Boyd v. State

Wilner, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. Appellant was convicted in the Circuit Court for Montgomery County of armed robbery and use of a handgun in the commission of a felony, for which he was sentenced to a total of thirty-five years in prison. He claims in this appeal that because of a violation of the Interstate Agreement on Detainers (IAD), codified as Md. Code art. 27, §§ 616A — 616R, the indictment upon which his convictions rested lost its vitality, and that he never should have been brought to trial on it. The circumstances here are most unusual, and the issue raised by appellant is a novel one.

It appears that in the spring of 1978, appellant, being at the time an escapee from the Patuxent Institution, sought to support himself by robbing Safeway stores in and around the District of Columbia. He seems to have been a bit too careless in some of his ventures, however, for (1) on May 10, 1978, he was indicted in Prince George’s County for armed robbery and various associated offenses arising out of the robbery of a Safeway store on March 31,1978; (2) on May 25, 1978, he was indicted in Montgomery County for similar offenses arising from the robbery of another Safeway store on April 18,1978; and (3) on June 22,1978, he was indicted in the District of Columbia for robbing a third Safeway store on April 7, 1978. Although the District of Columbia was the last of the three jurisdictions to indict appellant, it was the first to acquire custody of him. He was arrested there on April 19, 1978 — the day after the last robbery — and incarcerated in lieu of $200,000 bond.

Instead of being placed in the District of Columbia Jail, appellant was apparently committed to the Lorton Reformatory, a correctional institution located in ¹⁹⁹ Lorton, Virginia, but owned and operated by the D. C. correctional authorities. On May 26, 1978, a bench warrant was issued in Montgomery County for appellant’s arrest. On June 5, the county sheriff sent a copy of the indictment and the bench warrant to the Fugitive Squad of the (D. C.) Metropolitan Police Department, advising that appellant was in the D. C. Jail and requesting that the warrant be filed as a detainer. 1 At some point, the Montgomery County action was communicated to the District of Columbia correctional authorities, for on June 9, 1978, the Records Administrator of the D. C. Department of Corrections made a note of the Montgomery County detainer and gave appellant written notice that "A DETAINER HAS BEEN PLACED AGAINST YOU BY: METROPOLITAN POLICE DEPARTMENT IN FAVOR OF: MONTGOMERY COUNTY, MARYLAND CHARGING YOU WITH: A/ROBBERY, ASSAULT, AND USE OF HANDGUN (FELONY).” 2 Notwithstanding the obvious awareness of the D. C. authorities that appellant was in their custody, several weeks later the Metropolitan Police Fugitive Squad responded to the sheriffs request with the advice that appellant was not in their custody, but "that they were familiar with Mr. Boyd [appellant] and they would like to keep the warrant down there in their jurisdiction and they would attempt to locate Mr. Boyd on the street.” 3 (Emphasis supplied.) ²⁰⁰ With this news, supposedly from "the horse’s mouth,” the sheriff entered appellant’s name in the National Criminal Information Center data bank so that the county would be notified if appellant were arrested anywhere in the country, but apparently did nothing more of an affirmative nature to locate him. Though presumably advised of the county detainer, appellant did not immediately pursue his rights under the IAD, to which both the District and Maryland are parties.

On August 30, 1978, appellant proceeded to trial in the District. Pursuant to a plea bargain, he pled guilty to armed robbery and, following a presentence investigation, he was, on November 1, 1978, sentenced to a term of from ten to thirty years. Appellant was recommitted to Lorton to begin serving his sentence. On December 19, 1978, the State’s Attorney for Prince George’s County filed with the Superintendent of Lorton a request for temporary custody of appellant pursuant to Art. IV (a) of the IAD (Md. Code art. 27, § 616E) in order to try him on the open indictment in that county.

He proposed to take custody of appellant at Lorton on January 29, 1979, for trial to commence on February 5, 1979. Pursuant to that request, appellant was in fact brought into Maryland where, on February 5, 1979, he pled guilty to one count of armed robbery and was sentenced to a term of ten years, consecutive to that being served in the District of Columbia. Despite the D. C. Record Administrator’s awareness of the Montgomery County detainer, and despite the clear mandate of Art. IV(b) of the IAD that the D. C. authorities "furnish all other officers and appropriate courts in the receiving state [i.e., Maryland] who have lodged detainers against the prisoner.. . with notices informing them of the request for custody,” no one bothered to notify the Montgomery County authorities of the Prince George’s County request or that appellant would be in Maryland pursuant to it. When he appeared in court in Prince George’s County, appellant mentioned, in the course of his plea for leniency, ²⁰¹ that "I got to go to Montgomery County sometime, I don’t know when, for armed robbery charge over there.” The remark passed without comment.

