follow the dictates of law.” Id. at 735, 112 S.Ct. at 2233, 119 L.Ed.2d at 506. It may well be, the Court continued, “that a juror could, in good conscience, swear to uphold the law and yet be unaware that maintaining such dogmatic beliefs about the death penalty would prevent him or her from doing so.” Id. at 735, 112 S.Ct. at 2233, 119 L.Ed.2d at 507.

The issue presented here by Borchardt was raised and rejected by us in Evans v. State, supra, 333 Md. 660, 637 A.2d 117. The trial court there asked essentially the same questions posed here, and Evans complained that, under Morgan, they sought merely “bottom line conclusions” and were insufficient to elicit bias in favor of the death penalty. We held that the questions posed were “sufficient for Evans and his .counsel to determine whether prospective jurors were death-penalty dogmatists, and they were clearly sufficient to meet the standard enunciated in Morgan v. Illinois.” Evans, 333 Md. at 675, 637 A.2d at 124. See also Oken v. State, 343 Md. 256, 268-77, 681 A.2d 30, 36-40 (1996), cert. denied, 519 U.S. 1079, 117 S.Ct. 742, 136 L.Ed.2d 681 (1997).

Jurors do not need to be instructed about the details of the sentencing procedure or questioned as to how they might feel about particular aggravating or mitigating factors that may or may not be established in the case in order to determine whether they have a pre-conceived, fixed, and unshakable bias for or against the death penalty. As we pointed out in Burch v. State, 346 Md. 253, 295, 696 A.2d 443, 464, cert. denied, 522 U.S. 1001, 118 S.Ct. 571, 139 L.Ed.2d 410 (1997), “[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.” None of the cases cited by Borchardt in his brief hold to the contrary.

Nor does Dingle provide any relief. The problem addressed in that case was the asking of compound questions that did not suffice to elicit potentially disqualifying information — whether, for example, the juror or family member or close friend belonged to a victim’s rights group and, if the answer was “yes,” whether that would interfere with the juror’s ability to be fair and impartial. The evil that the Court found with that approach is that a juror would not respond affirmatively just to the first part of the question, thereby eliminating the prospect of further questions regarding the attachment or affinity and how it might affect the juror. It left to the jurors themselves, and thus removed from the court, the assessment of whether they could be fair and impartial. See Dingle, supra, 361 Md. 1, 21, 759 A.2d 819, 830. None of the questions objected to by Borchardt were of that character.

Inconsistency in Sentencing Verdicts

In accordance with our direction in Burch v. State, supra, 346 Md. 253, 290, 696 A.2d at 461-62, the court presented to the jury at the sentencing hearing two sentencing forms, as prescribed by Maryland Rule 4-343(g) — one for each victim. On each form, the jurors unanimously found, in Section I, that Borchardt was a principal in the first degree to the murder, in Section II, that two aggravating circumstances existed — that Borchardt committed more than one offense of first degree murder arising out of the same incident and that he committed the murder while committing or attempting to commit robbery — and, in Section III, that none of the seven statutory mitigating factors existed. One or more jurors, but fewer than all, found in Section III that three other mitigating factors existed:

“Dysfunctional family (emotional, physical + sexual abuse)

Life w/out parole is severe enough

Health Problems”

The jurors also unanimously found, in Section IV, “that the aggravating circumstances marked ‘proven’ in Section II outweigh the mitigating circumstances in Section III,” and, in Section V, they all determined the sentence to be death.

Borchardt urges that “[t]he finding by at least one juror that ‘Life w/out parole is severe enough’ leads to the conclusion that the death sentence here was arbitrarily imposed and must be vacated.” He contends that that statement creates an ambiguity or inconsistency in the verdict and cites a number of cases for the proposition that, when a death penalty verdict is internally ambiguous or inconsistent, it must be stricken. The problem, for Borchardt, is that there is no fatal inconsistency or ambiguity. He overlooks the fact that the listing of something that one or more jurors believes to be a mitigating factor is merely a subordinate step in the process. It is the weighing of those factors against the aggravating factors that guides the jury in determining the sentence. One or more jurors obviously believed that life without parole is ordinarily a severe enough sentence for first degree murder, but those same jurors, just as obviously, did not believe that to hold true when balanced against the two aggravating circumstances they found to exist in this case. We perceive no ambiguity, no inconsistency, and no arbitrariness.

