Nichols v. Warden of the Maryland House of Correction

Hammond, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. Paul Nichols was convicted of assault and battery by Judge Rollins sitting without a jury in the Circuit Court for Queen Anne’s County on May 3, 1961, and sentenced to three years in the Maryland House of Correction. Thereafter, Nichols was tried for violation of the Maryland lottery laws by Judge Keating and Judge Rasin in the same court, and on May 8, 1961, was convicted and sentenced to one year in the Maryland House of Correction, the sentence to run consecutively with the sentence imposed in the previously mentioned proceeding. On February 21, 1963, Nichols filed a petition for relief under the Post Conviction Procedure Act from his conviction for violation of the lottery laws, alleging that: (1) the evidence used against him was seized illegally without a warrant; (2) his case was improperly conducted by his counsel, because he failed to prove that the State’s evidence was illegally seized, and he did not cross-examine the State’s witness; and (3) a part of the trial was conducted out of his presence.

Following a hearing which lasted some four and one-half hours, petitioner’s application for relief was denied. ⁶⁶⁵ Nichols stated in his application that he was sentenced “by the Honorable Judge Canton, by whom said case tried with Judge trial * * We suspect that he was alluding to Judge Carter of the Circuit Court for Queen