Jett v. Superintendent of Maryland State Reformatory for Males

⁶³⁶ Hammond, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The petitioner in these applications for leave to appeal from the denials of the writ of habeas corpus by Judge Charles C. Marbury of the Circuit Court for Prince George’s County, and Judge D. Kenneth McLaughlin of the Circuit Court for Washington County, respectively, has been released on parole by the Department of Parole and Probation since the applications were filed. Although much, if not most, of the authority is to the contrary (see cases collected in the annotation of 148 A. L. R. 1243), we will assume without deciding that a parolee has not lost the right to the writ. We are convinced that the petitioner is not entitled to its issuance on the merits.

The petitioner was tried before a magistrate for assault and battery, found guilty, and sentenced to six months imprisonment. He appealed to the Circuit Court for Prince George’s County and was tried before a jury, who found him guilty of assault and battery. On May 2, 1955, Judge Marbury fined him $200.00 and costs and sentenced him to the Maryland State Reformatory for Males for an indeterminate sentence not to exceed one year, and placed him on probation. The petitioner signed a probation agreement which, among other things, provided, as the court had directed, that: (1) he would live a good, clean and honest life; (2) he would keep reasonable hours; (3) he would keep away from undesirable associates; (4) he would not drive a motor vehicle, other than that of his employer on business, without the permission of his parole officer.

After repeated warnings, petitioner was brought to court on August 8, 1955 for violation of conditions of probation. He appeared.with counsel. The probation officer reported that the violations consisted of his driving a motor vehicle not that of his employer, without permission, of his association with undesirables, particularly one James Sweeney, a recently released inmate of the Maryland State Reformatory for Males, and of being away from home late at night resulting in an automobile accident while he was ⁶³⁷ driving a forbidden automobile. Petitioner took the stand and admitted some of the violations of his probation, although he requested the opportunity to call witnesses to explain another, an incident at a filling station in the early hours of the morning in which he was involved.

The court observed that the admitted violations were such as to show that petitioner had clearly violated the conditions of his probation and that the refutation of the service station incident therefore would be immaterial. The court struck out the suspended sentence of May 2, 1955 and ordered petitioner confined to the Maryland State Reformatory for Males for an indeterminate sentence not to exceed one year, and, as has been noted, petitioner later was released on parole. The petitioner makes the following contentions: (1) that he is entitled to habeas corpus since the ordinary rule that this remedy is not available if the matters complained of could have been raised on appeal, cannot apply because there was no right of appeal from the judgment and sentence of the circuit court; (2) that the judgment was void because petitionér was tried at the same time as another defendant and the same jury decided both cases; (3) that the revocation of the suspension of the May 2 sentence on August 8 was void for lack of due process because no hearing, in the sense the law requires, was afforded petitioner; (4) that the judgment of the circuit court was unconstitutional and void because the offenses of assault or assault and battery are nowhere designated as offenses, either by the laws or Constitution of the State of Maryland or of the United States; (5) that the judgment of the circuit court of August 8 was void because petitioner had violated no law since he was placed on probation May 2; (6) that the judgments and sentences of May 2 and of August 8 both were void because the punishment was “harsh, cruel, and unusual under the circumstances for the minor offense, if any * * *” committed by petitioner; (7) that the circuit court erred in refusing to hold the sentence of May 2 void because ⁶³⁸ petitioner was charged with and tried for assault but sentenced for assault and battery; (8) that the judgment of the circuit court of August 8 was void because the sentence was not the same as that of May 2, but a new and greater sentence. There is no merit in any of petitioner’s contentions.

He chose to be tried before a magistrate and then took the appeal to the Circuit Court for Prince George’s County provided by Code, 1951, Art. 52, Sec. 13. Sec. 14 of Art. 52 explicitly provides that in such case, there is no further appeal to this Court. No right of due process of law or equal protection of the law, or any other constitutional guarantee, State or Federal, is infringed by such a judicial system. McKane v. Durston, 153 U. S. 684 , 38 L. Ed. 867 ; Mallett v. North Carolina, 181 U. S. 58 .9, 45 L. Ed. 1015 ; Winkler v. State, 194 Md. 1 , certiorari denied, 339 U. S. 919 , 94 L. Ed. 1343 ; Givner v. State, 208 Md. 1 , 115 A. 2d 714 ; Hendrick v. State, 115 Md. 552 (in Hendrick v. State, 235 U. S. 610 , 59 L. Ed. 385 , the Supreme Court of the United States affirmed the judgment and sentence of the Circuit Court for Prince George’s County which this Court refused to review).

It is clear that both the magistrate and the Circuit Court for