Alston v. State

JOHN C. ELDRIDGE (Retired, Specially Assigned), J. The petitioner, Curtis Winded Alston, was convicted of first degree murder and related offenses. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole for first degree murder and lesser terms for the other offenses. In an action under the Postconviction Procedure Act, the postconviction trial court vacated Alston’s convictions and sentences and granted him a new trial. The State filed no application for leave to appeal the postconviction trial court’s judgment.

Forty-four days after the entry of the final judgment in the postconviction case, the State filed in that case a “Motion to Reconsider [the] Court’s Order and Opinion Granting Post Conviction Relief.” Subsequently, the court did reconsider its earlier judgment and denied Alston’s petition for postconviction relief, thereby reimposing Alston’s original convictions and sentences. The present case is a proceeding under Maryland Rule 4-345(a) which states: “The court may correct an illegal sentence at any time.” The issue before us is whether the postconviction trial court’s re-imposition of Alston’s original sentences, after having vacated those sentences and ordered a new trial, constituted the imposition of illegal sentences within the meaning of Rule 4-345(a) and our cases. I. The issue and pertinent facts in this case relate to procedural matters; consequently, we shall not set forth the facts concerning the substantive offenses which Alston was charged with committing. In January 1999, Alston was indicted, in the Circuit Court for Prince George’s County, for one count of first degree murder, two counts of using a handgun in a felony or crime of violence, one count of attempted murder, one count of first ³²⁹ degree assault, one count of conspiracy to commit first degree murder, and one count of conspiracy to commit attempted murder.

Alston’s jury trial took place in July 1999, and he was found guilty on all counts except attempted murder and conspiracy to commit attempted murder. The next month, Alston was sentenced to the following terms of imprisonment: life without parole for first degree murder; twenty years consecutive on each of the handgun counts; twenty-five years consecutive for first degree assault; and a concurrent life sentence for conspiracy to commit murder. The Court of Special Appeals affirmed the judgments in an unreported opinion, and this Court denied Alston’s petition for a writ of certiorari. Alston v. State, 360 Md. 273 , 757 A.2d 809 (2000).

In August 2003, Alston filed, in the Circuit Court for Prince George’s County, an action under the Maryland Uniform Postconviction Procedure Act, presently codified in Maryland Code (2001, 2008 RepLVol.), § 7-101 et seq. of the Criminal Procedure Article. The petition raised numerous issues, several of which concerned Alston’s constitutional right to the effective assistance of counsel at his July 1999 criminal trial. Alston’s petition requested that the “court vacate Petitioner’s convictions and sentences and grant him a new trial.” At the hearing on the petition, both Alston’s counsel at his 1999 criminal trial and Alston himself testified. The Circuit Court on March 28, 2005, filed a detailed opinion holding that Alston was denied his right to the effective assistance of counsel at his criminal trial.

The basis for this holding was that Alston had not been presented to a District Court Commissioner for about 48 hours from the time of his arrest, that he was held for 23 hours before he gave the police incriminating statements, and that counsel failed to argue that this delay in presenting Alston to a Commissioner, and this violation of the prompt presentment rule 1 should be given “very heavy weight” in the court’s determination of whether the incriminating statements were voluntary. ³³⁰ The Circuit Court ordered “that Petitioner’s Motion for Post Conviction Relief is Granted,” thereby vacating Alston’s convictions and sentences and awarding him a new trial. The opinion and order were duly entered on the docket, and they constituted a final judgment under Maryland Rule 4-407(d). As earlier pointed out, the State did not file an application for leave to appeal the postconviction trial court’s judgment. 2 On May 11, 2005, forty-four days after the entry of final judgment in the postconviction case, the State filed in that case a “Motion to Reconsider Court’s Order and Opinion Granting Post Conviction Relief.” 3 A hearing on the State’s motion was held on September 8, 2005, and on September 20, 2005, the Circuit Court filed an opinion and an order stating that “Petitioner’s Motion for Post Conviction relief is Denied.” In its opinion, the Circuit Court treated the State’s motion for reconsideration as a motion to “reopen” the posteonviction proceeding. The court held that, under § 7-104 of the Post-conviction Procedure Act, “this Court has authority to reopen the petition for post conviction relief,” if “the action is in the interests of justice,” and that, in Alston’s case, “justice so requires.” 4 As to the merits, the postconviction court reversed its earlier position because it found that the voluntariness of Alston’s confession, based in part on “the delayed ³³¹ presentment of the petitioner to a Commissioner,” had been “finally litigated” in Alston’s direct appeal from the judgments at his 1999 criminal trial.