Court’s Alleged Failure to Impose Sentences on Murder Convictions

When the jury returned with its verdicts, the forelady passed the two completed sentencing forms to the court and then announced, in open court, each finding the jury had made. Consistently with the written forms, she stated, with respect to each victim, that the jury determined the sentence to be death. Each juror was then polled and confirmed those verdicts, following which the jury was discharged. The State then presented to the court a warrant of execution and a stay of execution which, in accordance with Maryland Code, § 3-902(c) and (d) of the Correctional Services Article, the judge signed. The judge then informed Borchardt, pursuant to Maryland Rule 4 — 343(i), that the determination of guilt and the sentence would be automatically reviewed by this Court and that the sentence would be stayed pending that review, following which she imposed sentence on the robbery convictions.

Because the record does not reflect that the judge ever uttered the words, “I hereby sentence you to death,” Bor-chardt contends that no such sentence was ever imposed. He treats that omission as equivalent to a suspension of sentence on the murder counts and urges that it is now too late to correct that omission or modify the suspension. He asks us to remand the case to the Circuit Court with instructions to strike the sentences of death and enter an amended judgment suspending sentence on the murder counts. We shall decline that invitation, for there is no basis for it.

When a defendant facing the death penalty chooses a jury as the sentencing tribunal, it is the jury that determines the sentence. Article 27, § 413(k) provides that, if the jury determines that a sentence of death shall be imposed, “the court shall impose a sentence of death.” The court has no authority to impose any other sentence, and it has no authority, by act or omission, to suspend the death sentence. We made the point succinctly in Burch v. State, supra, 358 Md. 278, 284-85, 747 A.2d 1209, 1212: “When a jury returns a verdict of death, the trial judge must impose one sentence— death.” Even if the judge omits the magic words, the sentence of death will be recorded as a matter of law, for that is the only allowable sentence.

Here, it is clear that the court did impose the death sentence. Section 3-902(e) of the Correctional Services Article requires that “[a]t the time an individual is sentenced to death, the judge presiding in the court shall issue a warrant of execution directed to the Commissioner [of Correction].” The warrant of execution signed by the judge states, in relevant part, that Borchardt was convicted by a jury of murder in the first degree of Joseph and Bernice Ohler, and “in the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County, the said Lawrence Bor-chardt, Sr. was sentenced to death, under Article 27, Sections 412-413, of the Annotated Code of Maryland.” (Emphasis added). The stay of execution signed by the judge contains similar language. The docket entries show that the sentence under Charge 01 and Charge 02 was “DEATH Sentence.” In imposing the 20-year sentence for the armed robbery of Mr. Ohler, the court stated that the sentence was “consecutive to the death sentence determined by the jury.” The Report of the Trial Judge, filed with this Court pursuant to § 414(b) states that the sentence imposed was “Death (2 counts).” On this record, it is preposterous to suggest that Borchardt was not sentenced to death.

Merger of the Robbery Convictions

At the conclusion of the trial on guilt/innocence, the jury returned a verdict on four counts. It found Borchardt guilty of robbery with a deadly weapon of Joseph and Bernice Ohler (Counts 1 and 4), and felony and premeditated murder of Joseph and Bernice Ohler (Counts 2 and 5). Both forms of murder were specified in the verdicts, and both rendered Borchardt eligible for the death penalty. It was not necessary for the jury, in carrying out its sentencing function, to distinguish between them or to deal with one, rather than the other, and, when the issue of sentence was presented to the jury, no distinction was made. The sentencing form, following the form prescribed by Maryland Rule 4-343(g), simply referred to “the murder.” Borchardt contends that the death sentence imposed on the murders was. therefore a “general sentence” that did not specify the form of first degree murder to which it related, that it must be treated as if imposed on the felony murder convictions, and that, under Newton v. State, 280 Md. 260, 373 A.2d 262 (1977) and State v. Frye, 283 Md. 709, 393 A.2d 1372 (1978), the underlying felonies must merge into the greater, inclusive offenses.

