McMannis v. State

McAULIFFE, Judge. Richard Ray McMannis is presently serving a life sentence in West Virginia because that state has adjudged him a recidivist. He has filed a petition for post-conviction relief in the Circuit Court for Allegany County, Maryland, ehal ⁵³⁶ lenging the validity of an earlier conviction in that court, which he contends was used by West Virginia as a necessary predicate for his enhanced sentence. The State contests the jurisdiction of the circuit court, contending that the Petitioner is not in the custody of Maryland within the intent and language of our Post Conviction Procedure Act, and that, in any event, the case is moot because Petitioner has completed service of the Maryland sentence generated by the challenged conviction, and is not on parole or probation as a result of that conviction.

Petitioner prevailed at the circuit court level, Judge J. Frederick Sharer finding that Petitioner’s imprisonment in West Virginia, as a collateral consequence of the earlier Maryland conviction, satisfied the requirement of custody found in our Post Conviction Procedure Act, Maryland Code (1957, 1982 Repl. Vol., 1987 Cum.Supp.) Article 27, §§ 645A-645J, and finding further that the record of the Maryland conviction failed to demonstrate that Petitioner’s guilty plea had been knowing and voluntary within the meaning of Boykin v. Alabama, 395 U.S. 238 , 89 S.Ct. 1709 , 23 L.Ed.2d 274 (1969). The Court of Special Appeals granted the State’s application for leave to appeal and reversed, holding that the action was moot. State v. McMannis, 65 Md.App. 705 , 501 A.2d 1348 (1986).

We granted certiorari, and we now affirm the judgment of the Court of special Appeals, on the ground that the circuit court lacked jurisdiction to entertain the petition. I Facts On May 1, 1970, while represented by counsel, Petitioner entered a plea of guilty to the felony of breaking a storehouse and stealing goods or chattels of value of five dollars or more. Maryland Code (1957, 1967 Repl.Vol.) Art. 27, § 33. A sentence of two years imprisonment was imposed, but the execution of that sentence was suspended and Petitioner was placed on probation for one year.

Two ⁵³⁷ months later, Petitioner was found to have violated his probation, and he was remanded to custody to serve the two year sentence. At the time of the filing of this petition for post-conviction relief in 1984, Petitioner had served the sentence and was not on parole or probation for that offense. Petitioner’s difficulties in West Virginia may be pieced together from this record and from the decisions of the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia in State v. McMannis, 161 W.Va. 437 , 242 S.E.2d 571 (1978) and State ex rel. McMannis v. Mohn, 163 W.Va. 129 , 254 S.E.2d 805 (1979), cert, denied, 464 U.S. 831 , 104 S.Ct. 110 , 78 L.Ed.2d 112 (1983).

On September 10, 1971, in Mineral County, and again on November 6, 1975, in Hampshire County, Petitioner was convicted of Grand Larceny. Following the latter conviction, and upon proof of the 1970 Maryland conviction and the 1971 Mineral County conviction, Petitioner was sentenced to life imprisonment as an habitual criminal pursuant to West Virginia Code, § 61-11-18. That life sentence was reversed on direct appeal because the State had failed to demonstrate that Petitioner had been convicted and sentenced for one predicate offense before he committed the second predicate offense. State v. McMannis, supra, 242 S.E.2d at 575 .

At some time not made clear by the record, but presumably after his 1975 conviction, Petitioner was convicted of a second-degree sexual assault that occurred in the Mineral County jail. West Virginia again proceeded against McMannis under its habitual offender statute, and he was again sentenced to life imprisonment. This life sentence was also vacated by the West Virginia Supreme Court, when the Attorney General conceded the State had not proven that each subsequent offense relied upon was committed after conviction and sentence for the preceding offense. State ex rel.

