Broadway v. State

MURPHY, Chief Judge. We granted certiorari in this case to consider whether, in a probation revocation proceeding, a probationer was afforded timely notice of claimed violations of the conditions of his probation. I. On July 7, 1981, the appellant Larry Broadway was convicted in the Circuit Court for Harford County of operating ²³⁹ an unregistered and uninsured vehicle with a revoked driver’s license. Following imposition of sentence, he was placed on probation upon a number of stated conditions.

On September 14, 1981, appellant was arrested and incarcerated in the Baltimore City Jail on charges of armed robbery and use of a handgun. Subsequently, on March 19, 1982, he pleaded guilty to both offenses and was given concurrent sentences of twenty years for the robbery and fifteen years for the handgun violation. Earlier, on March 16, 1982, a petition to revoke appellant’s probation was served upon him, charging that (1) He failed to report to his Probation Agent as required on January 6, 1982; and (2) He failed to appear at a Violation of Probation Hearing on November 5, 1981. A supplemental petition to revoke appellant’s probation was filed on April 16, 1982.

It charged that appellant had failed to obey all laws, had failed to get his probation agent’s permission before obtaining possession of a dangerous weapon, and failed to pay court costs. Appellant was never served with a copy of the supplemental petition. 1 He and his attorney were notified of the additional charges on the morning of the probation revocation hearing in the Circuit Court for Harford County (May 10, 1982). The appellant objected to the introduction of any evidence relating to the violations charged in the supplemental petition. He indicated that he needed time to prepare responses to the new charges.

The court overruled the objection and admitted the evidence. The court stated that the appellant could have expected that his convictions would be used against him at the hearing. On cross-examination, the State’s witness testified that the first charge in the original petition (failure to report) had been dismissed. Concerning the second charge, the appellant testified that he did not appear at the earlier scheduled probation revocation hearing be ²⁴⁰ cause he was confined to the Baltimore City Jail at the time.

The court revoked appellant’s probation based, in part at least, upon the charges contained in the supplemental petition and he was required to serve the remaining part of his sentence consecutive to the twenty-year sentence he was then serving. The Court of Special Appeals affirmed in an unreported per curiam decision. It rejected appellant’s argument that he received inadequate notice of the charges against him in the supplemental petition; it said: “Appellant was aware that a condition of his probation was that he obey all laws; he was also aware that he had been convicted of a crime, and that there was going to be a hearing on the revocation of his probation. Under the circumstances, we find neither error nor abuse of discretion by the court in permitting evidence of appellant’s conviction to be introduced