Brooks v. Warden

Morton, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This is an application for leave to appeal from a denial of post conviction relief by Judge Charles D. Harris in the Criminal Court of Baltimore on January 17, 1966. Applicant, represented by Court appointed counsel, pleaded guilty on January 17, 1949 to four indictments of robbery with a deadly weapon and was sentenced to four consecutive twenty year terms in the Maryland State Penitentiary. No appeal was taken from the conviction and sentence.

Applicant’s petition under the Post Conviction Procedure Act was filed on December 7, 1965. Counsel was appointed to represent him and a hearing was held on January 4, 1966. At that time, applicant advanced but one contention, viz.: “* * * that it was impossible for him to have received the fair and impartial trial to which he was entitled under the then existing circumstances and over which he had absolutely no control; that, as a result he was denied due process of law within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.” At the hearing before Judge Harris, petitioner affirmed the fact that his guilty pleas were voluntarily made and that he understood what he was doing when he entered such pleas. He further testified that his real purpose in initiating his actioir for post conviction relief was to obtain a reduction in his eighty year sentence.

It is, of course, well settled that a guilty plea, freely and intelligently made, operates of itself as a conviction of the highest order and constitutes a waiver of all nonjurisdictional defects, and Judge Harris so held in denying