That is not the case. In Newton, we concluded that felony murder and the underlying felony must be treated as one offense for double jeopardy purposes and that, for sentencing, the underlying felony must merge into the murder. That is because felony murder contains every element contained in the underlying felony and therefore does not present the situation in which each offense contains an element not found in the other. We also made clear, however, that if a first degree murder conviction is based on independent proof of premeditation and deliberation, the murder, even if committed in the course of a felony, would not be deemed the same offense as the felony and there would therefore be no merger. In Frye, we held that, whether a merger is required depends on the basis for the jury’s verdict on the murder count: “The convictions and sentences for the underlying felonies ... are supportable if the juries found wilful, deliberate and premeditated killings but are not supportable if the murder verdicts rested upon the felony murder theory.” Frye, 283 Md. at 722, 393 A.2d at 1379. In the two cases consolidated before us in Frye, the defendants were charged under both theories, but the juries were not instructed to specify in their verdicts which form, if either, they found, and they returned a general verdict of guilty. When the verdict is ambiguous in that manner, the doubt is resolved in the defendant’s favor and the sentences imposed on the underlying felonies are vacated.

The critical determination is the verdict. Merger in this kind of setting is mandated only when, for double jeopardy purposes, the two offenses are the same — when all elements required for the lesser offense are also required for the greater and only one has an element not found in the other. When the trier of fact returns a guilty verdict of premeditated murder, that is not the case, for both the underlying felony and the murder in that situation contain an element not required in the other. As noted, that was the case here. There was no ambiguity in the verdicts. The armed robbery convictions did not, therefore, merge into the premeditated murder convictions, regardless of the form of murder for which the death sentence was imposed, and the imposition of separate sentences for the robberies was permissible.

Robbery of Ms. Ohler — Sufficiency of Evidence

Borchardt makes two arguments with respect to Count 4 of the indictment, charging him with the armed robbery of Bernice Ohler. First, he contends that the evidence was legally insufficient to support that conviction and that his motion for judgment of acquittal on that count should therefore have been granted. Second, given that he was also convicted under Count 1 of the armed robbery of Joseph Ohler, he argues that his conviction and sentence for robbing Bernice violated his right against double jeopardy. We disagree.

Count 4 of the indictment charged that Borchardt, using a deadly weapon, “feloniously ... did rob Bernice Ohler and violently did steal from her a wallet, current money of the United States and personal papers____” Count 1 was identical, except that it named Joseph Ohler as the victim. The evidence relating to the robbery showed that Borchardt removed a wallet, which contained $11 in cash and various cards, from a chest or desk in the hallway, that he took the wallet and its contents from the house, and that the wallet, cash, and cards belonged to Joseph Ohler. That, indeed, is the basis of the first prong of Borchardt’s challenge to the conviction-that the property taken did not belong to Bernice and that it was not taken from her person.⁸

The State acknowledges that the wallet, money, and cards belonged to Joseph, and not Bernice, but that is not dispositive of the issue. We made clear in State v. Colvin, 314 Md. 1, 548 A.2d 506 (1988) that a robbery conviction may be sustained even if the victim of the force is not the owner of the property taken and is not in the immediate presence of the property when it is taken. We pointed out that “[r]obbery convictions have been sustained where the victim was in one room of a house or place of business and property was taken from another room” and that the defendant may be convicted “even though [the person killed] was not the owner of the jewelry.” Id. at 20, 548 A.2d at 515. In Ball v. State, 347 Md. 156, 188, 699 A.2d 1170, 1185 (1997), cert. denied, 522 U.S. , 118 S.Ct. 866, 139 L.Ed.2d 763 (1998), we added that if “the use of force enables the accused to retain possession of the property in the face of immediate resistance from the victim, then the taking is properly considered a robbery.”

As we said, the wallet was taken from a desk or chest in the Ohler home, not directly from Mr. Ohler’s person. Although Mr. Ohler may have been the owner of the wallet, there is a fair inference that Ms. Ohler had equivalent possession of the desk or chest and thus of the wallet in the chest. Moreover, she offered active resistance to Borchardt’s taking the item by confronting him and informing him that she had called the police. Had Ms. Ohler been alone in the house and stabbed while attempting to prevent Borchardt from removing the wallet, there clearly would have been a robbery; it makes her no less the victim of a robbery that her husband was also present and offered resistance.

