Gardner v. State

⁵ BARBERA, J. This case requires us to construe Maryland Code (1988, 2006 Repl.Vol.), § 12-702(b) of the Courts and Judicial Proceedings Article (“C.J.”). That provision prohibits a court from imposing, following an appeal and remand for a new trial or resentencing, “a sentence more severe than the sentence previously imposed for the offense.” 1 In the ordinary case the “sentence previously imposed” is the sentence imposed by the judge who presided over the original trial or guilty plea. The wrinkle presented by the case at bar is this: What is the “sentence previously imposed” when that judge’s sentence is increased by a three-judge sentence review panel? For the reasons that follow, we hold that, in that instance, the sentence imposed by the three-judge panel is the “sentence previously imposed,” for purposes of § 12—702(b).

I. The issue we here address has its genesis in the 2005 trial of Petitioner Eugene Gardner in the Circuit Court for Baltimore County. At that trial, Petitioner was found guilty of armed robbery and use of a handgun in the commission of a felony. The sentencing judge imposed concurrent sentences of 25 years’ imprisonment without the possibility of parole for ⁶ armed robbery, and 5 years without the possibility of parole for the handgun violation, for a total sentence of 25 years’ incarceration. Petitioner, as he is entitled to do, noted an appeal from the judgments of conviction and sought review of the sentence by a three-judge panel, pursuant to Maryland Code (2002, 2006 Repl.Vol.), §§ 8-102, 8-105 of the Criminal Procedure Article (“C.P.”). 2 While the appeal was pending, the review panel heard Petitioner’s case. 3 The panel was unanimous in its decision to increase the sentence originally imposed, concluding that Petitioner “was a serious danger to the public and that it would be appropriate to modify his sentence.” The panel did not change the 25-year, no-parole sentence for armed robbery; the panel, though, increased the sentence on the handgun conviction from 5 to 20 years’ incarceration, no part of which was suspended and the first 5 ⁷ years of which was to be served without parole.

The panel directed the sentences to be served consecutively, resulting in an increase in the total sentence from 25 years to 45 years of executed time, followed by five years’ probation. Thereafter, the Court of Special Appeals reversed the judgments of conviction—the grounds for which are irrelevant to our inquiry here—and remanded the case to the Circuit Court for a new trial. Petitioner elected a bench trial, at which the judge found him guilty of the same offenses as before—armed robbery and the handgun offense. The judge then heard from the parties concerning sentencing.

Petitioner argued for reimposition of the 25-year sentence that he received from the judge at the conclusion of the first trial. The State argued that the 45-year sentence of the three-judge panel should be followed. The court rejected both suggestions and sentenced Petitioner to a total of 40 years of executed time: 25 years, without parole, for armed robbery and 20 years with all but 15 years suspended, also without parole, for the handgun offense, to run consecutively. On appeal to the Court of Special Appeals, Petitioner argued that the sentence violates the general prohibition in § 12—702(b) of an increased sentence following remand.

Petitioner asserted that the statutory requirement that the sentence imposed on remand be no greater than the “sentence previously imposed” is ambiguous when applied to his case. He further argued that the ambiguity must be resolved in his favor by capping the new sentence at 25 years’ imprisonment—the sentence imposed by the original sentencing judge. The Court of Special Appeals disagreed. That court held that, as applied to Petitioner’s case, “the sentence previously imposed” refers to the 45-year sentence imposed by the three-judge sentence review panel.

Consequently, the 40-year sentence imposed by the court following re-trial does not violate § 12-702(b). We granted Petitioner’s request to consider the following question: ⁸ Where retrial and conviction follow a successful appeal, and Cts. & Jud. Proc. Art. § 12—702(b) prohibits a court from imposing a sentence more severe than the sentence previously imposed except in certain circumstances, is the trial court bound by the original trial judge’s sentence or a subsequent sentence imposed by a three-judge panel?

