Robinson v. State

Morton, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. James D. Robinson, appellant, was convicted in a non-jury ⁶¹⁸ trial in the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County of the crime of escape (Md. Code, art. 27, § 139) and sentenced to the .Division of Correction for a term of eight months to be served consecutively to any sentence he was then serving. In this appeal appellant contends that “[t]he trial judge erred in refusing to consider Appellant’s defense of compulsion to the crime of escape.” The record indicates that on May 13, 1978, appellant was incarcerated at the Maryland Correctional Camp Center in Jessup, Anne Arundel County, Maryland, and about 9:45 p.m. on that date he departed from the premises without permission. On May 30, 1978, appellant “turned himself in” to the police authorities of Baltimore City.

At trial, appellant testified that while a member of the Maryland Penitentiary population, he “helped some officials out” as a result of which he was “jumped on” by several of his fellow inmates. He was then transferred to the Maryland House of Correction where he was placed “on protective custody status.” Sometime later he was sent to the Maryland Correctional Camp Center. According to appellant, “fw]hen I went to the Camp Center I had trouble with three inmates and I got cut in the back over there the night that I left and that’s the reason why I left.” Prior to the assault he had complained to a correctional officer of his fear of attacks by certain fellow inmates and was told “if you can’t handle the Camp Center we’ll send you back to the Maryland House of Correction.” About an hour later he “was called into the bathroom and jumped on by the three inmates and cut on my back.” When questioned about his actual escape, he said: “I knew exactly what I was facing, but instead of staying there and getting stabbed or going to sleep and getting stabbed, I left.” When asked: “So, in other words, what you’re saying is that you left out of fear for your life?,” appellant replied: “Yes sir.” At the conclusion of the testimony trial counsel for appellant argued, as his appellate counsel does in this Court, that appellant’s escape was excused because he “acted under ⁶¹⁹ a compelling force of coercion or duress.” In response to counsel’s argument, the trial judge announced: “It may well be that some day some Court will structure certain guidelines for determining ... just how coercion or duress is to be measured insofar as inmates’ escapes are concerned, but I am certainly not going to undertake to structure such guidelines.... I am not aware of any principle that there can be justification or excuse as such, a justification which would excuse the act so to speak from being a violation of the statutory crime of escape.” We agree with appellant that the trial judge erred in refusing to pass upon the appellant’s defense of coercion, compulsion, duress or necessity.

Counsel for both appellant and the State agree that for the purposes of this case, the terms may be treated interchangeably, although some authorities have sought to make a distinction among the terms. Stewart v. United States, 370 A. 2d 1374 (D.C. Ct. App. 1977); 43 U. Cin. L. Rev., 956 -60 (1974). While it would appear that our Maryland appellate courts have not addressed the applicability of such a defense specifically to the crime of escape, this Court did say, in Frasher v. State, 8 Md. App. 439, 447-48 (1970): “It is essential to a crime that the defendant committed a voluntary act....

The voluntary requirement of the criminal act relates directly to compulsion; it is a defense as to all crimes except taking the life of an innocent person that the defendant acted under a compelling force of coercion or duress. 1 Wharton’s Criminal Law (Anderson) § 123, p. 261. The compulsion may be by necessity, that is duress arising from circumstances, or by the application of duress on the defendant by another person.” Counsel for appellant asserts that “[sjeveral jurisdictions have recently shed a traditional reluctance to apply this defense to a charge of escape” and counsel for the State ⁶²⁰ “concedes that there is a trend to recognize the defense” 1 and urges us “to recognize the defense in a proper setting,” asserting that this case does not constitute such a setting. Both sides recommend that we adopt the guidelines set forth in what they term the leading case of People v. Lovercamp, 43 Cal. App. 3d 823 , 69 ALR 3d 668 (1975).

There the court observed: “[RJather early in the legal history of the offense of escape, it became clear that all departures from lawful custody were not necessarily escapes or, to put it more accurately, there was a possible defense to an escape charge, to wit, necessity. In 1 Hale P.C. 611 (1736), it was written that if a prison caught fire and a prisoner departed to save his life, the necessity to save his life ‘excuseth the felony.’ So, too, we may assume that a prisoner with his back to the wall, facing a gang of fellow inmates approaching him with drawn knives, who are making it very clear that they intend to kill him, might be expected to go over the wall rather than remain and