The second prong of Borchardt’s argument is that the court erred in allowing a double conviction for the “single criminal transaction” in which he took Mr. Ohler’s wallet. As we pointed out in Richmond v. State, 326 Md. 257, 261, 604 A.2d 483, 485 (1992), whether, for double jeopardy purposes, “a particular course of conduct constitutes one or more violations of a single statutory offense” depends upon “the appropriate unit of prosecution of the offense and this is ordinarily determined by reference to legislative intent.” In the case of theft, which is a crime against property, we have adopted the “single larceny doctrine,” which treats as one offense the stealing of separate items of property at one time, whether they belong to the same owner or to different owners. State v. White, 348 Md. 179, 702 A.2d 1263 (1997). At the time the crimes here were committed, robbery was a common law offense in Maryland, so a resort to legislative intent is not possible.⁹ We have defined the crime as “the felonious taking and carrying away of the personal property of another from his person by the use of violence or by putting in fear.” Metheny v. State, 359 Md. 576, 605, 755 A.2d 1088, 1104 (2000) (quoting Williams v. State, 302 Md. 787, 792, 490 A.2d 1277, 1280 (1985)). The crime thus embodies elements of both larceny and assault.

Decisions are split around the country on whether a defendant may be convicted of more than one robbery when, in a single incident, he or she takes money or other property from the possession or presence of more than one person. Those holding that the individual victim is the unit of prosecution and that multiple convictions are valid stress the assaultive, rather than the larcenous, nature of the crime; those holding otherwise tend to emphasize the theft element. See Commonwealth v. Levia, 385 Mass. 345, 431 N.E.2d 928, 931 (1982) (offense of robbery is against the person assaulted, not the owner of the property; so long as the victim has some protective concern with respect to the property taken and the property is taken from his or her person or presence, defendant may be convicted and sentenced for multiple offenses); Commonwealth v. Donovan, 395 Mass. 20, 478 N.E.2d 727, 735 (1985) (unit of prosecution for armed robbery is the person assaulted and robbed); People v. Wakeford, 418 Mich. 95, 341 N.W.2d 68, 75 (1983) (same); State v. Jones, 344 S.C. 48, 543 S.E.2d 541, 544 (2001) (where there is a threat of bodily injury to each person from whom property is stolen, the defendant may be charged with separate offenses); Ex Parte Hawkins, 6 S.W.3d 554, 560 (Tex.Cr.App.1999) (as robbery is a form of assault, unit of prosecution is same as that for assault — the victim);¹⁰ Jordan v. Commonwealth, 2 Va.App. 590, 347 (1986) (because essential character of robbery is violence against a person for purpose of theft, appropriate unit of prosecution is determined by number of persons from whose possession property is taken separately by force or intimidation); Clay v. Commonwealth, 30 Va.App. 254, 516 S.E.2d 684, 686 (1999).

Compare State v. Collins, 174 W.Va. 767, 329 S.E.2d 839 (1984) (treating robbery as “an aggravated form of larceny” and applying single larceny doctrine to attempted armed robbery); Allen v. State, 428 N.E.2d 1237, 1240 (Ind.1981); People v. Nicks, 23 Ill.App.3d 435, 319 N.E.2d 531, 535-36 (1974), rev'd in part, 62 Ill.2d 350, 342 N.E.2d 360 (1976); State v. Potter, 285 N.C. 238, 204 S.E.2d 649, 658-59 (1974).

In Novak v. State, 139 Md. 538, 115 A. 853 (1921), we necessarily adopted the person assaulted as the unit of prosecution for robbery. The defendant was charged with hijacking 250 cases of liquor from a truck that had broken down. In one prosecution, he was charged with robbing one of the two men in the truck and was acquitted. Subsequently, he was charged with robbing the other man, who was equally in charge of the load, and convicted. Against a double jeopardy claim of autrefois acquit, we rejected the argument that the robbery was “a single transaction involving the same persons and property and constituting but one offense against the State.” Id. at 540, 115 A. at 854. Had the charge been limited to larceny, we said, the argument would have greater force, but the defendant was charged with “feloniously assaulting a named individual and taking the whiskey from him against his will,” and it was “no answer to such a charge to say that he had been previously acquitted of having taken the whiskey from another person on the same occasion.” Id. at 541, 115 A. at 854. We implicitly confirmed that view in Brown v. State, 311 Md. 426, 535 A.2d 485 (1988) where, although our focus was on the unit of prosecution for use of a handgun in the commission of a crime of violence, we noted without critical comment that the defendant had also been convicted, in each of two cases, of two counts of robbery with a deadly weapon when he broke into a house, assembled the two occupants at gunpoint, and took property belonging to them.

