Drehoff v. Warden of the Maryland House of Correction

⁶⁵⁵ Sybert, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The applicant pleaded guilty in the Criminal Court of Baltimore to a charge of burglary and was sentenced to 5 years’ imprisonment. He filed a petition for relief under the Post Conviction Procedure Act and now seeks leave to appeal from its denial. In the original case and in the post conviction proceedings he was represented by different, experienced, court-appointed counsel.

Applicant’s principal contention is that there was a conflict between the decisions of Chief Judge Niles, who sat in the original burglary case, and Judge Foster, before whom he testified as a witness in a new trial granted to a co-defendant, Paul Ridgely. In order to understand applicant’s contention a brief factual review is necessary. Four parties had been indicted in the case: Ridgely, Allen Wahl, Carl Montier and the applicant. Subsequent to the applicant’s plea of guilty, Ridgely and Montier were found guilty of burglary by Judge Niles and Wahl was found not guilty.

Ridgely moved for a new trial, and when it was granted Montier and the applicant were returned from their respective penal institutions in order to testify. The applicant claims that he told the same story at Ridgely’s new trial as he had told at the previous trial, but that Montier changed his story, now implicating only Wahl and Ridgely in the burglary and exonerating himself and the applicant. The applicant claims that Judge Foster, in convicting Ridgely of burglary, stated that he believed the story related by Montier and not the one told by the applicant. Because Montier’s version of the crime exonerated the applicant (even though the applicant’s own version did not), it is his contention that Judge