Dickey v. State: Jury Instruction on Drug Use and its Concomitant Effect on Eyewitness Credibility

Rachel M. Witriol

In Dickey v. State, the Court of Appeals of Maryland considered whether a trial court is obliged to give a requested jury instruction on the credibility of testimony given by a witness who is addicted to drugs or was abusing drugs at the time of the alleged crime. The Court of Appeals held that the subject matter of the requested instruction had already been addressed by other instructions given to the jury, and that the requested instruction was an incorrect statement of the law because it called for examination of addict-witness testimony under a heightened standard of scrutiny. The court's holding resulted from its misapplication of the three-part test based on Maryland Rule 4-325, under which a trial court must consider several factors in assessing whether it must give a requested instruction to the jury. The court also neglected to address the specific facts of the Dickey case in its analysis of addict-informant instructions. Although the court properly affirmed Dickey's conviction, its holding left an unclear rule that appears to give trial courts broad discretion to deny requests for addict-witness instructions when in fact certain circumstances should require a trial judge to instruct the jury on a witness's relationship with drugs and the effect of drug use on credibility.