On this authority, we hold that the unit of prosecution for the crime of robbery is the individual victim from whose person or possession property is taken by the use of violence or intimidation. As we have held, applying those elements, that Ms. Ohler was also robbed of the wallet and its contents, the robbery conviction with respect to her may stand.

Other Arguments of Unconstitutionality of Maryland Statute

Borchardt claims that the Maryland Death Penalty Statute is unconstitutional (1) as applied because it makes a death sentence mandatory, and (2) on its face because it requires the defendant to establish (i) any enumerated mitigating circumstances and (ii) that any non-enumerated circumstances are, in fact, mitigating. He acknowledges that we have previously rejected those very complaints, and indeed we have. His first argument was most recently considered and rejected in Conyers v. State, 354 Md. 132, 197-98, 729 A.2d 910, 945-46, cert. denied, 528 U.S. 910, 120 S.Ct. 258, 145 L.Ed.2d 216 (1999). See also Blystone v. Pennsylvania, 494 U.S. 299, 110 S.Ct. 1078, 108 L.Ed.2d 255 (1990). His second argument was most recently considered and rejected in Ware v. State, supra, 360 Md. 650, 712-13, 759 A.2d 764, 797.

Cumulative Effect of Errors

Finally, Borchardt contends that the “cumulative effect” of the various errors he has alleged require the grant of a new trial or a new sentencing hearing. The most cogent response to this complaint is that we have found only one error in the entire proceeding — the admission of one of Ms. Ent’s statements to the police — and we declared that to be harmless beyond any reasonable doubt. There were no cumulative errors requiring remedy.

Section 414(e) Review

We have reviewed the sentence pursuant to § 414(e). We find no evidence in the record that it was imposed under the influence of passion, prejudice, or other arbitrary factor. We hold that the evidence supports the jury’s finding that the two statutory aggravating factors exist, and, subject to our discussion supra, that “the evidence supports the jury’s ... finding that the aggravating circumstances outweigh the mitigating circumstances.” In that regard, we note that no mitigating circumstance was found to exist by the entire jury and that the trial judge, in her report to this Court, found that the sentence of death was justified.

JUDGMENT AFFIRMED, WITH COSTS.

Dissenting opinion by RAKER, J., in which BELL, C.J., and ELDRIDGE, J., join.

1 . Upon Borchardt’s request for removal, the case was transferred for trial from Baltimore to Anne Arundel County.

2 . 530 U.S. 466, 120 S.Ct. 2348, 147 L.Ed.2d 435 (2000).

3 . It appears that, under the Illinois law applied in Ford, a person convicted of murder in the first degree was subject to a penalty ranging from 20 years in prison to death. Absent a finding of aggravating circumstance, the penalty was from 20 to 60 years. If the trier of fact found at least one aggravating factor, an "extended" sentence of up to 100 years was permissible. The death sentence was permissible only if an aggravating factor was found beyond a reasonable doubt and was not outweighed by any mitigating factors. In Ford, after the defendant was convicted of murder in the first degree, the trial judge formd, beyond a reasonable doubt, two aggravating factors that made him death-eligible. The judge found a number of mitigating factors, however, and, as a result, declined to impose the death sentence. By a preponderance, he found a different aggravating factor — that the crime was accompanied by wanton cruelty — and, on that basis, imposed the "extended” term of 100 years.

As did Nitz, Ford argued that the 100-year sentence was unlawful under Apprendi because the predicate finding of wanton cruelty was made on a mere preponderance. The Illinois Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the fact that the critical finding was not made beyond a reasonable doubt was "immaterial,” and that ‘‘Apprendi requires only those facts that increase the penalty for a crime beyond the prescribed statutory maximum be proved beyond a reasonable doubt." Id. at 73, 260 Ill.Dec. 552, 761 N.E.2d 735 (emphasis in original).

