Height v. Director of Patuxent Institution

⁶⁴⁹ Bruñe, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The petitioner was tried and convicted in the Circuit Court for Calvert County on a charge of disorderly conduct to the disturbance of the public peace. He was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment in the House of Correction, and was first committed to the Patuxent Institution to determine whether or not he was a defective delinquent. (Apparently, he has since been remanded to the House of Correction.) The record of the proceedings in the Circuit Court for Calvert County, a certified copy of which was properly before the Judge to whom the application for the writ was made (Code (1951), Article 42, Section 5), shows that the petitioner was arrested on a warrant issued on November 4, 1955, by a trial magistrate for Calvert County, that the case was set for trial before the magistrate on November 11th, that the State’s Attorney prayed a jury trial, that the petitioner was held for the action of the Circuit Court, that he there waived a jury trial and that he was tried on November 15, 1955, before the Court, without a jury, with the result above stated.

The petitioner filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus with the Honorable Michael Paul Smith, of the Third Judicial Circuit, sitting in the Circuit Court for Baltimore County. His petition was denied and he applies for leave to appeal. The grounds asserted for the issuance of the writ are these: (1) innocence; (2) arrest without a warrant; (3) perjury by the arresting officer; and (4) denial of his constitutional rights under the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. (1) The question of guilt or innocence cannot be raised on habeas corpus.

Friedel v. Warden of Maryland Penitentiary, 205 Md. 657 , 109 A. 2d 50 ; Cummings v. Warden of Maryland House of Correction, 206 Md. 637 , 111 A. 2d 596 ; Medley v. Warden of Maryland House of Correction, 207 Md. 634 , 115 A. 2d 287 . (2) The legality of the petitioner’s arrest cannot be raised on habeas corpus. Spence v. Warden of Maryland ⁶⁵⁰ House of Correction, 204 Md. 661 , 103 A. 2d 345 . (The record demonstrates that a warrant for his arrest was issued, and this alleged ground is clearly unfounded in fact, as well as unavailable in law.) (3) The alleged perjury of the-arresting officer would not serve as the basis for the release of the petitioner on habeas corpus.

It is the general rule that the truth of the testimony against the person seeking the writ cannot be reviewed on habeas corpus. Among the numerous cases in this State so holding, see Harris v. Warden of Maryland Penitentiary, 199 Md. 685 , 86 A. 2d 168 , cert. den. sub nom. Harris v. Swenson, 343 U. S. 931 ; Frazier v.