Here is a summary and the results of a recent appeal filed by Timothy Buzbee.
Buzbee was arrested in 1982 and prosecuted for several rapes which took place between 1980 and 1982. He was acquitted of one, convicted of another, and then in 1984, when facing his third rape trial, he made a plea bargain with prosecutors. In that deal, he agreed to plea guilty in return for a sentence running concurrent with his first conviction (life plus 50 years) and in turn, prosecutors agreed to not prosecute him for other charges then pending in other cases.
Note: Buzbee was required to tell all he knew about the rape he was pleading guilty to, but he was NOT required to give any information on any other rapes or any other charges. He was basically given a pass on all other pending charges with no obligation other than pleading guilty to the one rape.
It seems that Life plus 50 years, plus a concurrent life sentence meant that he could be parolled, and by 2009, prosecutors decided to bring charges of rape in four other cases NOT previously known when the deal was made. These rapes occurred between 1977 and 1980 inclusive.
Buzbee and his lawyers argued that this constituted a breach of promise and that his plea bargain of 1984 prevented the state from prosecuting him further. Buzbee contended that he and the state had a deal and that he should not be prosecuted for ANYTHING short of capital murder. The judge disagreed and a grand jury voted to allow the prosecution to go forward.
Before the four rape charges went to trial, however, Buzbee filed an appeal, which went up to the Maryland Court of Special Appeals. Below is their decision.
Basically, the appeal decision went against Buzbee and now the road is clear for prosecutors to continue with plans to charge him with the four additional rapes.
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Maryland Court of Special Appeals Case Summaries: July 31, 2011
Criminal Law
Plea agreements
BOTTOM LINE: Plea agreement, under which defendant pleaded guilty to rape in exchange for the state entering a nolle prosequi to charges of burglary and first-degree sexual offense, did not preclude state from subsequently prosecuting defendant for uncharged offenses.
CASE: Buzbee v. State, No. 0170, Sept. Term, 2010 (filed July 7, 2011) (Judges Woodward, Mattricciani & THIEME (retired, specially assigned)).
FACTS: Timothy Buzbee was prosecuted in 1982 in connection with a series of rapes that took place in Montgomery County. Although suspected of involvement in 18 rapes, Buzbee was specifically charged with 7 that took place between 1980 and 1982.
Buzbee was arrested on November 5, 1982, and attorney Reginald Bours was retained to represent him. Three cases went to trial against Buzbee, resulting in one acquittal and two convictions. Following the first conviction, Buzbee was sentenced to life imprisonment, plus 50 years. The second conviction drew a concurrent life sentence.
On June 25, 1984, Buzbee entered a plea to first-degree rape in Case No. 29687. He was sentenced to life imprisonment. The State entered a nolle prosequi to burglary and first-degree sexual offense, the remaining counts in the indictment, and to the three counts, first-degree rape, burglary and robbery, in a companion case, No. 29686.
In its October 15, 2009 indictment, the grand jury charged Buzbee with offenses involving four separate victims that took place from 1977 through 1980. On March 16, 2010, Buzbee moved to dismiss the indictment, asserting that the prosecution constituted a breach of the plea agreement in Case No. 29687. The circuit court denied the motion to dismiss.
Buzbee filed an interlocutory appeal in the Court of Special Appeals, which affirmed.
LAW:
Buzbee claimed that the instant (present or current) prosecution, which related to offenses allegedly committed between 1977 and 1980, violated the plea agreement that Buzbee had concluded with the State in 1984 in an unrelated case.
Plea agreements are, as an initial matter, construed according to contract principles. See Cuffley v. State, 416 Md. 568, 579 (2010). However, the interpretation of a plea agreement is also informed by due process and principles of fundamental fairness, so that standards of contract interpretation alone are not enough to resolve disputes over the proper interpretation of a plea bargain. Cuffley, 416 Md. at 580. Courts must construe the terms of a plea agreement according to the reasonable understanding of the defendant when he pled guilty. Solorzano v. State, 397 Md. 661, 668 (2007).
The plea hearing at issue was conducted on June 25, 1984. Under the terms of the agreement, Buzbee would enter a plea of guilty to the first count in Criminal Case No. 29687, which charged the offense of rape in the first degree, a felony under Maryland statute, for which the maximum period of incarceration would be up to a life sentence. In entering this plea, Buzbee would be fully admitting his guilt to this offense. At issue in the present case was whether the parties to the 1984 plea agreement contemplated that the State would not prosecute Buzbee for any additional rapes.
On March 19, 2010, the circuit court conducted a hearing on Buzbee's motion to dismiss the 2009 indictment. Barry Hamilton, then the Assistant State's Attorney who was prosecuting Buzbee, and Buzbee's then counsel, Reginald Bours, testified. Hamilton and Bours testified that in entering into the plea agreement, they had discussed possible dispositions of some of the outstanding cases against Buzbee. Bours testified that as Buzbee's counsel, he had been concerned about the possibility of future prosecutions against Buzbee for additional rapes. Bours stated that he and Hamilton had explicitly talked about the fact that two cases against Buzbee, which Hamilton had dropped without trial, would not be tried. Bours further testified that he and Hamilton had explicitly discussed that if Buzbee entered a plea, Hamilton would not file charges in any other case in which Buzbee was a suspect, save for an instance of homicide or serious injury. Bours conceded that the full extent of the plea agreement was not on the record of the guilty plea hearing.
