Supreme Court shows interest in rapist and murderer's appeal

By Steve Lash
BridgeTower Media Newswires
 
BALTIMORE, MD — The U.S. Supreme Court has shown interest in hearing the appeal of a convicted rapist and murderer who says his constitutional right to due process was violated during the 20-year span between the brutal slaying of a teenage girl in Frederick and his indictment and trial.

The justices last week asked the Maryland attorney general’s office to respond to Lloyd Harris’ request that they review and overturn his conviction. The office had waived its right to respond unless the high court specifically requested the state’s response.

The office’s response is due Dec. 4. The justices have not set a date for their vote on whether to hear Harris’ appeal.

The case is docketed at the Supreme Court court as Lloyd Harris v. State of Maryland, No. 20-101.

In his petition for high court review, Harris argued through counsel that Maryland’s unexplained 16-year hiatus in its cold case investigation of Stacy Lynn Hoffmaster’s death undermined any true opportunity Harris had to defend himself against the charges when they were finally brought.

During those years, for example, an alternative suspect and the state’s forensic analyst had died, recordings of police interviews were lost or destroyed, multiple witnesses were unavailable and key evidence had been destroyed, wrote Harris’ lead attorney, Amir H. Ali.

Harris is seeking review of a Maryland appeals court ruling that his conviction was valid because he failed to show that the delay in prosecution was “a deliberate act by the government to gain a tactical advantage” and not merely the result of negligence or lack of diligence.

The Court of Special Appeals said the state acted neither intentionally nor tactically in failing to indict Lloyd Harris until 2016 for the 1996 rape and murder of 15-year-old Hoffmaster, whose body was found that year in a wooded area by a campsite.

In the Supreme Court filing, Ali said requiring a defendant to show the delay in prosecution was intentional “violates traditional due process principles,” which focus on ensuring the defendant received a fair trial and not if the prosecution had an improper motive.

Rather, the constitutional right to due process requires courts to consider if the stated reason for the prosecution’s delay justified the harm done to the defendant’s ability to present a defense, stated Ali, of the Roderick & Solange MacArthur Justice Center in Washington.

“For example, where the prosecution delays indicting the defendant for years and even decades, and over the course of those years it slowly destroys central interviews and evidence, it makes no difference to the defendant’s right to a fair trial whether the prosecution acted with an improper motive in mind,” Ali wrote. “Put more simply, the improper-motive requirement places a daunting, almost insurmountable, burden on the accused and application of so stringent a standard would force a result we would consider unconstitutional, unwarranted, and unfair.”

A Frederick County Circuit Court jury found Harris guilty in 2017 of first-degree murder, first-degree rape and third-degree sexual offense. He was sentenced in 2018 to life in prison.

Harris appealed his conviction to the intermediate Court of Special Appeals on due process grounds, saying two key defense witnesses died during the unexplained delay: another possible suspect and a forensic analyst who had examined the victim’s blanket.

But the Court of Special Appeals said it was not enough for the defense merely to argue it was prejudiced by the delay.

“In the present case, Harris, on appeal, does not argue that the state purposefully delayed his indictment to gain a tactical advantage over him; he does contend, however, that the abundance of prejudice resulting from the delay was sufficient to require dismissal,” Judge Lynne A. Battaglia wrote in the appellate court’s reported 3-0 opinion last October. “His assertion, however, fails based upon his inability to demonstrate that the state deferred to seek the indictment to gain a tactical advantage, as required by case law.”

Judges Stuart R. Berger and Andrea M. Leahy joined Battaglia, a retired jurist sitting by special assignment. The Court of Special Appeals rendered its decision in Lloyd Harris v. State of Maryland, No. 2298, September Term 2017.

In February, Maryland’s top court — the Court of Appeals — declined without comment Harris’ request that it hear his appeal. Harris then sought review by the Supreme Court.