Garland v. Director of Patuxent Institution

Prescott, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The petitioner requests leave to appeal under the P. C. P. A. He was convicted on February 2, 1959, of attempted robbery in the Circuit Court for Baltimore County, and, on February 4, 1959, he filed a motion for a new trial, which was denied on March 9, following. He was represented by counsel at his trial and on the hearing of his motion for a new trial. He raises three questions: (1) that the delay in hearing his motion for a new trial was a violation of Code (1957), Article 27, Section 594, which requires motions for a new trial to be heard within ten (10) days, and thus he was deprived of his rights to a full, fair and speedy trial and was deprived of due process of law and to a full and prompt hearing and review of his conviction; (2) that his counsel, al ⁶⁵⁵ though requested to do so, failed to take an appeal within the time allowed by law, thus depriving him of his right to review, by the Court of Appeals of Maryland, of the verdict rendered and the judgment entered thereon; and (3) that the trial court convicted him as an accessory before the fact, although the indictment charged him as a principal.

I It is true that said Section 594 states that motions for new trials in criminal cases shall be heard within ten days, and, while this provision should be followed by the trial courts when possible and practical, we consider it directory, and not mandatory, compare Snyder v. Cearfoss, 186 Md. 360, 370 , 46 A. 2d 607 ; hence, the failure to hear the motion for a new trial within ten