Tu v. Maryland10/25/1994
Opinion by Rodowsky, J.
Bell, J., dissents.
This case has been tried to judgment of conviction, appealed, reversed, retried to judgment of conviction, appealed, affirmed, and is now before us on certiorari review of that affirmance. The first conviction was reversed for error in denying the defendant's motion to suppress evidence seized by the police. On direct appeal from the second conviction, and here, the defendant contends that the mandate on the first appeal, and the opinion on which that mandate was based, foreclose reconsideration by the trial court of the admissibility of the seized evidence. That argument requires us to examine the concept known as "the law of the case."
An agreed statement of facts furnishes the general background.
"Gregory Mung Sen Tu was charged with murdering his wife, Lisa, to whom he had been married for about ten years. There were no witnesses to the murder and Lisa's body was never found. The State's theory was that Tu had hidden the body in a couch on which Lisa normally slept and then had the couch hauled to a county landfill where it was completely incinerated within minutes, precluding its discovery.
"The State's evidence that Lisa Tu was murdered fell into several categories. First, there was evidence of Lisa's sudden and unexplained disappearance on July 13, 1988. Numerous friends, relatives and associates testified that all communication with Lisa ceased as of that date, as did financial transactions on her bank accounts and credit cards. There was also evidence that Lisa had never disappeared before, she had indicated that she had no plans to travel anywhere that summer, and personal possessions, without which Lisa never traveled, were found. The State also showed that blood found in the basement of her home and on the covering of the couch on which she slept was, with a high degree of probability, that of Lisa or a close relative of Lisa's.
"The State's case that Petitioner was the perpetrator of this crime rested on several factors. Tu's possible motives were shown by evidence of Tu's financial difficulties, an insurance policy on Lisa's life under which Tu was the beneficiary, deterioration of the relationship between Tu and Lisa, and Tu's awareness that Lisa was having an affair with another man. Evidence of opportunity included the presence in the house of two knives and Tu's purchase of at least one handgun. The State also presented evidence that, on July 16, Tu arranged for a trash collector to haul away the couch, notwithstanding that it's condition did not warrant destruction.
"Finally, there was evidence of Tu's conduct following Lisa's disappearance. Shortly after Lisa's disappearance, Tu told relatives that she had flown to California to visit a sick friend, Eve Wang. Wang testified, however, that she had not been sick, that she had not invited Lisa to visit, and that Lisa did not, in fact, visit her after July 12. After Tu learned that he was a suspect, he flew to Taiwan, returned to Maryland briefly for questioning, then flew to Las Vegas, where, despite telling friends here that he was looking for Lisa, he sought employment, gambled, and telephone calls were made from his room to two adult entertainment agencies and a prostitute's beeper.
"The defense sought to show that Lisa had indeed gone to California. Tu produced United Airlines records indicating that a ticket had been issued in the name of L. L. Tu for a flight on July 14, 1988 from Dulles airport to Los Angeles and then to San Francisco, and the airline ticket itself was marked in a way indicating that the ticket had been used from Dulles to Los Angeles. Appellant also presented the testimony o
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