Neal v. State

Singley, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The defendant Neal, charged with shoplifting, came on for trial before a jury in the Circuit Court for Montgomery County. At the conclusion of the State’s case, the court, sua sponte, declared a mistrial. 1 The defendant thereafter moved to dismiss the charges against her, alleging that a retrial would violate the constitutional prohibition of being twice placed in jeopardy. From a denial of her motion to dismiss, Neal appealed to the Court of Special Appeals.

That court dismissed the appeal in Neal v. State, 20 Md. App. 20 , 314 A. 2d 710 (1974). We granted certiorari. The Court of Special Appeals reviewed the cases which discussed the provision of Maryland Code (1974) § 12-301 of the Courts and Judicial Proceedings Article 2 which has been construed to mean that a defendant in a criminal proceeding may appeal only from a final judgment and not from an interlocutory order. The reason for the statutory provision is found in Lee v. State, 161 Md. 430, 434 , 157 A. 723, 724 (1931): “If, on a question left to the court’s discretion, upon ³²⁵ a suggestion for removal, a prisoner is permitted to take an immediate appeal, then proceedings in every criminal case, great or small, may be stopped and delayed while the accused prosecutes an appeal on this preliminary matter of venue.

And this would add just so much to the resources of those who might find vexatious delays advantageous, and would multiply appeals in criminal cases, often when acquittals, in the end, would render them profitless.” An equally well recognized corollary to the rule, however, permits an appeal from a seemingly interlocutory order which denies an absolute constitutional right, Jones v. State, 241 Md. 599 , 217 A. 2d 367 (1966) (lack of speedy trial); Pearlman v. State, 226 Md. 67 , 172 A. 2d 395 (1961) (indigent denied free transcript of testimony); Harris v. State, 194 Md. 288 , 71 A. 2d 36 (1950) (lack of speedy trial); Lee v. State, supra (constitutional right of removal in capital case; selection of forum to which case is removed discretionary and not subject to immediate appeal). After acknowledging that an appeal will lie from an interlocutory order which denies the defendant a constitutional right which he has sought to assert, the Court of Special Appeals noted the development of a qualification to the corollary in Pearlman . There an appeal was taken from an order denying three convicted defendants, who claimed they were indigent, a free transcript of testimony required by local rule in support of their motion for a new trial. The qualification recognized in the opinion was the principle that an appeal will not lie from an apparently interlocutory order, even though it denies a constitutional right, if the order is based upon the rightful exercise of a trial court’s discretion, e.g., a finding of fact that a defendant is not an indigent, even though the result of such an exercise of discretion may cause the denial of a constitutional right.

See Pearlman v. State, supra, 226 Md. at 71 , 172 A. 2d at 397 . Taking this as a bench mark, the Court of Special Appeals concluded that the denial of the motion to dismiss, bottomed ³²⁶ on the contention that the defendant would twice be put in jeopardy, involved the proper exercise of discretion, and was therefore not immediately appealable. Compare Brown v. State, 2 Md. App. 388, 393-94 , 234 A. 2d 788, 792 (1967); see also Williams v. State, 17 Md. App. 110, 114-15 , 299 A. 2d 878, 880 , cert. denied, 268 Md. 746 , 755 (1973). We do not share the view that a determination that double jeopardy does or does not exist involves an exercise of discretion.

To us, the defense of double jeopardy is a liminal constitutional issue, raised at the outset, before there is a trial. It can in no way be compared to a finding that a defendant is not in fact indigent. Neither can it be analogized to questions involving the admissibility of evidence, raised during trial, even though constitutional issues are involved. Once having reached the conclusion that an appeal will lie, we turn to the merits, which can be briefly resolved.

The trial judge’s function is to see that the defendant has a