Mullins v. State

Powers, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. After a waiver by the Juvenile Court in Anne Arundel County, appellant was indicted for robbery and several related counts. He pleaded guilty to the count charging grand larceny. The plea was accepted by Judge Evans in the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County and appellant was sentenced to 12 years and committed to the custody of the Commissioner of Correction.

Appellant does not question the voluntariness of his plea, but says that the sentence imposed was cruel, unusual, unfair, or oppressive, and that it was not in accordance with the statute. The statute fixing the punishment for grand larceny, which is a common law crime, provides, Art. 27, § 340, that a person convicted shall be imprisoned in the penitentiary for not more than fifteen years, or in the house of correction or jail for not more than ten years. Art. 27, § 690 (b) provides that on and after June 1, 1967, for any offense for which the law requires imprisonment in any institution enumerated in § 689, the person shall be sentenced to the custody of the Commissioner of Correction, under the jurisdiction of the Department of Correction, and that department may, from time to time, determine the institution for confinement. Appellant claims that since the sentence was not “to the penitentiary”, the 12 years exceeded the statutory maximum.

The Code section in question was enacted as a part of Chapter 695, Laws of Maryland, 1967. The title of the act states as its purpose, in part: “*** to provide that sentences of prisoners formerly made *** to particular institutions under the control of the Department of Corree ²²⁴ tion shall be made *** to the jurisdiction of the Department of Correction, to authorize the Department to establish receiving and classification centers for prisoners, [and] to authorize the Department to hold, assign and transfer prisoners among the State