Alston filed an application for leave to appeal the Circuit Court’s judgment reopening the postconviction proceeding and denying Alston’s petition for postconviction relief, and the Court of Special Appeals granted leave to appeal. Alston argued, inter alia, that the State was not authorized to file a motion to reopen a postconviction action and that only the convicted person could file such a motion under § 7-104 of the Postconviction Procedure Act. The Court of Special Appeals, in an unreported opinion, did not decide the issues raised by Alston. Instead, the intermediate appellate court stated that “we are unable to determine the basis for the court’s conclusion that justice required the reopening of [Alston’s] previously concluded post conviction proceeding.” The Court of Special Appeals remanded the “case to the post conviction court so that it can provide, on the record, an explanation for its determination that reopening [Alston’s] post conviction proceeding was ‘in the interests of justice.’ ” Following the remand by the Court of Special Appeals, the postconviction trial court filed a brief opinion reiterating what it had previously written.

The court stated that, in its view, § 7-104 of the Postconviction Procedure Act authorizes “either party to move for reconsideration of a ruling in a post conviction case.” The postconviction trial court repeated that it “became aware that the issue of delay of presentment was litigated” on Alston’s direct appeal from his original convictions. The Court of Special Appeals denied Alston’s application for leave to appeal the postconviction trial court’s ruling after the remand. On April 18, 2008, Alston commenced the present case by filing in the Circuit Court for Prince George’s County a motion to correct illegal sentences. Alston argued in the motion that the postconviction trial court’s revocation of the order vacating his convictions and sentences, and re-imposing the sentences, constituted the imposition of illegal sentences.

He claimed ³³² that he was entitled to relief under Rule 4-345(a) which authorizes a court to “correct an illegal sentence at any time.” The Circuit Court, without a hearing and in a one line order, denied Alston’s motion to correct illegal sentences. Alston appealed, and the Court of Special Appeals affirmed in an unreported opinion. Alston filed in this Court a petition for a writ of certiorari which this Court initially denied. Alston v. State, 410 Md. 560 , 979 A.2d 707 (2009).

Upon Alston’s motion to reconsider, this Court did reconsider and granted the petition for a writ of certiorari. Alston v. State, 411 Md. 355 , 983 A.2d 431 (2009).

II

The issue of whether Alston was entitled to relief in this proceeding under Rule 4-345(a) involves two subsidiary questions: 1. was the postconviction trial court’s reimposition of Alston’s original sentences, after having vacated those sentences and having ordered a new trial, unlawful? 2. if unlawful, was the re-imposition of the sentences cognizable under Rule 4-345(a)? We shall answer both questions in the affirmative. A. When the postconviction trial court on March 28, 2005, filed, and the clerk entered, an opinion and order that Alston’s postconviction petition be granted, thereby vacating Alston’s original convictions and sentences and ordering a new trial, the court’s order constituted a final judgment. See Maryland Rule 4-407(d) which provides: “(d) Finality.

The statement and order [of the postconviction trial court] constitute a final judgment when entered by the clerk.” Like most other final judgments, the judgment entered on March 28, 2005, was subject to appellate review. When a final judgment in a postconviction case is adverse to the State, the only remedy granted to the State in the Postconviction Procedure Act is to “apply to the Court of Special Appeals for leave to appeal the order.” See § 7-109(a), supra n. 2. To reiterate, the State did not file an ³³³ application for leave to appeal the final judgment of the postconviction trial court vacating Alston’s convictions and sentences and ordering a new trial. Instead, forty-four days after the final judgment, the State filed in the postconviction trial court a motion for reconsideration.

