Carter v. Warden of Maryland Penitentiary

Hammond, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This is an application for leave to appeal from the denial of a writ of habeas corpus by Judge Manley of the Supreme Bench of Baltimore. Petitioner was tried before Judge Gontrum of the Circuit Court for Baltimore County on January 5, 1955, on charges of burglary, house breaking, larceny and receiving stolen goods. The court appointed counsel for him.

Petitioner, being advised by his counsel that the State would abandon the counts for burglary and housebreaking if he would plead guilty to the last two counts, agreed to do so and did plead guilty to larceny and receiving stolen goods. On February 5, 1955, after investigation by the Probation Department, petitioner was sentenced to five years. By error of the clerk’s office, the commitment was for burglary, and on March 23, 1955, a corrected commitment was sent to the penitentiary showing that petitioner was to be detained for a judgment and sentence for larceny and receiving stolen goods. ⁶⁵⁹ The attention of the State’s Attorney was directed by petitioner’s counsel to the fact that there was an inconsistency in a judgment and sentence for larceny and receiving stolen goods, resulting from the same occurrence. The State’s Attorney secured a writ of habeas corpus “for the purpose of clarifying sentence imposed on said defendant on February 4, 1955.” The docket entries show that on April 22, 1955, the traverser was “brought into court for further hearing” before Judge Gontrum, who then struck out the judgment and sentence on the fourth count (for receiving stolen goods) and recommitted the petitioner to the penitentiary for the term of five years from December 17, 1954, under the judgment and sentence for the third count, that of larceny.

Petitioner says that he was sentenced twice for the same offense and thereby placed in double jeopardy. A further claim is that his attorney was “in liaison with the State’s Attorney, forcing your appellant under a threat of twenty years if I do