Alston v. State

Gilbert, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court. Robert W. Alston seeks leave to appeal from a denial of post conviction relief by the Circuit Court for Prince George’s County. ⁶¹² A review of the record before us discloses that Alston is literally the victim of the type of predicament one finds in the popular novel, Catch-22. 1 He has sought relief in the circuit court and in the courts of the District of Columbia, but both have turned a deaf ear to his supplications to assuage his distress. The facts from which the application has grown are uncommon, if not extreme. On December 4, 1975, Alston pled guilty, as the result of a plea bargain, to the crime of robbery with a deadly weapon.

At the time, he was awaiting sentencing in the District of Columbia for another offense. The plea bargain provided that the State would nolle pros the remaining charges against Alston, recommend that the sentence not exceed twelve years, and that the sentence be concurrent with the sentence to be imposed in the District of Columbia. Two months later, Alston appeared for disposition. The judge pronounced the following sentence: “All right, Mr. Alston, it is the sentence of the Court that you be sentenced to the Department of Correction for a term of 12 years, and that such term is to commence as of February 14th, 1975.

E 2 l The said sentence is to be concurrent with the sentence you have now to be imposed on you by the District of Columbia authorities.” (Emphasis supplied.) Thereafter the following sequence of events occurred: 1. On March 15,1976, the applicant was sentenced in the District of Columbia to “3 to 9 years to run consecutively to time being served in the State of Maryland” for carrying a pistol without a license. This gun charge grew out of the same incident and arrest for which the applicant was sentenced in Prince George’s County. 2. On May 11,1976, petition for reconsideration of ⁶¹³ sentence was heard in the Circuit Court of Prince George’s County and was denied. 3.

On June 18, 1976, application for review of sentence was confirmed without a change by a three-judge panel. A petition under the Uniform Post Conviction Procedure Act was filed by the applicant in the Circuit Court for Prince George’s County on March 11,1977. Judge Loveless made the following findings in connection with the applicant’s petition: “On May 11th of 1976, which was just eight days after filing of the reconsideration of sentence,... [it was] denied____We do not have before us the reasoning that was given ... in denying this, or any alternatives that. . . fwere] considered. “It would appear that one of the alternatives that ... could have [been]... considered would be to have him turned over to the District of Columbia authorities to start serving his three to nine sentence with a detainer being placed there for him on any [Maryland] sentence that was not served. Because of the unusual situation that exists here and the problem between the two jurisdictions, and in order to make sure that... [the sentencing judge] did have a full picture of the plea negotiations and the dilemma that the ... [applicant] found himself in, we are going to permit a belated filing of a motion for further reconsideration before . . . [the sentencing judge] on this matter insofar as post conviction is concerned.

What he does will be in his sole discretion at that time.” While the docket entries show that a hearing was held November 1, 1977, and that an order was to be submitted, there is no such order filed in the record. Alston is in the predicament of serving a sentence in Maryland that has been imposed as a concurrent sentence to a District of Columbia sentence which is in turn consecutive to the Maryland sentence. Hence, while the Maryland ⁶¹⁴ sentencing judge, acquiescing to the State’s recommendation, looked upon the Alston offense as meriting the imposition of a concurrent sentence, Alston is, nevertheless, serving that time in Maryland as a straight sentence