Jenkins v. Warden

Orth, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This is an application for leave to appeal from a denial by Judge Shirley B. Jones, sitting in the Criminal Court of Baltimore, of relief sought by the applicant in his petition under the Uniform Post Conviction Procedure Act. On 22 February 1964 the applicant was found guilty of murder in the first degree and robbery with a deadly weapon. On 6 April 1964 he was sentenced to death on the murder conviction and to twenty years on the robbery conviction, to run concurrently with the death sentence.

He appealed the judgments but the case was eventually remanded 1 under the rulings of Schowgurow v. State, 240 Md. 121 and Smith v. State, 240 Md. 464 . He elected to void the indictments. He was reindicted and a new trial was held before Judge J. Harold Grady under a charge of murder. 2 On 31 March 1967 Judge Grady, sitting without a jury, found the applicant guilty of murder in the second degree and imposed the maximum sentence of eighteen years, dating from 31 March 1967. 3 ⁶³¹ In his petition for Post Conviction Relief, the applicant’s sole allegation was that he should have been given credit for all time served in jail from the date of his initial arrest, 4 February-1963, to the date on which the sentence which he is presently serving was imposed, 31 March 1967, and that failure to give such credit resulted in a sentence exceeding the statutory limitation of eighteen years for second degree murder. He was denied relief on 5 December 1967 by Judge Jones on the ground that there was no requirement that the applicant be given credit for any time served prior to his second trial on 31 March 1967, and that it was discretionary with the trial judge as to whether or not he would give credit for jail time served.

In Reeves v. State, 3 Md. App. 195 , Reeves had been convicted of rape and sentenced to life imprisonment. The conviction was vitiated as a result of Habeas Corpus proceedings in the United States Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, Reeves v. Warden, 346 F. 2d 915 . He was retried and the maximum sentence of 20 years allowed by statute under the jury’s verdict was imposed, but with no credit given for the prison time served under the first sentence. We held that Reeves was entitled to credit on his second sentence for the time served since the imposition of his original sentence,