Haskins v. State

ALPERT, J. Appellant William Haskins a/k/a Bilal A. Rahman is an inmate who is committed to the custody of the Commissioner of Correction and has been serving a term of confinement continuously since 1992. In a previous opinion, 1 this Court determined that Haskins is entitled to have his term of confinement reduced by four years and four days—a portion of the time he was incarcerated on convictions that were later vacated by this Court. 2 In this appeal, Haskins seeks a reduction of his term of confinement equal to the remainder of the time he was incarcerated on those convictions. ISSUE Haskins argues that the trial court erred by denying his motion to correct an illegal sentence. We shall affirm the judgment of the trial court.

FACTS Haskins’ history with Maryland’s legal system and the Division of Correction is a long and convoluted one. We shall recite only those facts necessary to an understanding of the appeal now before us. Haskins was convicted on October 25, 1985 in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City of assault with intent to murder, assault, and use of a handgun in the commission of a crime of violence. The court imposed concurrent prison sentences of 25 years for assault with intent to murder and 20 years for the handgun violation, but suspended all but 10 years in favor of ¹⁸⁶ five years’ probation.

The sentences commenced as of August 14, 1984. Haskins did not timely appeal from the judgments. On November 27, 1991, after serving approximately seven years and three months in confinement on the 1985 sentences, Haskins was released on parole. He was subsequently arrested and detained in connection with a robbery committed on March 4, 1992 in Baltimore County.

On January 13, 1993, Haskins was convicted in the Circuit Court for Baltimore County of robbery with a deadly weapon and related offenses in that case. As a result of the 1993 convictions, Haskins was found to be in violation of his parole in the 1985 case. His parole was therefore revoked. Subsequently, the Circuit Court for Baltimore County imposed prison sentences in the robbery case to run consecutively to the reimposed sentences for the 1985 convictions.

Relying on the 1985 assault with intent to murder conviction and another, earlier conviction for a crime of violence, the court imposed a mandatory sentence of 25 years without possibility of parole for robbery with a deadly weapon. 3 In 1995, Haskins filed a petition for post-conviction relief in connection with the 1985 case. His petition was granted and ultimately, on March 5, 1997, this Court vacated the judgments entered in the 1985 case. 4 This Court’s mandate issued on April 4, 1997. Through counsel, Haskins then filed a “Motion to Modify Illegal Sentence” in the Gircuit Court for Baltimore County, seeking to have the mandatory 25-year sentence modified since it was based on a predicate conviction that was no longer valid. A hearing was held on the motion to modify.

Apparently, counsel for Haskins also argued at the hearing that the amount of time Haskins served in confinement on the 1985 sentences should be subtracted from the total length of his ¹⁸⁷ term of confinement for the 1993 convictions. The trial court granted the motion to modify as to the mandatory sentence, but refused to grant Haskins credit against the sentences for the 1993 convictions for time served in confinement on the 1985 sentences. Haskins then appealed to this Court. In his brief in that appeal, Haskins argued that the Circuit Court for Baltimore County erred by “refusing to give appellant credit for time served on another case, when the judgment in the other case was reversed on appeal[.]” 5 He specifically asserted that the trial court “was required to give appellant credit for the seven and one half years he served on [the 1985] case.” The State responded in its brief that Haskins was attempting improperly to use “banked” time.

Thereafter, in a reply brief, Haskins asserted that he was not attempting to use “banked” time but sought only to receive credit for “4 years and 4 days” that he was incarcerated on the 1985 sentences after his parole on those sentences was revoked. Apparently because the sentences imposed for the 1993 convictions were to run consecutively to the reimposed sentences for the 1985 convictions, Haskins argued that he “was serving multiple sentences within the meaning of [former § 638C(c) of Article 27] when he was serving both the sentence for the violation of [parole] in [the 1985] case and the sentence in the instant robbery case.” This Court accepted Haskins’ argument, as clarified in his reply brief, in that appeal. Without commenting on Haskins’ initial request that he receive credit for all seven and a half years he was imprisoned on the 1985 sentences, we stated: The appellant clearly has been a “person serving multiple sentences” since March 30, 1993. As such, we hold that the appellant is entitled to the four years and four days he served as a result of violating his parole in [the 1985] case, a case that was subsequently reversed on appeal. 6 ¹⁸⁸ As a result of this Court’s decision, the trial court then issued a new Commitment to the Division of Correction reflecting that Haskins had been credited with an additional four years and four days of “time served.” On August 26, 2005, Haskins filed in the Circuit Court for Baltimore County another “Motion to Correct Illegal Sentence.” Haskins argued that the trial court had erred by failing to “start” his sentences for the 1993 convictions “on the date of the appellate opinion.” Presumably, Haskins was referring to the date of the opinion by which this Court vacated the 1985 convictions, although he does not specify whether he means the date the opinion was filed or the date the mandate issued.

In any event, the trial court denied the motion without comment. Haskins timely filed this appeal. DISCUSSION Haskins asserts in his brief that “any time [he] served [on the 1985 sentences] between 1985 and when he was released prior to incarceration for the 1992 crime was time served that was not ultimately credited to a valid sentence.” Haskins argues that, based on § 6—218(b)(2) or (b)(3) of the Criminal Procedure Article, all of “the time [he] spent incarcerated for the vacated [1985 convictions] should have been credited to the time to be served for his subsequent conviction[s].” Preliminarily, there is considerable question as to whether the argument is a proper subject for a motion to correct illegal sentence. Maryland Rule 4-345(a) provides, “The court may correct an illegal sentence at any time.” An illegal sentence is “a sentence not permitted by law....” Walczak v. State, 302 Md. 422, 427 , 488 A.2d 949 (1985), abrogation on other grounds recognized by Savoy v. State, 336 Md. 355 , 648 A.2d 683 (1994).