II

Petitioner argues, as he did before the Court of Special Appeals, that the “sentence previously imposed” in § 12-702(b) is ambiguous when, as in the present case, a three-judge panel has increased the sentence imposed by the original trial judge. He argues: “The plain language of § 12-702(b) does not tell us which ‘sentence previously imposed’ is the ‘sentence previously imposed’ for purposes of applying the rule that a sentence cannot be increased after a successful appeal.... ” The resulting ambiguity, Petitioner continues, dictates application of the rule of lenity, which requires that the lesser of the two previous sentences control for purposes of re-sentencing. The State, not surprisingly, has a very different view. The State argues that there is no such ambiguity in § 12-702(b), because the sentence imposed by the three-judge panel supplanted the sentence imposed by the original sentencing judge, thereby becoming the operative “sentence previously imposed” for purposes of capping any new sentence, following appeal and remand.

Resolution of the issue involves the often-cited rules of statutory interpretation, which we recently summarized: The cardinal rule of statutory interpretation is to ascertain and effectuate the real and actual intent of the Legislature. A court’s primary goal in interpreting statutory language is to discern the legislative purpose, the ends to be accomplished, or the evils to be remedied by the statutory provision under scrutiny. To ascertain the intent of the General Assembly, we begin with the normal, plain meaning of the statute. If the ⁹ language of the statute is unambiguous and clearly consistent with the statute’s apparent purpose, our inquiry as to the legislative intent ends ordinarily and we apply the statute as written without resort to other rules of construction.

We neither add nor delete language so as to reflect an intent not evidenced in the plain and unambiguous language of the statute, and we do not construe a statute with forced or subtle interpretations that limit or extend its application. We, however, do not read statutory language in a vacuum, nor do we confine strictly our interpretation of a statute’s plain language to the isolated section alone. Rather, the plain language must be viewed within the context of the statutory scheme to which it belongs, considering the purpose, aim, or policy of the Legislature in enacting the statute. We presume that the Legislature intends its enactments to operate together as a consistent and harmonious body of law, and, thus, we seek to reconcile and harmonize the parts of a statute, to the extent possible consistent with the statute’s object and scope.

Where the words of a statute are ambiguous and subject to more than one reasonable interpretation, or where the words are clear and unambiguous when viewed in isolation, but become ambiguous when read as part of a larger statutory scheme, a court must resolve the ambiguity by searching for legislative intent in other indicia, including the history of the legislation or other relevant sources intrinsic and extrinsic to the legislative process. In resolving ambiguities, a court considers the structure of the statute, how it relates to other laws, its general purpose and relative rationality and legal effect of various competing constructions. In every case, the statute must be given a reasonable interpretation, not one that is absurd, illogical or incompatible with common sense. State v. Johnson, 415 Md. 413, 421-22 , 2 A.3d 368, 373 (2010) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted).

We begin the task of ascertaining the General Assembly’s intent in enacting § 12-702(b), by resort to the plain ¹⁰ language of that provision. Petitioner contends that, in light of its context, the Legislature “most probably intended” the phrase “the sentence previously imposed” to mean the original sentence imposed by the circuit court. That contention is contrary to the original text of the statute. As enacted in 1966, § 12-702(b) contained the language at issue in the case before us (i.e., on remand, a court “may not impose a sentence more severe than the sentence previously imposed”), and then, as now, subsection (b) included an exception to the general rule prohibiting increased sentences on remand.

Prior to July 1, 1988, though, subsection (b)(2) stated that one requirement of the exception was that “[t]he reasons [for the increased sentence] are based upon objective information concerning identifiable conduct on the part of the defendant occurring after the original sentence was imposed.” (Emphasis added.) House Bill 1139, effective July 1,1988, deleted from subsection (b)(2) the phrase “occurring after the original sentence was imposed.” See 1988 Md. Laws Ch. 722. The Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee’s Floor Report regarding H.B. 1139 reveals that the purpose of that deletion was to correct situations in which the first sentence was given while the judge was unaware of information that would have resulted in a greater sentence had the judge been aware of the information. The example was given of a defendant giving false information that the defendant was a first offender while in reality the defendant had prior convictions in another jurisdiction. We conclude from this that the deletion of subsection (b)(2)’s reference to “the original sentence” was not intended to change the meaning of the phrase, “the sentence previously imposed.” That becomes important when the language of § 12-702(b) is considered “as a whole[.]” Briggs v. State, 413 Md. 265, 275-76 , 992 A.2d 433, 439 (2010).