McMannis v. Mohn, supra, 254 S.E.2d at 806-07 . On remand, the State was given the option of having the Petitioner sentenced for the sexual assault conviction, or of again invoking the recidivist statute. Apparently, the prosecutor elected to seek an en ⁵³⁸ hanced sentence, and although it is not entirely clear which predicate felonies the State relied upon, Petitioner has alleged, and Judge Sharer found, that the 1970 Maryland conviction was utilized as a necessary predicate, 1 and that Petitioner has again been sentenced to life imprisonment. II Mootness The question of mootness is analytically distinct from the jurisdictional question of custody.

Leonard v. Hammond, 804 F.2d 838, 842 (4th Cir.1986); Ward v. Knoblock, 738 F.2d 134, 138-39 (6th Cir.1984), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 1193 , 105 S.Ct. 970 , 83 L.Ed.2d 974 (1985); Harrison v. State of Ind., 597 F.2d 115, 117-18 (7th Cir.1979). Ordinarily, a case becomes moot when the issues presented are no longer “live” or the parties lack a legally cognizable interest in the outcome. Murphy v. Hunt, 455 U.S. 478, 481 , 102 S.Ct. 1181, 1183 , 71 L.Ed.2d 353 (1982). Under the circumstances of this case, Petitioner’s claim for relief is not moot.

The issues involved are hardly academic or dead. If Petitioner is correct in his assertion that his guilty plea in Maryland in 1970 was not knowing and voluntary, it is clear that he suffers anew from that constitutional infirmity by the imposition of an enhanced sentence in West Virginia that is dependent upon the earlier conviction. See Burgett v. Texas, 389 U.S. 109, 115 , 88 ⁵³⁹ S.Ct. 258, 262, 19 L.Ed.2d 319 (1967); Raiford v. State, 296 Md. 289, 300-01 , 462 A.2d 1192 (1983). The United States Supreme Court has held that a federal habeas corpus proceeding is not necessarily rendered moot by a petitioner’s release from custody, and that where the conviction results in collateral consequences in the form of substantial civil penalties, the claim is not moot.

Carafas v. LaVallee, 391 U.S. 234, 237-38 , 88 S.Ct. 1556, 1559-60 , 20 L.Ed.2d 554 (1968). Cf Lane v. Williams, 455 U.S. 624, 632-33 , 102 S.Ct. 1322, 1327-28 , 71 L.Ed.2d 508 (1982) (holding that minor, non-statutory, collateral consequences alone are insufficient to avoid mootness). In the case before us, the collateral consequence of an enhanced prison term is substantial, and its causal relationship, though indirect, is positive and demonstrable. A collateral consequence of this magnitude renders this a live, justiciable controversy, and the claim of mootness is without merit.

Ill Jurisdiction We turn to the more difficult question posed by this case—whether the Petitioner falls within the jurisdictional prerequisites of Art. 27, § 645A(a) of the Maryland Code (1957, 1982 Repl.Vol., 1987 Cum.Supp.). Our focus is directed to the initial portion of § 645A(a), restricting post-conviction relief to: [a]ny person convicted of a crime and either incarcerated under sentence of death or imprisonment or on parole or probation, including any person confined or on parole or probation as a result of a proceeding before the District Court____ For convenience, we shall refer to this portion of § 645A(a) as the “custody” requirement of our statute. Petitioner concedes that he is no longer in custody or on parole or probation as a direct consequence of the conviction he is challenging. He contends, however, that the language of § 645A(e), permitting a petition to be filed “at ⁵⁴⁰ any time,” supersedes the requirement of custody set forth in § 645A(a).

