Bryson v. State

Per Curiam. John Hamilton Bryson, III, the appellant, was convicted of grand larceny in the Circuit Court for Prince George’s County. Judge Ernest A. Loveless, Jr. presiding without a jury, accepted Bryson’s plea of guilty and sentenced him to a term of ten years. Bryson contends that it was error for the court, in determining the sentence, to receive uncorroborated statements to the effect that he had committed other offenses; that it was error for the lower court to sentence him for heroin addiction; and that the sentence constituted cruel and unusual punishment because he was a drug addict.

At his trial, the appellant, pleaded guilty to grand larceny; he was examined by the trial judge who accepted the plea as voluntary. The State then gave a brief recital of the facts stating that’ the appellant freely admitted his complicity in the crime charged and also admitted that he had committed thirty-seven other burglaries and larcenies to feed his drug addiction habit. He had no prior record of convictions. The appellant relies on Baker v. State, 3 Md. App. 251 , 238 A. 2d 561 wherein this Court remanded the case for the purpose of redetermination of the sentences imposed by the trial judge because it appeared that the judge was not actually sentencing Baker for the crime charged but also for the other numerous crimes that had been committed in the vicinity'where Baker had been arrested.

In Baker, supra, the