There would seem to be two possible bases on which the court reached its conclusion sustaining the 100-year sentence — one that Apprendi was inapplicable and the other that Apprendi was applicable but satisfied — but the opinion does not make entirely clear which one the court used. The court may tacitly have treated the trial judge’s decision not to impose the death sentence, based on the mitigating factors, as returning Ford to a maximum 60-year sentence and concluded, nonetheless, that Apprendi did not require that the additional aggravating circumstance justifying the 100-year sentence be established beyond a reasonable doubt, or it may have believed that the 100-year sentence could be sustained on the ground that Ford had already been found eligible for the death sentence beyond a reasonable doubt and that Apprendi, though applicable, was satisfied. The language it used suggests the former approach. The Ford case, itself, probably has no further precedential value in Illinois as the Illinois legislature amended the "extended term" provisions of the statute to require aggravating factors to be found beyond a reasonable doubt. See 730 Ill. Comp. Stat. 5/5-8-1(a)(1) (2001); P.A. 91-953 (2000). The conclusion that the court reached on the basis of the former statute, however, appears to put in serious doubt the approach taken in Nitz. Indeed, other decisions in Illinois have rejected the Nitz approach. See People v. Carney, 196 Ill.2d 518, 256 Ill.Dec. 895, 752 N.E.2d 1137 (2001), and People v. Sutherland, 317 Ill.App.3d 1117, 252 Ill.Dec. 851, 743 N.E.2d 1007 (2000).

4 . Nine States that employ a weighing process use a reasonable doubt standard with respect to the weighing — seven by statute, two by judicial construction. See Ark.Code Ann. § 5-4-603(a), N.J.S.A. 2C: 11 — 3(c)(3), N.Y.Crim. Proc. Law § 400.27(11)(a), Ohio Rev.Code Ann. § 2929.03(d)(1) and (2), Tenn.Code Ann. § 39-13-204(g)(1), Utah Code Ann. § 76-3-207(4)(b), and Wash. Rev.Code § 10-95-060(b), People v. Tenneson, 788 P.2d 786 (Colo. 1990), People v. Martinez, 22 P.3d 915 (Colo.2001), State v. McDougall, 308 N.C. 1, 301 S.E.2d 308, 326, cert. denied, 464 U.S. 865, 104 S.Ct. 197, 78 L.Ed.2d 173 (1983), and State v. Golphin, supra, 352 N.C. 364, 533 S.E.2d 168. Maryland and Delaware use a preponderance standard. In 26 States, no standard is set by statute.

5 . In response, the dissent urges that Maryland’s “death penalty jurisprudence [is] unique among American death penalty jurisdictions,” and therefore our assertion of the potential unconstitutionality of most death penalty statutes is an overstatement. Dissenting op. at p. 158. The dissent contends that, ”[i]n most states, a defendant essentially becomes 'death eligible’ upon conviction of a potentially capital crime, and the sentencing proceeding is merely a vehicle through which the sentencing authority selects from within a potential range of sentences, usually between life imprisonment and death,” as opposed to Maryland where a defendant is not- "death eligible” unless certain additional conditions are met, namely that aggravating circumstances outweigh mitigating circumstances. Id. at pp. 158 - 159. (citing Johnson v. State, 362 Md. 525, 529, 766 A.2d 93, 96 (2001)).

That is simply not the case. Although there are some variations in nearly all of the death penalty statutes, in terms of the Apprendi issue now before us the others around the country are substantially similar to the one in Maryland. No statute of which we are aware allows the death penalty to be imposed merely upon conviction of a death-eligible crime. Every one of them treats capital punishment as the high end of a range of permissible sentences and requires additional findings to be made, either by the jury (as in Maryland) or by the judge, in order for that sentence to be imposed. In that critical sense, there is nothing unique about the Maryland approach.

6 . The dissent agrees that the Fourteenth Amendment does not incorporate the Sixth Amendment’s mandate of a Grand Jury indictment. Dissenting op. at p. 174 (“The majority and I agree on at least one point, namely, that the State need not charge, in the indictment, that the aggravating circumstances it alleges outweighs any mitigating circumstances.”) The dissent’s only issue here is that a different result should be reached on the burden of proof issue respecting the weighing process of aggravating and mitigating circumstances on the grounds of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause and Article 24 of the Declaration of Rights.

