Hollins v. State and the Jury’s Role

By Steve Klepper

Tomorrow the Supreme Court of Maryland hears argument in Hollins v. State. Question 1 asks: “Did the ACM erroneously apply a sufficiency of the evidence standard instead of the ‘some evidence’ standard when it upheld the denial of Petitioner’s request for a non-pattern jury instruction regarding the alleged victim’s propensity for violence?”

Denying a criminal jury instruction, on an issue that the defendant seeks to submit to the jury, has the same practical effect that a grant of partial summary judgment has in a civil case. It keeps an issue from the jury, based on a finding that there is not enough evidence for a reasonable jury to rule for the party who seeks to submit the issue to the jury.

On the civil side, Judge Moylan in Cador v. Yes Organic Market recited the facts and inferences in “a terribly slanted narrative  … perhaps outrageously so from the point of view of ultimate factfinders,” because “in Summary Judgment cases, the deck is deliberately tilted against taking genuinely disputed issues away from the factfinding jury.”

On the criminal side, I’ve found no analogous vociferous formulation of the standard for whether a defendant has a right to submit an issue to a jury. From discussions over the years with attorneys who handle both civil and criminal cases, there is a perception that courts review criminal defendants’ evidence and inferences offered in support of a jury instruction with more skepticism than courts view civil litigants’ evidence and inferences offered in opposition to summary judgment.

Justice Holmes observed in United States v. Oppenheimer that it “cannot be that the safeguards of the person, so often and so rightly mentioned with solemn reverence, are less than those that protect from a liability in debt.” Hollins v. State offers the Supreme Court of Maryland a chance to formulate the standard for jury instructions in a way that reflects that maxim.

(Editor’s Note: Isabelle Raquin, who is arguing for Mr. Hollins, was not involved in the drafting or editing of this post.)