Reynolds v. Warden of the Maryland Penitentiary

Prescott, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This is an application for leave to appeal from the denial of relief under the U.P.C.P.A., Code (1961 Supp.), Art. 27, §§ 64SA-645J. According to the application, Reynolds and two codefendants, Middleton and Hughey, all pleaded guilty to charges of grand larceny and breaking and entering. At the trial, Reynolds and Middleton each asked for and received court appointed counsel.

Each of them was sentenced to a term of five years. Hughey, it is alleged, declined appointed counsel and was sentenced to four and a half years. The single point pressed at the hearing below and raised here is that Reynolds’ sentence should be reduced by six ⁶²⁵ months because the trial judge assigned an improper reason for the disparate sentences. The application asserts that at the sentencing the trial judge said that he was imposing the lighter sentence upon Hughey because, and only because, Hughey had declined appointed counsel and thereby had saved the public an expense.

Reynolds’ sentence is not claimed to exceed legal limits and it is clearly within the statutory limit for his conviction for either offense. See Code (1957), Art. 27, §§ 32, 33, 340; Williams v. State, 205 Md. 470 , 109 A. 2d 89 . In this State sentencing is within the discretion of the trial judge. Where punishment is prescribed by statute, and the sentence does not exceed the statutory limits, this Court ordinarily cannot review it even upon a direct appeal.

Merchant v. State, 217 Md. 61 , 141 A. 2d 487 , and cases therein cited. We have recognized a very narrow exception allowing review on appeal for abuse of discretion in imposing sentence. “Where the punishment is grossly and inordinately disproportionate to the offense ‘so that the sentence