In the alternative, he contends that he must be found to be in custody because of the close causal relationship that exists between his current incarceration in West Virginia and the earlier Maryland conviction. In support of the first of these contentions, Petitioner notes that § 645A(e) provides in part as follows: A petition for relief under this subtitle may be filed at any time, except that where an appeal has been taken from the judgment of conviction to the Court of Special Appeals, it shall not be necessary to appoint counsel or conduct a hearing or take any action whatsoever on the petition, until the judgment of conviction becomes final in the Court of Special Appeals. He then points to the language of this Court in Simon v. Director, 235 Md. 626, 629 , 201 A.2d 371 (1964), that § 645A “provides that a petition for post conviction relief ‘may be filed at any time,’ and we have held that it may be filed although the petitioner is not then detained under the sentence attacked. Roberts v. Warden, 221 Md. 576, 580 [ 155 A.2d 891 (1959).]” He concludes that either the provisions of subsection (e) completely supersede the custody requirement of subsection (a), or, in the alternative, that the provisions of subsection (e) permit the filing of a petition at any time after custody has terminated, provided custody at some time can be shown to have resulted from the conviction under attack.

We disagree with both contentions. The provisions of subsections (a) and (e) of § 645A are not inconsistent. The purpose of the quoted portion of subsection (e) is to permit the filing of a petition at any time, even while a direct appeal is pending, or long after the time for a direct appeal has passed, provided the custody requirement of subsection (a) is also met. See United States v. Darnell, 716 F.2d 479 (7th Cir.1983), reaching the same conclusion in interpreting comparable language of 28 U.S.C. § 2255 .

In Simon, supra, the petitioner was convicted of sodomy while on parole from Patuxent Institution. He was sentenced to six years imprisonment, and concur ⁵⁴¹ rently returned to Patuxent as a result of his violation of parole. The warden of the Maryland House of Correction lodged a detainer with the authorities at Patuxent, to assure that the six year sentence would be served if Simon should ever be released from Patuxent. See Simon v. Warden, 238 Md. 27 , 207 A.2d 484 (1965).

Thus, Simon’s detention at the time he filed the petition was the product not only of his commitment as a defective delinquent, but also of the detainer. Although at one time it was generally held that a collateral attack could not be brought to challenge a sentence the prisoner was not yet serving, McNally v. Hill, 293 U.S. 131, 138 , 55 S.Ct. 24, 27 , 79 L.Ed. 238 (1934), Roberts v. Warden, 206 Md. 246, 254-55 , 111 A.2d 597 (1955), that “prematurity” doctrine was jettisoned by the Supreme Court in Peyton v. Rowe, 391 U.S. 54, 67 , 88 S.Ct. 1549, 1556 , 20 L.Ed.2d 426 (1968). In Roberts v. Warden, 221 Md. 576 , 155 A.2d 891 (1959), cert. denied, 362 U.S. 953 , 80 S.Ct. 866 , 4 L.Ed.2d 871 (1960) (Roberts III), referred to by the Simon court, our predecessors held that an application for post-conviction relief would lie even though the petitioner had not yet begun to serve the sentence he attacked, where it was clear he was serving a prior sentence and the two sentences were consecutive. The holdings in Simon and Roberts III rest upon firm ground.

However, to the extent the language of those decisions may indicate that the authority granted by § 645A(e) to file a petition for post-conviction relief at any time supersedes the jurisdictional requirement of custody contained in § 645A(a), that language is disapproved. The second and final prong of Petitioner’s argument in favor of jurisdiction is that, in view of the expansive interpretation that has been given custody requirements of state and federal habeas corpus law, and in view of the clear and substantial impact that the existence of the Maryland conviction has had on the Petitioner in West Virginia, we should interpret the custody requirement of the Maryland act so broadly as to embrace the Petitioner’s circumstances. This we decline to do, believing it would be contrary both to ⁵⁴² the intent of the Legislature and to solid public policy considerations. Petitioner is correct in his assertion that the “in custody” requirement of federal habeas corpus law has been given an expansive interpretation during the last quarter century.

In Jones v. Cunningham, 371 U.S. 236, 243 , 83 S.Ct. 373, 377 , 9 L.Ed.2d 285 (1963), the Supreme Court held that the significant restraints on liberty imposed by conditions of parole satisfy the custody requirement of 28 U.S.C. § 2241 . In Peyton v. Rowe, 391 U.S. 54, 67 , 88 S.Ct. 1549,