Farrell v. Warden of Maryland Penitentiary

Hammond, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. Cornelius Farrell was convicted of rape and sentenced to death in 1956. His conviction was reversed on appeal, Farrell v. State, 213 Md. 348 , and in his second trial he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life imprisonment. No appeal was taken, but on February 25, 1965, Farrell filed a petition under the Uniform Post Conviction Procedure Act, Code (1965 Supp.), Art. 27, §§ 645A to 645J, which was dismissed by Judge Grady in the Criminal Court of Baltimore and he now brings this application for leave to appeal that dismissal.

The petition to Judge Grady appears to contain two sets of contentions, those in petitioner’s own handwriting which were withdrawn but subsequently resubmitted, and those submitted by the lawyer appointed to represent him in his petition for post conviction relief. Although Judge Grady only dealt with the second group, four of the five allegations which petitioner himself submitted can be disposed of as a matter of law, and the other contention (improper representation at his second trial by his court-appointed trial counsel who also represented him at the first trial and at his appeal) is a restatement of the contentions presented by his lawyer and will be considered later. ⁴⁸ Petitioner first contends that he should have been given a mental examination prior to his trial as a matter of right in view of the fact that the crime charged is a capital offense. There is no basis for this claim because Farrell himself did not raise the issue of sanity either at his first or second trial and nothing is alleged or claimed which should have led the trial judge to have requested a determination of sanity under Code (1964 Replacement Vol.), Art. 59, § 9. Petitioner’s next claim is that he was not represented by counsel at the arraignment.

Although Farrell personally pleaded not guilty at his second arraignment, the fact that he pleaded guilty at his trial when he was represented by a lawyer gives him no valid claim that he was denied any constitutional right on the grounds that he was not represented by a lawyer at all stages of the proceedings. See Hoskins v. Warden, 235 Md. 613 . The other three contentions can be disposed of quickly because they do not state a ground on which relief can be given or they allege abstractly a constitutional wrong without stating supporting facts. In the first class are the propositions that the State retried the petitioner without a reindictment and the prosecuting witness was not present at the second trial.

The answer to the first is that the indictment has not been challenged or found defective, petitioner’s conviction became final well before Schowgurow v. State, 240 Md. 121 , and there is no general requirement, constitutional or procedural, for a reindictment following a reversal and remand for a new trial. The second proposition