Chenault v. Director, Patuxent Institution

³⁵⁸ Lowe, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. Robert S. Chenault has applied to this Court for leave to appeal the judgment of Judge Marvin J. Land of the Circuit Court for Baltimore County, who redetermined that applicant was still a defective delinquent pursuant to Md. Code, Art. 3 IB, Sec. 10. On August 7, 1974 applicant failed to return from conditional parole. On December 12, 1974 he was arrested in Montgomery County and held in its Detention Center pending disposition of charges against him.

Patuxent officials were duly notified. While awaiting trial in Montgomery County, he petitioned the Circuit Court for Baltimore County on January 28, 1975 for redetermination of his defective delinquency. Judge Kenneth C. Proctor responded by appointing an attorney to represent applicant in the redetermination hearing and advised applicant that his counsel would ask Patuxent Institution to have applicant returned for examination pursuant to the hearing. A series of correspondence between applicant and court ensued, substantially to the effect that applicant opposed returning to Patuxent for evaluation because of some real or imagined threat to his life.

He was advised that such evaluation and examination was necessary for the redetermination. Petition for applicant’s return to Patuxent for the redetermination evaluation was filed by the State’s Attorney on May 13, 1975 and order signed by Judge Land the following day. The evaluation was made and report by interval note filed with the court on June 5, 1975 at the hearing on redetermination. Applicant first contends that because the Patuxent officials required his physical presence for the diagnostic staffing and evaluation report he was “caused a wilful and unreasonable delay in [his] hearing date.” Such contention is spurious.

Any delay was the direct result of his escape and subsequent detention by Montgomery County officials pending unrelated charges, coupled with his own opposition to efforts to return him to Patuxent for reevaluation. ³⁵⁹ Furthermore, the constitutional right to a speedy trial does not apply to defective delinquency hearings, which are not criminal in nature. McCloskey v. Director, 230 Md. 635 . The second issue is equally without merit. Applicant contends that “. .. in order to resolve the matter of getting applicant to Patuxent Institution, his counsel and an assistant State’s Attorney for Baltimore County had to refer the matter to the Judge of the Circuit Court for Baltimore County assigned to hear said matters, who, after a chamber’s meeting with said attorneys, and during which it became necessary to disclose to his detriment, the reasons why applicant was at the Montgomery County Detention Center. . . .

This procedure which was necessitated by the inactivity of Patuxent Institution officials thus tainted, unfairly, the hearing that applicant was entitled to have and weakened or destroyed his defenses therein.” Presumably the in-chambers hearing resulted from the State’s Attorney’s petition to transfer applicant, over his protest, to Patuxent for the evaluation. We can see nothing, and are informed of nothing by applicant, to indicate prejudice from his having imputed the knowledge of his detention for unrelated matters in Montgomery County to the judge who decided the petition to transfer applicant for evaluation. Such bald allegation with no specificity whatsoever provides no ground on which to grant an application for leave to appeal. Shields v. Director, 11 Md. App. 347, 349 .

The final allegation of error provides cause for greater concern. Over applicant’s objection, an Interval Note prepared at Patuxent Institute was admitted into evidence. The note, made pursuant to the reevaluation, contained a brief summary of applicant’s history which had been fully set forth in the original Institutional Report supplemented by an Interval Note prepared for an earlier redetermination ³⁶⁰ hearing. Following that summary was a “bring-to-date” of applicant’s activities which included the following: “Then on July 1, 1974 he was reparoled to the Half-Way House where he again violated the terms and conditions of his parole and on August 8, 1974 he escaped from supervision and a retake warrant was issued.

The patient was apprehended on September 13, 1974 [sic] 1 when he was arrested in Montgomery County on charges of Burglary and Concealed Weapon (knives [sic] and a loaded tear pistol), and he is presently awaiting trial for these charges. ” [Emphasis added]. Because the “Interval Note from the Patuxent Institution which contained references to his arrest in Montgomery County was admitted into evidence . . applicant complains that he was “denied due process.” He would have us compel suppression of the Interval Note containing the offensive reference. 2 Although suppression of the entire note seems extreme, on July 28, 1975, less than one week