In holding that it could reopen the postconviction case upon the State’s motion for reconsideration, the postconviction trial court relied upon § 7-104 of the Postconviction Procedure Act, with the court stating “that its revisory power under Section 7-104 ... permits either party to move for reconsideration of a ruling in a post conviction case.” Similarly, § 7-104 is the only ground relied upon by the State in support of the postconviction trial court’s decision to reconsider its prior judgment. Section 7-104 provides: “The court may reopen a postconviction proceeding that was previously concluded if the court determines that the action is in the interests of justice.” Although § 7-104 itself does not contain language specifying who may file an application to reopen a previously concluded postconviction proceeding, the statute as a whole and the legislative history of § 7-104 make it clear that only a “convicted person” may bring either a postconviction proceeding or a petition to reopen a postconviction proceeding. Section 7-104 of the Postconviction Procedure Act, authorizing the reopening of postconviction proceedings, was not enacted in isolation. Instead, it was enacted along with § 7-103 of the Act, and particularly § 7-103(a) which allows the filing of only one petition for “relief under this title.” 5 ³³⁴ Prior to 1986, the Postconviction Procedure Act placed no limit upon the number of petitions for postconviction relief that a convicted person could file.

Ch. 647 of the Acts of 1986, however, provided that a “person may not file more than two petitions, arising out of each trial, for relief’ under the Post-conviction Procedure Act. The two-petition limit remained in effect until 1995. In addition, before 1995 there was no provision in the statute for “reopening” a postconviction proceeding. The General Assembly, by Ch. 110 of the Acts of 1995, enacted several changes in the Postconvietion Procedure Act.

With regard to the number of petitions a convicted person could file, this Court in Grayson v. State, 354 Md. 1, 4 , 728 A.2d 1280, 1281 (1999), summarized one change as follows: “The General Assembly in 1995 once again addressed the number of petitions under the Post Conviction Procedure Act which could be filed to challenge a particular conviction. By Ch. 110 of the Acts of 1995, which was captioned ‘Death Penalty Reform’ and which primarily amended statutory provisions relating to capital punishment, the General Assembly also amended subsection (a)(2) of the Post Conviction Procedure Act to provide as follows: ‘(2)(I) A person may file only one petition, arising out of each trial, for relief under this subtitle. ‘(II) The court may in its discretion reopen a postconviction proceeding that was previously concluded if the court determines that such action is in the interests of justice.’ The first of the above-quoted paragraphs was subsequently codified as Art. 27, § 645A(a)(2)(i) and the second as Art. 27, § 645A(a) (2) (iii). ” 6 ³³⁵ See also State v. Williamson, 408 Md. 269, 274-276 , 969 A.2d 300, 303-304 (2009). At the same 1995 legislative session, Ch. 258 of the Acts of 1995 was enacted, and it also amended former Art. 27, § 645A(a)(2), by providing: “II. Unless extraordinary cause is shown, in a case in which a sentence of death has not been imposed, a petition under this subtitle may not be filed later than 10 years from the imposition of sentence.” Consequently, in 1995, two different provisions were enacted to be in the same place in the code, with each one being a second paragraph to the newly amended subsection limiting a person to one postconviction petition.

The codifiers initially codified the three provisions as paragraphs (i), (ii), and (iii) of then § 645A(a)(2). In 2001, the codifiers made the reopening provision a separate § 7-104. The Revisor’s Note immediately after the reopening provision stated that the recodification was “without substantive change from former Art. 27, § 645A(a)(2)(iii).” In addition, Senate Bill 340, which became Ch. 110 of the Acts of 1995, provided in its title, inter alia, that the Act was “FOR the purpose of ... altering the number of petitions for postconviction relief, arising out of each trial, that a person is permitted to file; permitting a circuit court to reopen a postconviction proceeding under certain circumstances.... ” It seems clear that the reopening provision was tied to the provision limiting the number of petitions a person could file, and reopening was for the purpose of providing a safeguard for the occasional meritorious case where the convicted person had already filed one postconviction petition. The reopening paragraph was not to authorize a second postconviction petition with all of the requirements applicable to postconviction petitions; rather it was for the case where a circuit court, in its discretion, believed that, in the interests of justice, a convicted person’s conviction or sentence should be examined.

See Evans v. State, 396 Md. 256, 277-278 , 914 A.2d 25, 37-38 (2006), cert. denied, 552 U.S. 835 , 128 S.Ct. 65 , 169 ³³⁶ L.Ed.2d 53 (2007); Gray v. State, 388 Md. 366, 382-384 , 879 A.2d 1064, 1073-1074 (2005). The legislative history of Ch.110 of the Acts of 1995 confirms that the reopening provision was tied to the single petition provision, and was a safeguard for criminal “defendants.” Nothing in the legislative history suggests that the reopening clause was for either side to file a motion for reconsideration. Thus, during the 1995 session of the General Assembly, the Governor’s