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Williams v. Maryland9/1/1994
e. When Williams was abducted by the men, he told them that he did not know the location of the stash house. The men did not believe Williams and threatened to kill him if he did not disclose its location. Williams led the men to Hale's apartment, told them it was the stash house, and knocked on the door. Once inside Hale's apartment, Williams testified that he pretended to participate in the search of the premises. Williams also said that the phone call he made was to his mother and was done at the request of one of the abductors who instructed him to say that "everything was all right," the abductors being concerned because Williams's sister had witnessed the abduction.
Duress
Williams asserts that the trial court erred because its decision was "predicated upon Appellant having engaged in criminal conduct in which he was not specifically directed to engage. Because of this, the trial court never even focused upon the question it actually had to resolve: whether any legal alternative existed for Appellant to the conduct in which he
engaged." In the instant case, the trial court heard the testimony of all the witnesses and concluded that
the [Appellant] wants you to believe that he was victimized, that he was taken off the street, and by point of gun, forced to commit an armed robbery. That simply is not true. No one forced him to commit an armed robbery. No one forced him to go to the Reverend's house and demand money. The only thing these three persons wanted was to have the debt repaid, and they didn't care how it was done. The [Appellant] said, I don't care how I repay the debt, I just want to save my own soul, and I will commit an armed robbery to do it, and I will assist in the commission of an armed robbery if that satisfies the debt, if that appeases you and I am safe.
The court went on to find that the testimony taken as a whole did "lend some corroboration to [Appellant's] suggestion that, at least to some degree, [Appellant] was under duress." The court however, did qualify its finding by noting that the duress was not "to go to the stash house" but rather "duress to pay the debt." Accordingly, the court aptly focused on a very narrow issue: "whether the fact that [appellant] was under duress to repay the debt, and thereby created the scenario for this offense, operates as a complete defense to the offense." The court requested additional memoranda on this issue and concluded that facts of this case did not support a
finding of duress. Accordingly, we are faced with the question of whether a defendant's contributory actions can act as a bar to the availability of the defense of duress, i.e., whether the appellant's conduct presents an exception to the applicability of the duress defense. We conclude that it does and explain.
Chief Judge Orth, speaking for this court nearly a quarter of a century ago, explained that
in order to constitute a defense, the duress by another person on the defendant must be present, imminent, and impending, and of such a nature as to induce well grounded apprehension of death or serious bodily injury if the act is not done. It must be of such a character as to leave no opportunity to the accused for escape. Mere fear or threat by another is not sufficient nor is a threat of violence at some prior time. The defense cannot be raised if the apprehended harm is only that of property damage or future but not present personal injury .
Frasher v. State, 8 Md. App. 439, 449, 260 A.2d 656 (1970) (citing 1 Wharton's Criminal Law and Procedure (Anderson) ยง 123, pp. 262-264). See also Wentworth v. State, 29 Md. Ap
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