There is a fatal flaw in that conclusion, however. If, as the dissent argues, Apprendi applies and requires a different burden of proof under Article 24, then the weighing process is no longer a sentencing factor and is transformed into an essential element of the crime of first degree murder, at least where the death penalty is sought. If that is so, Article 21 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights must be applicable as well. Article 21, in pertinent part, states, "That in all criminal prosecutions, every man hath a right to be informed of the accusation against him;...." We have long held that for constitutional purposes, a criminal information or indictment must contain the essential elements of a crime charged. See State v. Mulkey, 316 Md. 475, 481, 560 A.2d 24, 27 (1989); State v. Canova, 278 Md. 483, 498, 365 A.2d 988, 997 (1976) (" '[A] criminal charge must so characterize the crime and describe the particular offense so as to give the accused notice of what he is called upon to defend and to prevent a future prosecution for the same offense.' " (quoting Corbin v. State, 237 Md. 486, 490, 206 A.2d 809, 811 (1965))). Further, the constitutional purposes for Article 21’s requirements are:

"(1) putting the accused on notice of what he'is called, upon to defend ...; (2) protecting the accused from a future prosecution for the same offense; (3) enabling the accused to prepare for his trial; (4) providing a basis for the court to consider the legal sufficiency of the charging document; and (5) informing the court of the specific crime charged so that, if required, sentence may be pronounced in accordance with the right of the case."

Mulkey, supra, 316 Md. at 481, 560 A.2d at 27 (emphasis added). Following the dissent’s application of Apprendi under independent State grounds, to be constitutionally sound, Article 21 must apply and would require the indictment or information to specifically set forth the weighing process to facilitate the accused in preparing a defense and the court in pronouncing the sentence "in accordance with the right of the case.” This is a task that can never practically be attained.

7 . Unlike the practice in Federal court and the courts of other States, the rule in Maryland is that, "[i]f neither the court nor a rule requires otherwise, a general objection is sufficient to preserve all grounds of objection which may exist.” Grier v. State, 351 Md. 241, 250, 718 A.2d 211, 216 (1998); Ali v. State, 314 Md. 295, 305-06, 550 A.2d 925, 930 (1988); Md. Rule 5-103(a)(1). Trial judges in this State have lived under that rule for quite some time, and ordinarily it causes no problem, especially since the judge can always demand specificity when faced with an uncertain situation. When a party seeks to exclude other crimes or prior bad act evidence under Maryland Rule 5-404(b) or to exclude otherwise relevant evidence under Rule 5-403 on the ground that the probative value of that evidence is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice, however, a special problem emerges, for in those situations the court must make one or more preliminary findings in order to determine admissibility. In the case of other crimes evidence, it must engage in the three-part analysis required by State v. Faulkner, 314 Md. 630, 552 A.2d 896 (1989). A general objection may not alert the court to the need to conduct that analysis or to make any other preliminary findings that may be required. That, however, is a problem with the rule.

8 . The State could possibly have charged Borchardt with robbing Ms. Ohler of her jewelry, but it omitted to do so. From the fact that the police found women's jewelry scattered on the living room floor a fair inference could have been drawn that the jewelry belonged to Bernice Ohler and that Borchardt removed the jewelry from her purse or from some other place where it was stored and transported it some distance either before or after stabbing her. Under our holding in Ball v. State, 347 Md. 156, 699 A.2d 1170 (1997), that would suffice to support a charge of robbery with respect to Bernice. The State did not rest its robbery charge with respect to Bernice on the theft of the jewelry, however, but limited the charge to the theft of the wallet and its contents. That was the sole allegation in the indictment and that was what the prosecutor argued to the jury. We must, therefore, look at the sufficiency of the evidence in that light.

9 . Until 2000, robbery was a common law crime. The statute, Article 27, § 486, merely provided the sanctions to be imposed upon conviction. By 2000 Md. Laws, ch. 288, the Legislature created a statutory offense. It defined subordinate terms and stated, in new § 486(b) that "(1) Robbery retains its judicially determined meaning, except that a robbery conviction requires proof of intent to deprive another of property; or (2) Robbery includes obtaining the service of another by force or threat of force.”

10 . The Hawkins court expressly overruled an earlier decision, Ex Parte Crosby, 703 S.W.2d 683 (Tex.Cr.App.1986) that was almost identical to the case now before us and had held that, when the defendant broke into a residence, assaulted husband and wife, and took a wallet from the person of the husband, only one robbery had occurred. In Hawkins, the court held that the Crosby definition of the allowable unit of prosecution for robbery was "contrary to the statutory and decisional law of this state” and “was incorrectly decided....” Hawkins, 6 S.W.3d at 560.