In Re Appeal No. 245, September Term, 1975 From the Circuit Court for Kent County

349 A.2d 434, 29 Md. App. 131, 1975 Md. App. LEXIS 315
CourtCourt of Special Appeals of Maryland
DecidedNovember 28, 1975
Docket245, September Term, 1975
StatusPublished
Cited by12 cases

This text of 349 A.2d 434 (In Re Appeal No. 245, September Term, 1975 From the Circuit Court for Kent County) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Special Appeals of Maryland primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
In Re Appeal No. 245, September Term, 1975 From the Circuit Court for Kent County, 349 A.2d 434, 29 Md. App. 131, 1975 Md. App. LEXIS 315 (Md. Ct. App. 1975).

Opinion

Orth, C. J.,

delivered the opinion of the Court.

STATEMENT OF THE CASE

On 6 February 1975 two petitions were filed in the Circuit Court for Kent County, sitting as a Juvenile Court, against appellant, 1 a youth then seventeen years of age. Both alleged *133 that he was a delinquent child. 2 One gave as reason that on 9 July 1974 he had stolen a bike belonging to C. Daniel Saunders (Code, art. 27, § 340). The other gave as reasons that on 12 December 1974 he had (1) received a pair of binoculars belonging to George Outten, knowing them to have been stolen (Code, art. 27, § 467), and (2) stolen the binoculars (Code, art. 27, § 341). The petitioner in each petition was William T. Blackiston, Jr., Deputy Sheriff of Kent County. At an adjudicatory hearing which terminated on 3 March 1975, the court found under the petition concerning the binoculars that appellant was a delinquent child. It dismissed the petition concerning the bike. At a dispositional hearing on 20 March 1975 appellant was committed to the Secretary of Health and Mental Hygiene for placement at Maryland Training School. The Secretary was directed to provide psychiatric and psychological services. An appeal was noted.

THE CONFESSION

Background

At the adjudicatory hearing, 3 a confession obtained by the authorities from appellant was challenged. Evidence was received on the motion to suppress it. On 11 July 1974 Saunders reported the theft of his bike to the office of the *134 Sheriff for Kent County. On 12 December 1975 Outten reported to that office that his home had been broken and entered and that personal property had been stolen. Blackiston and Deputy Sheriff Jess Metcalfe investigated the crimes. Their investigation led them to appellant, one of a group of suspects. On 18 January 1975, about 4:00 p.m., Blackiston and Metcalfe, in uniform and wearing side-arms, went in their official car to the trailer home where appellant lived with his parents. Appellant was the first “suspect” they went to see. Blackiston said: “I wasn’t sure he was my man. I wanted to investigate to find out who was.” The deputies told the parents they wanted to see appellant. Appellant appeared from within the trailer, and Blackiston took him to the car parked nearby to interrogate him. Blackiston testified that he did this “Because it’s generally my policy to do an interrogation on my grounds.”

Appellant was born in January 1958. At age 8 years and 10 months he was in the second grade in a school in Wilmington and was given an I.Q. test known as the WISC (Western Intelligence Scale for Children). His verbal score was 74, performance was 78 and full scale I.Q. was 73. The next year he was placed in the “Special and Emotionally Maladjusted” third grade class in a Kent County school. In 1968, 1969 and 1970 he was in primary “special education” at Millington. “Special education” was “a special placement in classes for children who cannot function or get along in a regular class for various reasons.” In May 1971 he was again given the WISC test and also an achievement test known as WRAT. On the former his verbal score was 75, his performance quotient was 92 and his full scale I.Q. was 81. On the WRAT test his reading level was 3.9, spelling was 4.3 and arithmetic was 3.3. In 1971 he attended the sixth grade at Galena Middle School. He was present 66 days and absent 8 days. He withdrew and his records were sent to Chestertown Middle School on 3 January 1972, although it seems that he did not attend that school. On 14 February he was transferred to Cambridge State Hospital where he remained until 27 March 1974, when he was discharged to his parents. There were home visits, so that the actual time spent in that Institution *135 was about one year and four months. 4 The Institution’s final diagnoses on discharge included “adjustment reaction of adolescence, conduct disturbance” and “borderline mental retardation with other (and unspecified) condition.” 5 The condition on release and prognosis was, “Patient’s condition on leaving was excellent from the physical and psychiatric viewpoint. However, prognosis is considered guarded if patient doesn’t have enough supervision at home and if he doesn’t have a job in the community.” Appellant did not return to school. This was the background of the youth Blackiston took to the police car to interrogate.

Circumstances Surrounding the Obtaining of the Confession

Blackiston sat in the front seat and placed appellant in the back seat. Blackiston testified that he read all the Miranda warnings to appellant and that appellant said he understood them. “And I said, ‘Do you knowingly waive these rights?’ and [appellant] didn’t know what the words ‘knowingly waive’ meant, so I explained to him that if he wanted to talk to me about Mr. Outten’s property he could stop any time and not tell me anything. And he advised me okay.” There was evidence tending to show that the confession was voluntarily in the traditional sense. Blackiston said that neither he nor Metcalfe made any threats, gave any promises or extended any inducements to appellant to get him to talk. Metcalfe, who had remained at the trailer to talk to the parents, appeared about the time Blackiston finished giving the Miranda warnings and sat in the front *136 seat next to Blackiston. The interrogation proceeded. Appellant gave a verbal statement.

Appellant’s father gave his version of what occurred:

“He drove up to the yard and my wife went to the door and said a Trooper car was here, and I said, ‘What - Trooper,’ and she said, ‘From Maryland.’ Then they came up to the door and one had his hat on [apparently Blackiston] and the other one didn’t. Before he knocked on the door she opened the door. And he said — I can’t tell one from the other, but the one that had the hat on said, ‘Could I talk to Stanford?’, and she said, ‘Come on in.’ They came in and the short one, the one that didn’t have the hat on, wasn’t completely in the door. My wife called to [appellant], he was in the back, in the back bedroom and he came out of the trailer on thé porch part. She said to him, ‘They want to talk with you.’ Then the one that had the hat on said, ‘Boy, go to the car.’ They went on to the car. Then the one that didn’t have the hat on, he went out first. He was the last one getting in the car. I watched out the window.”

He denied that the deputies told them why they wanted to talk to appellant.

Appellant told what occurred when the deputies arrived:

“I was in the bedroom, in the back bedroom in the trailer, getting my.shirt. Then my mother called me out there on the porch because the policemen was there. Then the young one, with the hat on, asked my father could he ask me some questions. The one in the doorway didn’t say anything. Then we went out into the car and that was when he started asking me questions.”

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Bluebook (online)
349 A.2d 434, 29 Md. App. 131, 1975 Md. App. LEXIS 315, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/in-re-appeal-no-245-september-term-1975-from-the-circuit-court-for-kent-mdctspecapp-1975.