Herrman v. Director of Patuxent Institution

Per Curiam. The applicant, Jack E. Herrman, who had been sentenced to imprisonment for robbery with a deadly weapon, was found by a jury to be a defective delinquent and he now seeks leave to appeal from that determination. The applicant, who comes from a broken home, has an extensive record of unlawful activity beginning at the age of ten. He is now eighteen.

The State argues that the present application, filed on February 16, 1962, should be dismissed since it was not filed within thirty days from the passage on October 27, 1961, of the order appealed from. Code (1961 Cum. Supp.), Art. 31 B, ⁶¹⁵ Sec. 11. However, on November 25, 1961, within the thirty-day period, the applicant wrote a letter to the trial court concerning appeal, which, though deficient in form, was treated as an application for leave to appeal and the record was forwarded to this Court.

We shall therefore treat the application of February 16, 1962, as supplementary to the November 25, 1961, application, and consider the matter. Cf. Ambrose v. Director, 224 Md. 656 (1961). The applicant has raised numerous contentions all of which have been found to be without merit.

He has made several bald allegations as to the unconstitutionality of the defective delinquent statute, Code (1957 ed., 1961 Cum. Supp.), Art. 3IB, and in addition challenges it on the ground that it permits double jeopardy and cruel and unusual punishment, and violates the equal protection clause as well as the prohibitions against ex post jacto laws and self-incrimination. All these constitutional objections were raised and rejected in Simmons v. Director, 227 Md. 661 (1962), and are rejected here. In addition, the applicant states he was tried for a civil “offense” by a criminal procedure.

The record shows that the