Cathcart v. State

WILNER, J. Upon evidence that he had brutally beaten Antoinette Dray-ton, his former girlfriend and the mother of his infant daughter, and thereafter precluded her, for over an hour, from leaving her apartment to seek medical assistance, petitioner Robin Tyronne Cathcart was convicted by a jury in the Circuit Court for Prince George’s County of first degree assault and false imprisonment. For the first degree assault, the court imposed a sentence of ten years. For the common law offense of false imprisonment, the court sentenced Cathcart to life imprisonment, consecutive to the ten year sentence for assault, with all but ten years suspended. No period of probation was imposed with respect to the suspended part of the life ³²³ sentence.

The single question presented to us is whether the sentence imposed on the false imprisonment conviction is illegal. The events giving rise to this case took place in the early-morning hours of December 28, 2003. We need not recount in detail the dreadful ordeal to which Ms. Drayton was subjected by Cathcart. The couple had lived together for a few months in the Fall of 2003, but when, in mid-December, Cathcart took up with another woman, Ms. Drayton told him that he could no longer stay at her apartment.

They did spend Christmas night together, however, but when Cathcart left, he took the keys to the apartment, and Ms. Drayton spent the next two days with a neighbor. Around 1:00 a.m. on the 28th, Cathcart met Ms. Drayton at her apartment, threatened her, entered the apartment, and, during the course of the next hour or so, choked her and beat her severely, breaking her jaw in several places and pummeling her face to the point that one eye was shut completely and she could barely see. Her parents, who saw her later, were unable to recognize her other than by her clothes. 1 When the prolonged assault ended, Ms. Drayton pleaded -with Cathcart to let her leave to get medical help, but he refused even to let her get dressed, much less to leave, and kept her hostage for another hour. Finally, around 3:30 a.m., he led her to the parking lot and, after holding her there for a while longer, departed, and left her to fend for herself.

Unable to see very well, she made her way across the parking lot to her friend’s apartment by feeling the parked cars. Drayton was taken initially to Southern Maryland Hospital Center, but her injuries were too serious for treatment there, so she was transferred to Prince George’s Hospital Trauma Unit, where she underwent surgery and was treated for a variety of head and facial injuries. ³²⁴ In imposing sentence, the court asked that the photographs of Ms. Drayton’s injuries be sent to the Maryland Parole Commission for its future consideration. Cathcart appealed, arguing that, under the circumstances of the case, imposition of a life sentence for the common law offense of false imprisonment was unconstitutionally disproportionate and therefore illegal. Noting that the maximum sentence in Maryland for kidnapping—an aggravated form of false imprisonment—was only thirty years and that the permissible sentence for false imprisonment in other States ranged from six months to ten years, he complained that a life sentence for merely holding Ms. Drayton in her apartment for up to three hours was grossly disproportionate and therefore cruel and unusual.

Given the fact that no period of probation was imposed with respect to the suspended part of the life sentence and that Cathcart could therefore never serve more than ten years on that sentence, the Court of Special Appeals concluded that the sentence was effectively one of ten years, rather than life, and that a sentence of ten years for false imprisonment, under the circumstances, was not unconstitutionally disproportionate. It therefore affirmed the judgment. Cathcart v. State, 169 Md. App. 379 , 901 A.2d 262 (2006). In the petition for certiorari that we granted and in his brief before us, Cathcart continues to maintain that a sentence of life imprisonment, with all but ten years suspended but with no probation, constitutes an illegal sentence, but the nature of his complaint is somewhat different.

