Caplin v. Director of Patuxent Institution

Hammond, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This is an application for leave to appeal from an order of the Circuit Court for Montgomery County dated January 11, 1965, finding that the applicant is a defective delinquent and committing him to Patuxent Institution. Thomas W. Caplin previously had been convicted in the Circuit Court for Montgomery County of housebreaking, larceny and receiving stolen goods, and on May 14, 1963, he was sentenced to not more than two years in the Maryland Institution for Men. Subsequently, on February 4, 1964, a jury trial was held in the Circuit Court for Montgomery County to determine whether the applicant was a defective delinquent.

The jury was unable to agree and was discharged. Another trial was held on January 11, 1965, before Judge Walter H. Moorman and a jury, and the jury found that the applicant was a defective delinquent. In this application for leave to appeal, the applicant raises the following contentions: ¹⁰⁵ 1. That there was not an adjudication of the fact that the applicant would have been a defective delinquent within the period of his sentence taking into effect good and industrial time. 2.

That a staff psychiatrist was allowed to testify although he had not examined the applicant until August 4, 1964, almost a year after an earlier examination by another staff member, and approximately six months after the original trial. 3. That neither the court, the State’s Attorney, nor the applicant was provided with the Interval Note dated January 5, 1965, until the morning of the trial. 4. That Louis M. Florenzo was allowed to give his opinion that the applicant was a defective delinquent although the witness did not meet the qualifications for certification as a psychologist in Maryland, set forth in Art. 43 (1957 Code, as