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Williams v. Maryland9/1/1994
Opinion by Alpert, J.
One fundamental exception to the duress defense lies at the center of this appeal. Marvin Larvae Williams, appellant, was charged with attempted robbery with a deadly weapon, daytime housebreaking, and the use of a handgun in the commission of a crime of violence. Williams waived his right to a jury trial and a court trial commenced in the Circuit Court for Baltimore County (Kahl, J.) on February 23, 1993, at the close of which, the trial judge requested memoranda concerning the defense of duress. The case was resumed on May 4, 1993, at which time Williams was convicted of the charged offenses. He was sentenced to eight years imprisonment for attempted robbery with a deadly weapon, eight years for daytime housebreaking,
and five years imprisonment, without possibility of parole, for the use of a handgun in the commission of a crime of violence. All sentences were to run concurrently. Appellant noted a timely appeal and asks two questions:
1. Was the trial court clearly erroneous in convicting Appellant of the offenses with which he was charged?
2. Should the docket entries be amended to correctly reflect Appellant's convictions?
FACTS
The victim, the Reverend Chris Glenn Hale, lived at 8601 Gray Fox Road, Apartment 102 in Randallstown, Maryland at the time of the incident. On March 1, 1990 at or about 4:45 p.m., Hale heard a knock on his apartment door. He went to the door, looked through the keyhole, and saw Williams standing at the door. Hale asked who was there and Williams answered by mumbling, asking if a certain person resided at Hale's residence. Hale could not understand Williams so he partially opened the door, whereupon four men, including Williams, rushed through. One of the men, not Williams, proceeded to hold a gun to Hale's face. Hale noticed that three of the men were armed, but did not see if Williams was armed.
After the men entered Hale's apartment, they spread out around the apartment to search for other persons, and the apparent leader demanded that Hale divulge the location of "the money" and "the dope." Williams, in the meantime, kept telling the men that the "dope" was in Hale's apartment, that he and Hale were friends, and that he had been in the apartment the previous day where he had used the "dope" with Hale. After searching unsuccessfully for the "dope," Williams was forced to kneel next to Hale, and the three men made more demands of the both of them as to where the money and the dope were located. The men then allowed Williams to get up from the floor to make a telephone call.
Williams spoke on the phone for about ten minutes, and when he got off the phone, he walked out of the bedroom with two of the men (including the leader), where they talked for about five minutes. Hale was then tied up and the men, including Williams, left shortly. Nothing was taken from Hale's apartment.
At the trial, Williams testified that he was abducted by the three men because they believed that he knew the whereabouts of the drug stash of one Chuckie Eubanks, a reputed drug dealer. Williams had borrowed money from Chuckie's brother, Rodney, and had been induced to make a drug run to New York in order to help repay his debt. The Eubanks organization required Williams to make a second trip to New York, during which Williams cooperated with the police and obtained the names, phone numbers, addresses, and license tag numbers of the parties involved in the drug deal. Apparently, the three abductors, who were former members of Eubanks's drug organization, knew of Williams's relationship with Eubanks and believed that he would know the location of the stash hous
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