Hamilton, on the other hand, testified that he did not make any type of plea agreement with Bours that Buzbee would not be prosecuted for any uncharged or unknown rapes when he made a plea in this case in 1984. Hamilton stated that while he had agreed not to prosecute Buzbee for the two cases against Buzbee which had been dropped prior to trial, he did not promise not to prosecute Buzbee for any and all additional unknown cases other than those involving homicide or serious injury. Hamilton further stated that it would have been contrary to his unvarying practice not to put the entirety of the plea agreement on the record, and that there was no side agreement between him and Bours that had not been put on the record because of fear of publicity.
Based on the record and the witnesses' testimony, the circuit court did not err in concluding that the plea agreement did not obligate the State not to prosecute any and all additional charges, such as those brought by indictment in the instant case. At the time that the circuit court accepted the plea agreement, such accords were governed by Maryland Rule 733.9. Rule 733.9 provided in relevant part that a defendant or his counsel could enter into an agreement with the State's Attorney to plead guilty or nolo contendere on any proper condition. Examining the language of Md. Rule 4-243, the successor to Rule 733, the Court of Appeals has emphasized that the record of that proceeding must be examined to ascertain precisely what was presented to the court, in the defendant's presence and before the court's acceptant of the agreement, to determine what the defendant reasonably understood to be the sentence the parties negotiated and the court agreed to impose.
The test for determining what the defendant reasonably understood at the time of the plea is an objective one. It depends not on what the defendant actually understood the agreement to mean, but rather, on what a reasonable lay person in the defendant's position and unaware of the niceties of sentencing law would have understood the agreement to mean, based on the record developed at the plea proceeding. It is for this reason that extrinsic evidence of what the defendant's actual understanding might have been is irrelevant to the inquiry. Cuffley v. State, 416 Md. at 582 (2010). As noted, Rule 733 required that all proceedings pursuant to the Rule be on the record. See Banks v. State, 56 Md.App. 38.
In this case, Buzbee's defense counsel, Bours, acknowledged at the hearing on his motion to dismiss that not all of the terms of the agreement were placed on the record at the plea hearing. The plain language of the plea agreement on the record did not preclude the instant prosecutions. Thus, the recitation of the agreement at the plea hearing did not support Buzbee's claim that the State undertook to abandon all other potential cases, save for murder or cases involving serious injury. As such, the State's instant prosecution of Buzbee did not violate the previous plea agreement, and the circuit court properly denied Buzbee's motion to dismiss.
Accordingly, the circuit court judgment was affirmed.
COMMENTARY: The State was incorrect in contending that the Court of Special Appeals did not have jurisdiction in the present matter. The general rule as to appeals is that, subject to a few, limited exceptions, a party may appeal only from a final judgment. Nnoli v. Nnoli, 389 Md. 315, 323 (2005). The final judgment rule is embodied in [section]12-301 of the Courts Article. Md.Code (1974, 2006 Repl.Vol., 2008 Supp.), [section]12-301 of the Courts & Judicial Proceedings. There are only three exceptions to that rule: 1) appeals from interlocutory orders specifically allowed by statute; 2) immediate appeals permitted under Maryland Rule 2-602(b); and 3) appeals from interlocutory rulings allowed under the common law collateral order doctrine. Anne Arundel County v. Cambridge Commons, 167 Md.App. 219 (2005).
The collateral order doctrine permits a reviewing appellate court to treat as final, without consideration of the procedural posture of a case, a narrow class of interlocutory orders in "extraordinary circumstances." The collateral order doctrine may apply when an interlocutory decision of the lower court conclusively determines the disputed question, resolves an important issue, resolves an issue that is completely separate from the merits of the action, and is effectively unreviewable if the appeal had to await the entry of a final judgment. In this case, the State did not dispute that the circuit court's decision met the first two elements of the doctrine. The decision conclusively determined whether the parties entered into a plea agreement, the primary issue on appeal, and the issue was important to the case.
The State was incorrect, however, in asserting that the third and fourth elements of the doctrine were not satisfied. The third element was satisfied because the existence of an enforceable plea agreement was an issue independent of Buzbee's guilt or innocence. See Jackson, 358 Md. at 270. Likewise, the fourth element was satisfied because the existence of a plea agreement was effectively unreviewable after proceeding to trial and verdict, given that an important purpose of making a plea agreement is to avoid the expense, inconvenience, and uncertainty of a trial. Buzbee's rights could not be fully vindicated if he were compelled to wait for a final judgment. See Jackson, 358 Md. 259, 270-71 (2000). Therefore, the circuit court's decision sub judice satisfied the elements for the application of the collateral order doctrine. As such, the circuit court's order qualified as an appealable collateral order.
PRACTICE TIPS: The enforceability of alleged plea agreements is a proper basis for interlocutory appeals because of the strong public policy that favors the plea negotiation process. Rios v. State, 186 Md.App. 354, 365 (2009).
Source:
Maryland Court of Special Appeals Case Summaries: July 31, 2011 | Daily Record, The (Baltimore)
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