A motion to correct an illegal sentence is “ ‘not appropriate where the alleged illegality did not inhere in [the defendant’s] sentence.’ ” Baker v. State, 389 Md. 127, 133 , 883 A.2d 916 (2005) (citation omitted). See generally State v. Wilkins, 393 Md. 269, 273-75 , 900 A.2d 765 (2006). Ordinarily, a motion to correct an illegal sentence is ¹⁸⁹ entertained only “where the alleged illegality was in the sentence itself or the sentence never should have been imposed.” Id. Here, Haskins does not challenge the legality of the sentences imposed in the 1993 case, which he is now serving.

He merely contends that he should receive credit against those sentences for time served in confinement on other, vacated sentences. It thus appears that the motion did not have a proper basis, and the trial court correctly denied it for that reason. Assuming, without deciding, that the motion to correct an illegal sentence was a proper recourse, the State correctly points out that Haskins is bound by the law of the case as set forth by an earlier opinion of this Court. 7 As we have indicated, in William, Haskins a/k/a Bilal Abdul Rahman v. State of Maryland, No. 698 September Term, 2000 (Court of Special Appeals January 4, 2001), we determined that Haskins was entitled to four years and four days of credit for time served in confinement after the revocation of his parole on the 1985 sentences. As the Court of Appeals has summarized: [T]he “law of the case doctrine is one of appellate procedure.” ...

Under the doctrine, once an appellate court rules upon a question presented on appeal, litigants and lower courts become bound by the ruling, which is considered to be the law of the case.... Not only are lower courts ¹⁹⁰ bound by the law of the case, but “[decisions rendered by a prior appellate panel will generally govern the second appeal” at the same appellate level as well, unless the previous decision is incorrect because it is out of keeping with controlling principles announced by a higher court and following the decision would result in manifest injustice. Scott v. State, 379 Md. 170, 183-84 , 840 A.2d 715 (2004) (citations omitted). In Scott , the Court recognized that the law of the case doctrine applies to motions to correct illegal sentences.

See id. at 182-83 , 840 A.2d 715 . The Court ruled that the doctrine had been misapplied in that case, however, since there had been no appellate rulings but only rulings by the trial court. See id. at 184 , 840 A.2d 715 . In Maryland, the law of the case doctrine prevents the revisiting of not only an issue that has been properly raised on appeal but also “a question that could have been raised and argued in that appeal on the then state of the record----” Martello v. Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Maryland, Inc., 143 Md.App. 462, 474 , 795 A.2d 185 (2002) (emphasis added).

Under the law of the case doctrine, “[njeither the questions decided nor the ones that could have been raised and decided are available to be raised in a subsequent appeal.” Id. (emphasis omitted). As the Court of Appeals has made clear: It is the well-established law of this state that litigants cannot try their cases piecemeal. They cannot prosecute successive appeals in a case that raises the same questions that have been previously decided by this Court in a former appeal of that same case; and, furthermore, they cannot, on the subsequent appeal of the same case raise any question that could have been presented in the previous appeal on the then state of the record, as it existed in the court of original jurisdiction.

If this were not so, any party to a suit could institute as many successive appeals as the fiction of his imagination could produce new reasons to assign as to why his side of the case should prevail, and the litigation would never terminate. Once this Court has ruled upon a question properly presented on an appeal, or, if the ruling ¹⁹¹ be contrary to a question that could have been raised and argued in that appeal on the then state of the record, as aforesaid, such a ruling becomes the “law of the case” and is binding on the litigants and the court alike, unless changed or modified after reargument, and neither the questions decided not the ones that could have been raised and decided are available to be raised in a subsequent appeal. Fid.-Baltimore Nat. Bank & Trust Co. v. John Hancock Mut.

Life Ins. Co., 217 Md. 367, 371-72 , 142 A.2d 796 (1958). As we have indicated, Haskins asserted in his appellant’s brief in Haskins, No. 698, September Term, 2000, that the trial court “was required to give appellant credit for the seven and one half years he served on [the 1985] case.” After the State responded in its appellee brief that Haskins was attempting improperly to use “banked” time, Haskins seemingly changed his position and argued, in a reply brief, that he sought only to receive credit for “4 years and 4 days” served in confinement on the 1985 sentences after his parole on those sentences was revoked. Clearly, the argument that Haskins now urges this Court to accept could have been—and indeed temporarily was—urged in the previous appeal.

Our decision in Haskins, No. 698, September Term, 2000, is now the law of the case, and Haskins is precluded from arguing that he is entitled to more credit based on the 1985 sentences. Even assuming arguendo that the law of the case doctrine did not apply, we would hold that Haskins is not entitled to the credits he now requests. Section 6-218 of the Criminal Procedure Article provides, in pertinent part: § 6-218 Credit against sentence for time spent in custody. (a) This section does not apply to a parolee who is returned to the custody of the Division of Correction because of a subsequent crime and is confined before being sentenced for the subsequent crime.[ 8 ] ¹⁹² (b)(1) A defendant who is convicted and sentenced shall receive credit against and a reduction of the term of a definite or life sentence, or the minimum and maximum terms of an indeterminate