Acknowledging that, in the absence of a period of probation attached to the suspended part of the sentence, there will be no occasion for the suspended part of the sentence ever to be executed and that, as a result, he will never have to serve more than ten years on that sentence, he complains that the effect of the sentence, as articulated and when considered together with the ten-year sentence for assault, is to preclude any parole consideration for the entire duration of the twenty years. 2 That, he argues, ³²⁵ is illegal for two reasons: first, it is cruel and unusual to impose a non-parolable sentence of fifteen years for false imprisonment; and second, by precluding the prospect of parole in the absence of any authorizing statute, the court has effectively intruded upon the discretion of the Parole Commission, an Executive Branch agency vested by law with authority over granting or denying parole, and has thereby exercised an Executive function in violation of the separation of powers principle enunciated in Article 8 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights. We do not agree that the sentences imposed on Cathcart were in any way illegal. The sentence imposed on the assault conviction was well within the permissible statutory range, and, as we shall explain, the sentence imposed for false imprisonment, despite its wording, was not a life sentence and has no attribute or collateral consequence of a life sentence. What the court has effectively done is to impose two ten-year sentences, one consecutive to the other, and there is nothing unlawful in its doing so.

Cathcart does not challenge the ten-year sentence imposed for first degree assault, and, indeed, he has no basis for such a challenge. Assault in the first degree is a felony that carries a maximum sentence of 25 years. See Maryland Code, § 3- ³²⁶ 202(b) of the Criminal Law Article. The focus is on the sentence imposed for false imprisonment.

We have on several occasions, most recently in Benedict v. State, 377 Md. 1 , 831 A.2d 1060 (2003) and Moats v. Scott, 358 Md. 593 , 751 A.2d 462 (2000), set forth the various options available to the court in sentencing a defendant for a crime that carries a prison sentence: (1) The court may impose a sentence up to the maximum term allowed and, by stating no contrary ruling, implicitly direct that the entire sentence be executed. In that event, the defendant will be delivered to the appropriate correctional authority to commence serving the entire sentence, subject to an earlier release only through parole, gubernatorial pardon, or, upon the accumulation of statutory diminution credits against the sentence, on mandatory supervision. (2) Under what is now § 6-221 of the Criminal Procedure Article (CP), the court “may suspend the imposition or execution of sentence and place the defendant on probation on the conditions that the court considers proper.” That section provides two options. The court may defer the actual imposition of sentence in favor of probation or it may impose a sentence and suspend the execution of all of it in favor of the probation.

In either event, so long as the probation is not revoked, the defendant will not be incarcerated at all. If the probation is subsequently revoked, the court may then proceed either to impose the sentence that it had deferred or direct execution of all or any part of the sentence that it had previously imposed but suspended. (3) Under what is now CP § 6-222, the court may impose what is commonly referred to as a split sentence. It may “(1) impose a sentence for a specified time and provide that a lesser time be served in confinement; (2) suspend the remainder of the sentence; and (3) order probation for a time [permitted by that statute].” (Emphasis added).

If the court chooses that approach, it must impose the full sentence it intends to impose. See Hanson v. Hughes, 52 Md.App. 246, 253, 447 A.2d 892, 895 (1982), aff'd for reasons set forth by ³²⁷ Court of Special Appeals, 294 Md. 599 , 451 A.2d 664 (1982) (“The court must impose the full sentence; it may then suspend execution of a part of it.”). (4) Finally, under what is now CP § 6-225(d), the court may impose a sentence of custodial confinement or imprisonment as a condition of probation. The split sentence option described in ¶ (3) above may be used in connection -with a life sentence, i.e., the court may impose a life sentence (assuming a life sentence is permissible for the crime) and suspend all but a fixed part of it and direct execution of only that fixed part.

See State v. Wooten, 277 Md. 114 , 352 A.2d 829 (1976); Williamson v. State, 284 Md. 212 , 395 A.2d 496 (1979); Hanson v. Hughes, supra, 52 Md.App. at 253-54 , 447 A.2d at 895-96 . If a court chooses to use that approach, however, it must comply with the requirements of CP § 6-222, one of which is that there must be a period of probation attached to the suspended part of the sentence. In State ex rel. Sonner v. Shearin, 272 Md. 502 , 325 A.2d 573 (1974), this Court declared that “in the absence of statutory authority a court does not possess any power, after sentence has