Jacobs v. Warden of the Maryland Penitentiary

⁶²⁸ Hammond, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. In October 1961 Nathaniel J. Jacobs pleaded guilty to armed robbery and was sentenced to twenty years in the Maryland Penitentiary. No appeal was taken. On April 26, 1962, he filed a petition under the Uniform Post Conviction Procedure Act (the Act) in which he set forth the following grounds for relief: (1) his arrest was illegal, having been made without a search and seizure warrant; (2) he was not allowed to contact his family or counsel promptly after his arrest; (3) he was not identified by any witness as having participated in the robbery ; (4) no State’s witness claimed he saw a weapon; (5) the court denied him the right to have defense witnesses; (6) the statement produced in court was not the same statement he gave to the police; (7) the police engaged counsel for him in order to induce him to confess; (8) bias and prejudice on the part of the trial judge; (9) the police obtained his signature to his statement through fear, coercion, trickery and fraud, and without advising him of his rights to a lawyer; and (10) his counsel induced him to plead guilty, in expectation of receiving a lighter sentence.

After a hearing on the petition, at which Jacobs was represented by court-appointed counsel, Judge Allen, before whom the matter came, denied the relief sought on all points raised. In so doing, he disposed of contentions 2, 5 and 7 by making specific findings of fact against the petitioner. The petitioner’s claim that the statement produced in court was not the same as the one he gave to the police is unsustainable since he challenges only its form (he says the statement he signed was handwritten whereas that read by the State’s Attorney to the court was typewritten) and not its substance. Additionally, there was no objection on this ground when the statement was read to the court at the trial; thus, it is not available now.

Strosnider v. Warden, 228 Md. 663, 666 . A review of the transcript of the original proceedings indicates that the allegation of bias and prejudice on the