Brunson v. Director of the Patuxent Institution

¹²⁹ Hammond, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. In August of 1963 the applicant, represented by court-appointed counsel, was convicted of burglary of a warehouse. He received a sentence of not more than three years and was then transferred to Patuxent Institution for evaluation as a defective delinquent. In June of 1964, after a trial by jury, he was found to be a defective delinquent and committed to Patuxent.

It is from this finding that application for leave to appeal is sought. Applicant, through his court-appointed attorney, relies on errors allegedly committed by the trial court as follows: (1) the overruling of defendant’s motion for a directed verdict for lack of sufficient evidence to convict; and (2) the admission of Dr. Boslow’s opinion that the applicant was a defective delinquent despite the fact that none of the persons who prepared the reports on which Dr. Boslow in part based his professional opinion of defective delinquency were in court to testify, and hence were not subject to cross-examination, and similarly the reliance by Dr. Boslow on applicant’s home background and psychiatric history learned from records of a psychologist of the juvenile court made in 1957, some three years before trial, which were not part of the records of the Patuxent Institution. We find no merit to the contention of insufficiency of evidence. The testimony of Dr. Boslow, the formal report from Patuxent, the record of prior convictions and the fact of the instant burglary conviction showed more than sufficient basis to support a verdict.

Applicant’s further contentions also cannot help him. The fact that the Patuxent Institution report included findings of persons who did not testify does not render it inadmissible. Washington v. Director, 237