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Richardson v. McGriff11/15/2000
Eldridge and Harrell, JJ., concur in part and dissent in part;
Bell, C.J., dissents
On the evening of January 12, 1996, petitioner and six of his friends broke into a vacant apartment at the Middle Branch Apartment development in Baltimore City and had a party. Someone reported the intrusion to the police, as a result of which Officers McGriff and Catterton responded. They entered the then-darkened apartment and began to search it. We shall describe the ensuing events in greater detail below, but suffice it to say here that petitioner hid in a kitchen closet, that he refused to come out when the police announced their presence and called upon him to do so, that he was holding a vacuum cleaner pipe in his hand, that it was extremely dark in the kitchen, that when Officer Catterton quickly opened the closet and Officer McGriff shined his flashlight inside, McGriff saw what appeared to him to be a man holding a large weapon and lowering it into firing position, and that, in self-defense, he fired at petitioner and severely wounded him.
Petitioner sued Officers McGriff and Catterton, the City of Baltimore, the State of Maryland, and the Police Commissioner of Baltimore in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City, alleging the violation of his rights under Articles 24 and 26 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights and several common law torts. After a winnowing both before and during trial, with which we are no longer concerned, the claims against Officer McGriff for battery, gross negligence, and violation of rights under Article 26 were submitted to the jury, which returned a verdict in the officer's favor. Petitioner appealed the judgment entered on those claims, and, in an unreported opinion, the Court of Special Appeals affirmed. We granted certiorari to consider whether (1) the trial court erred in precluding petitioner from introducing evidence of certain Baltimore City police regulations, guidelines, and training procedures pertaining to the use of deadly force, (2) a supplemental instruction to the jury improperly precluded the jury from considering the officer's actions prior to the opening of the closet door, (3) the court erred in denying petitioner the opportunity to examine a police sergeant concerning police training and reasonable alternatives to Officer McGriff's actions, and (4) the court erred in failing to sustain petitioner's objection, under Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 106 S. Ct. 1712, 90 L. Ed. 2d 69 (1986), to the striking of certain African-Americans from the jury. Finding no error, we shall affirm the judgment of the Court of Special Appeals.
BACKGROUND
Although the parties disagree on some of the inferences to be drawn from it, most of the evidence presented was not in dispute. We shall recite that evidence as presented and note those few instances where there was a significant dispute.
Petitioner and his friends, all of whom lived in the immediate vicinity, gathered in the apartment around 9:00 in the evening. Although petitioner claimed they entered the apartment to get warm - an objective that could have been achieved had they simply gone to their respective homes - their apparent purpose was to smoke marijuana which, according to petitioner, all save himself proceeded to do. Petitioner was 20; the two youngest members of the group were 13. The group congregated in the kitchen. After about an hour, one of the boys noticed the police outside, and everyone panicked. After turning out the kitchen light, petitioner and three of his friends hid in a folding-door closet, petitioner taking with him a vacuum cleaner pipe with which he had been playing. During his recitation of the event, petitioner never mentioned any shot
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