Raiford v. State

Wilner, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. At approximately 1:45 p.m. on November 16, 1980, as Louise Whitney was preparing to get into her car in the 2200 block of Lake Avenue in Baltimore City, she "felt something on [her] left shoulder.” Turning around, she saw that a black male "standing there” had "ripped [her] shoulder strap bag off [her] shoulder.” The assailant, who was tall and slender, had short hair and a mustache, and wore a brown jacket and dark trousers, then fled, with the purse, across the lawn of the nearby Saint Matthew’s Church. According to Miss Whitney, the contents of her purse included, among other things, one five-dollar bill, five one-dollar bills, and change. Alerted by screams, James Brandau and Fran Lane, who were approximately one block away, saw a black male running across the Saint Matthew’s Church lawn clutching something under his arm.

The individual, who was described as being a tall black male with dark slacks and a brown jacket, fled the area in a dark Pontiac Gran Prix bearing the license number ERD-208. At approximately 1:46 p.m., while on patrol in the vicinty of Sinclair Lane, Officer Charles Smoot of the Baltimore City Police Department received a radio call reporting the incident in question and giving a description of the suspect and his car. Responding to "the Clairmont area,” where he recalled having seen "a similar tag number” some time before, the officer soon observed a black vehicle "coming from Federal Street, up Freedom Way” at a high rate of speed. Watching as the vehicle entered a parking area on Freedom Way West, Officer Smoot ascertained that the car was a 1976 Pontiac bearing license plate number ERD-208.

The driver, who was then apprehended, was described as a ¹⁶⁵ black male, "twenty-five to thirty years of age, wearing a brown coat, blue pants.” Found in his right coat pocket was a five-dollar bill, five one-dollar bills, and $1.90 worth of change. A short time later, Brandau and Lane arrived at Officer Smoot’s location (some three to four miles from the scene of the robbery), where they identified the person held by the officer as being the same individual they had seen fleeing the scene of the robbery a short time before. At trial, Officer Smoot identified appellant, Jessie Raiford, as the person he had apprehended. On March 21, 1981, Officer Wayne McClone of the Baltimore City Police Department recovered Miss Whitney’s purse from a gully located on Federal Street, approximately fifty feet from Freedom Way.

On April 15-16, 1981, appellant was tried in the Criminal Court of Baltimore on a five-count criminal information charging him, inter alia, with robbery. Because appellant had previously been convicted of "crimes of violence” on two prior separate occasions, the State sought imposition of a mandatory twenty-five year term of imprisonment pursuant to Md. Code art. 27, § 643B (c). 1 From his conviction, and sentence in accordance with § 643B (c), appellant appeals, arguing: ¹⁶⁶ "I. The trial court erred in imposing a mandatory sentence under the provisions of Article 27, § 643B (c).

II

The evidence was insufficient to sustain appellant’s, conviction.” We find no error and shall thus affirm the judgment of the court below. I. On August 6, 1970, the United States District Court for the District of Maryland held unconstitutional the Maryland Juvenile Causes Act, Md. Code art. 26, § 51, etseq., insofar as it exempted Baltimore City from the otherwise uniform juvenile age requirement of eighteen years. See Long v. Robinson, 316 F. Supp. 22 (1970 D.Md.), aff'd 436 F.2d 1116 (4th Cir. 1971). The effect of this holding, which also declared unconstitutional a Baltimore City Public Local Law fixing the juvenile age requirement there at sixteen, was to end the practice of automatically trying sixteen- and seventeen-year olds as adults in Baltimore City.

Pointing to the fact that his twenty-five year mandatory sentence in the present case is partially based upon two robbery convictions obtained pursuant to this statutory scheme in Baltimore City when he was seventeen, appellant argues that the court improperly imposed a mandatory sentence pursuant to § 643B (c) because his prior robbery convictions "cannot be considered as proper predicates for the imposition of a mandatory sentence under § 643B (c).” In making this argument, appellant recognizes that Long does not have retroactive effect in Maryland (see Wiggins v. State, 275 Md. 689 (1975)), and that, as a consequence, his convictions are not a "nullity.” Compare Woodall v. Pettibone, 465 F.2d 49 (4th Cir., 1972), cert. denied, 413 U.S. 922 . Nevertheless, he continues, "[prospective use of 'adult’ convictions from the Criminal Court of Baltimore . . . would perpetuate indefinitely the effect of th[at] arbitrary exception.” ¹⁶⁷ We disagree, on the basis of both the holding and the reasoning in Wiggins . Wiggins was a declaratory judgment proceeding. Mr. Wiggins had been charged with six counts of burglary occurring while he was between sixteen and eighteen years of age.

The cases came to trial in Baltimore City in 1960 and 1961 — prior to Long v. Robinson; and, in accordance with the statutory law then in effect, he was tried, and convicted, in the Criminal Court of Baltimore rather than in the Juvenile Court. Arguing that the Federal decision was retroactive, Wiggins sought a declaration that "the aforementioned convictions . . . are a nullity and that [he] may suffer no legal disabilities as a result of such convictions,” (see 275 Md. at 692 ) emphasis supplied), and an order expunging all records of those convictions. The trial court dismissed the bill on motion and demurrer, and, on appeal, this Court and the Court of Appeals affirmed. In rejecting summarily the broad relief requested by Wiggins, the Court, it seems to us, made a clear statement that Long is to have absolutely no effect upon either the prior convictions themselves or upon collateral consequences (such as the application of recidivist statutes) flowing from them.

As compelling as the holding in Wiggins is the reasoning behind it. The mere fact that the general process by which a conviction was obtained is later, in another case, found to be constitutionally flawed in some way does not necessarily taint the otherwise valid conviction. It depends on the nature of the defect, primarily