Fairbanks v. Director of Patuxent Institution

Prescott, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The application for leave to appeal in this case, filed before our decision in Purks v. State, 226 Md. 43 , 171 A. 2d 726 , is controlled by that decision. The applicant, after hearing, was determined to be a defective delinquent by a judge of the Criminal Court of Baltimore, sitting without a jury. It appears that Dr. Boslow, the Director of Patuxent Institution, in testifying as to his report made pursuant to Code (1957), Article 31B, Section 7 (a), read all or a part of the following reports, which were con ⁶⁶³ tained in said report: report of a social worker (Children’s Psychiatric Service) prepared some years ago, when applicant was under examination at Johns Hopkins Hospital; report of the criminal psychologist at the Maryland State Reformatory for Males, who examined applicant when confined in that institution in 1948; report of the criminal psychologist of the Maryland House of Correction, who examined applicant when he was incarcerated in that place of confinement in 1956; report of Dr. Guttmacher, psychiatrist and Chief Medical Officer of the Supreme Bench of Baltimore City, who examined applicant at the direction of the Criminal Court of Baltimore in 1960; and the recent reports of two psychologists on the staff of Patuxent Institution.

Counsel for the applicant was correct in noting that the reports objected to in Purks, supra, were “substantially similar to those alleged to have been erroneously admitted in this case.” In Purks , we sustained the trial court in permitting Dr. Boslow to testify “generally as to the information that had been collected about