Mills v. State

345 A.2d 127, 28 Md. App. 300, 1975 Md. App. LEXIS 367
CourtCourt of Special Appeals of Maryland
DecidedOctober 6, 1975
Docket20, September Term, 1975
StatusPublished
Cited by11 cases

This text of 345 A.2d 127 (Mills v. State) 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
Mills v. State, 345 A.2d 127, 28 Md. App. 300, 1975 Md. App. LEXIS 367 (Md. Ct. App. 1975).

Opinion

Moore, J.,

delivered the opinion of the Court.

Clement F. Mills, appellant, was convicted of rape, armed robbery and two counts of kidnapping by a jury in the Circuit Court for Montgomery County (Shure, C. J. presiding), and received a twelve-year sentence. From the judgments entered thereon, he appeals.

On July 13, 1974, in Gaithersburg, two married women, ages 22 and 23, were accosted at knife-point by a male who forced them to drive him in their car to a secluded, rural area where he robbed and raped one of them. He then compelled the victims to drive him back to Gaithersburg where he exhibited them to a number of the community residents, 1 then left the car and walked away. After the women returned to the rape victim’s apartment, where their husbands were awaiting their return from an errand, the police were called.

The following day, Detective Thomas D. Evans took the rape victim in a police car through residential areas in Gaithersburg at which time she observed and identified the appellant, Clement F. Mills, as her attacker. Mills was arrested and taken to the Wheaton-Glenmont Police Station. He received his Miranda warnings and asked for an attorney’s presence during interrogation. The police made two telephone calls but could not secure an attorney’s services for appellant at that moment. Mills spoke with an attorney who had been assigned by the Public Defender to represent him in another matter but the latter explained *302 that he could not assist appellant in the instant case without formal authorization. Evans did not attempt thereafter to question Mills about the offenses. He desisted, he said, because the answers to any such questions would be inadmissible at trial, in view of Mills’ request for an attorney.

Evans did, however, ask Mills for his address and for a specific and detailed description of the house where he resided — including the colors of the walls, floors and door of the room which he occupied. His purpose was apparently twofold: to complete a form pertaining to arrested individuals and to obtain information he believed necessary for the acquisition of a warrant to search Mills’ residence for the knife described by the victims. Evans verified the address with Mills’ uncle and an unidentified woman who came to the station house with the uncle on the afternoon of the arrest.

The next day, a District Court Judge in Montgomery County signed a search warrant and, upon execution, a 9-inch hunting knife with sheath was found in appellant's room. A pretrial motion to suppress was denied and the knife and sheath were identified at trial by the victims as having been used by their assailant.

Prior to trial the State petitioned to have a sample of appellant’s blood taken, representing that “in order ... to go forward with certain evidence ... it is necessary to obtain a blood sample from the defendant to determine his blood group .... as necessary corroboration to other scientific evidence.” This petition, filed on November 20, 1974, was styled a “Motion for Appropriate Relief.” It in no way complied with the standards pertaining to applications for search warrants found in Art. 27, Md. Code Annot. § 551 (1974 Supplement). On November "21, 1974, the trial court ordered, without a hearing, that such sample be taken “by the State of Maryland Department of Medical Examiners . ..; counsel for the defendant may be present.” 2 At trial *303 there was expert testimony, based upon the blood test, that both Mills’ blood and the semen stains on the rape victim’s clothing contained blood group factor A and that the victim also had type A blood.

Appellant had been identified on the street by the rape victim and at a lineup by the other victim of the kidnapping. Both of them had described a distinctive scar on appellant’s forearm and the knife and sheath found pursuant to the search warrant. Appellant, his girlfriend, and two of her friends testified that he had been at his girlfriend’s house during the time the offenses were being committed. A policeman testified that the girlfriend had previously made contrary statements to him.

Mills rests his appeal upon two grounds. He argues that the knife and sheath should not have been admitted into evidence because the application for the warrant did not establish probable cause for the search and certain of the facts recited in the application were obtained in a manner violative of Miranda. His second contention is that the evidence of the blood test was inadmissible because the blood sampling was a search and seizure and no search warrant had been obtained. We address these contentions in that order.

I — THE KNIFE AND SHEATH

Appellant contends that the knife and sheath should have been suppressed on the grounds that:

“(a) The facts as recited in the application for the search warrant did not establish probable cause for the search, and
(b) An essential portion of the facts were [sic] obtained from the appellant in violation of his rights under the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution.”

We shall dispose of (b) first. Assuming, arguendo, that the details learned by Detective Evans after Mills had requested *304 an attorney were “essential”, 3 we are not persuaded that Mills’ constitutional rights were abridged.

At oral argument appellant’s counsel urged upon this Court that Everhart v. State, 274 Md. 459, 337 A. 2d 100 (1975), in which fruits of an unlawful search were held to have provided invalid affidavits supporting an application for a search warrant, rendered the instant search warrant, and therefore the admission into evidence of the knife and sheath, unlawful. We conclude otherwise. Simply put, there was no poisonous tree here. That portion of the warrant application which was based on Mills’ answers to Evans’ questions about the details of the residence was not tainted.

Indeed, the entire Miranda argument is inapposite since there was a singular lack of any admission, confession or other inculpatory statement on Mills’ part. As a federal court observed, in respect of a warrant based on similar questioning:

“The place where [defendant] lived was, of course, not a matter within [his] exclusive knowledge, and he no doubt recognized that a little investigation by the officers would locate that place.” Farley v. United States, 381 F. 2d 357 (5th Cir. 1967).

See, also, Clarke v. State, 3 Md. App. 447, 240 A. 2d 291 (1968) where Judge Morton, writing for the Court, stated:

“The questions were routine; were ordinarily addressed to every individual who was subject to *305 the booking procedure; and were not intended to elicit answers which would incriminate Appellant.”

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Bluebook (online)
345 A.2d 127, 28 Md. App. 300, 1975 Md. App. LEXIS 367, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mills-v-state-mdctspecapp-1975.