The language in its entirety, considered in light of its original text, the amendment, and the reason for it, reveals that “the sentence previously imposed” cannot mean merely “the original sentence.” We know this because § 12-702(b) originally contained both phrases, and we ¹¹ presume that the Legislature intentionally used different phrases to carry different meanings. See Chow v. State, 393 Md. 431, 448 , 903 A.2d 388, 398 (2006) (“Words can have multiple meanings and often do.... In order to interpret a word’s specific meaning in a particular statute we look to the context in which the word is used.”); see also Keene Corp. v. United States, 508 U.S. 200, 208 , 113 S.Ct. 2035 , 124 L.Ed.2d 118 (1993) (“[WJhere Congress includes particular language in one section of a statute but omits it in another ..., it is generally presumed that Congress acts intentionally and purposely in the disparate inclusion or exclusion.” (citation omitted)). Because, as described above, H.B. 1139 did not alter the original meaning of the phrase “the sentence previously imposed,” we reject Petitioner’s argument that the phrase, as it currently exists in § 12-702(b), is coterminous with the “original sentence.” Stated differently, had the Legislature intended the “previous” sentence to mean the “original” sentence, it would have employed only the latter term.

Thus viewed, § 12-702(b) is not ambiguous. The result would be no different even if we were to grant Petitioner his argument that the term “previous” is susceptible of application to either of the two previously imposed sentences, and is thus ambiguous as applied to the present situation. When the language of the statute is subject to more than one interpretation, and thereby rendered ambiguous, we “must resolve the ambiguity by searching for legislative intent in other indicia, including the history of the legislation or other relevant sources intrinsic and extrinsic to the legislative process.” Johnson, 415 Md. at 422 , 2 A.3d at 373 . We may consider “the structure of the statute, how it relates to other laws, its general purpose and relative rationality and legal effect of various competing constructions.” Id., Id., 2 A.3d at 373 .

And, of course, we may not give the statute an interpretation that is absurd; rather, the construction must be reasonable and comport with common sense. Id., Id., 2 A.3d at 373 . When § 12-702(b) is considered in conjunction with the sentence review panel statute, C.P. §§ 8-102 et seq., any facial ambiguity in § 12-702(b) dissolves and the statute’s ¹² meaning becomes clear. C.P. § 8-106(a) permits a review panel to “increase, modify, or reduce a sentence.... ” We described the genesis of this statute in Collins v. State, 326 Md. 423, 424-25 , 605 A.2d 130, 131 (1992).

We stated that the statute grew out of the 1965 Report of the Governor’s Commission to Study Sentencing in Criminal Cases. We noted the following conclusion of the Commission: [I]n many instances the sentences imposed by circuit judges throughout the state for the same crimes committed under the same circumstances by persons with similar backgrounds were alarmingly disparate. The Commission criticized that injustice, recognized the problems that it created, and emphasized the need for reasonable uniformity in sentencing practices. Accordingly, the Commission recommended the adoption of a system, patterned upon statutes then in effect in Massachusetts and Connecticut which would provide for the review of criminal sentences by a panel of trial judges who were the peers of the sentencing judge.

Id. at 424 , 605 A.2d at 131 (internal citations omitted). We added: “[T]he proposed statute drafted by the Commission and submitted as part of its report was adopted by the General Assembly without substantial modification as ch. 288 of the Acts of 1966.” Id. at 424-25 , 605 A.2d at 131 . In short, the sentence review panel is authorized to alter sentences by increasing or decreasing them, as appropriate, to remedy gross sentencing disparities. State v. Ward, 31 Md.App. 68, 69 , 354 A.2d 834, 835 (1976).

The Court of Special Appeals’