Allen v. Warden of Maryland House of Correction

Hammond, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This is an application for leave to appeal from a denial of the writ of habeas corpus by Judge Raine of the Circuit Court for Baltimore County. The applicant was sentenced January 12, 1956, in the Circuit Court for Dorchester County for violation of the laws regulating the manufacture of alcoholic beverages. The applicant was sentenced to pay a fine of $3,000.00 and to be confined in the Maryland Penitentiary for the term of three years, confinement to be suspended upon the payment of fine and costs.

Claimant asks that habeas corpus be granted because his sentence was in the alternative, he was to pay $3,000.00 or serve three years in jail, and that the authorities in Dorchester County have filed a detainer against him so that when he is released from the Maryland Penitentiary, he will have to serve ninety days in the Dorchester County jail for nonpayment of the fine, and that since he will have served the three-year sentence he should not have to pay the fine. An examination of the sentence shows that it was not in the al ⁶⁰⁴ tentative; rather, the prison term only was to be suspended in the event the fine was paid. There is nothing in the sentence to indicate that the sentence was to be in lieu of the fine. Applicant’s first contention is without merit.

The applicant’s second contention is that he was improperly convicted since mere possession of “25 feet of hose, two barrels and a generator” was not sufficient evidence to sustain the verdict. This Court has repeatedly stated that sufficiency of the evidence cannot be raised