Thus, his business finished in Prince George’s County, appellant was returned to the District of Columbia without the Montgomery County authorities ever knowing he was in the State. Nothing more happened until May, 1980, when the Metropolitan Police Department advised the Montgomery County sheriff that it was still "unable to locate Mr. Boyd in the District of Columbia,” that D. C. would be returning the warrant, and that appellant might possibly be incarcerated in Prince George’s County. The sheriff thereupon recalled the warrant from the District of Columbia and filed a detainer with Prince George’s County. 4 Eventually, the Montgomery County authorities learned that appellant was indeed at Lorton. On June 10, 1980, the sheriff refiled the warrant with the Metropolitan Police Department, and on September 26, 1980, Montgomery County filed a request under IAD with the District of Columbia Department of Corrections for temporary custody of appellant, proposing to try him on the open indictment on November 13, 1980.

Appellant’s response to the Montgomery County action was a motion to dismiss the indictment for failure to comply with Art. IV (e) of IAD (Md. Code art. 27, § 616E (e)). Specifically, he argued that, once he was brought into Maryland pursuant to the Prince George’s County request, ²⁰² it was incumbent upon the State to try all open indictments upon which detainers had been lodged, and that any such indictment not disposed of prior to his return to the District had to be dismissed. The circuit court rejected that motion, following which appellant was tried, convicted, and sentenced. In this appeal, appellant raises the single issue of whether the court erred in denying his motion to dismiss based on the requirements of IAD.

The history of IAD was summarized by the United States Supreme Court in United States v. Mauro, 436 U.S. 340 (1978); see also Parks v. State, 41 Md.App. 381, 383 (1979), aff'd 287 Md. 11 (1980); Abramson, Criminal Detainers, 91, et seq. (1979). Its function, a dual one, was well stated by Abramson, supra, at 93: "The IAD not only provides the inmate with a method of resolving the charges underlying detainers from another jurisdiction, but also provides prosecutors with a method for securing inmates incarcerated in other jurisdictions for trial before the expiration of their sentences.” This dual aspect of the Agreement is evident in both its history and its provisions, and it ought to be kept firmly in mind. The Agreement recognized a commonality of interest among the accused, the accuser, and the current custodian in having open charges in the "accuser” jurisdiction efficiently resolved, and established procedures to achieve that end.

It did this, essentially, by (1) requiring the custodial jurisdiction to inform the prisoner of all detainers filed against him by other jurisdictions (Art. Ill (c)); (2) enabling the prisoner to force a speedy trial on the charges underlying such detainers by demanding a prompt hearing and thus setting in motion procedures for his release to the accusing State for that purpose (Art. Ill (a)); (3) enabling the accusing State to secure the prisoner’s attendance for purposes of trial with or without a request by the prisoner (Arts. IV and V); and (4) providing acceptable procedures for the prisoner’s temporary release, interim custody, and return (Art. V (e)). In creating this mechanism, the Agreement not only serves to protect the legitimate interests of the prisoner in ²⁰³ having open charges expeditiously resolved, but also to harmonize the conflicting sovereign interests of the two States involved and to minimize any disruption to the prison regimen and the prisoner’s participation in it. 5 To that latter end, the Agreement seeks to limit the interjurisdictional transfer of prisoners by requiring that the receiving State, once it has obtained custody of the prisoner under the Act, wrap up its business with him, so to speak, before returning him to the' custodial (sending) State. This is ordinarily not too difficult when there is but one set of charges pending in the receiving State, or where, if there are multiple sets of charges, they emanate from the same prosecuting authority.

The Agreement recognizes, however, the possibility that more than one prosecuting authority in a single State may want a prisoner for trial, and it places an initial coordinative responsibility on the correctional authorities of the custodial State in such cases. Whether a request for temporary custody emanates from the prisoner under Art. Ill or a prosecutor in the receiving State under Art. IV, the correctional authority of the custodial State is plainly responsible for notifying all other prosecutors in the receiving State who have lodged detainers against the prisoner of the request, and thus of his availability for trial. 6 ²⁰⁴ It is in that context that the Agreement further provides, in Art. Ill (d) and Art. IV (e), that "[i]f trial is not had on any indictment, information or complaint contemplated hereby prior to the prisoner’s being returned to the original place of imprisonment [pursuant to Article V (e) hereof,] such indictment, information or