Sansbury v. Director of Patuxent Institution

⁵⁴⁶ Sybert, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This is an application by Robert Talmadge Sansbury for leave to appeal from the denial of post conviction relief by the Circuit Court for Prince George’s County. On March 14, 1962, Sansbury pleaded guilty to storehouse breaking in the same court and was sentenced to serve an indeterminate period, not to exceed two years, beginning as of December 19, 1961, in the Maryland Reformatory for Males. On July 19, 1962, the court ordered his transfer to the Patuxent Institution for evaluation.

At a hearing held on May 15, 1963, a jury found him to be a defective delinquent as defined in Code (1964 Cum. Supp.), Art. 31B, sec. 5, and he was committed to Patuxent. An application for leave to appeal from that determination was denied by this Court in Sansbury v. Director, 233 Md. 587 , 195 A. 2d 604 (1963). He was represented below and on the application for leave to appeal by court appointed counsel.

In December 1963 and January 1964 Sansbury, in proper person, filed a petition and a supplemental petition asking post conviction relief. Court appointed counsel filed a further supplemental petition on June 23, 1964. After a hearing on the three petitions, the circuit court denied the relief prayed. In this application for leave to appeal from the order denying relief, Sansbury raises eight contentions.

The first three, taken together, amount to a claim that he did not have counsel when he was convicted in two cases involving assault and unauthorized use of an automobile (which cases apparently were tried at about the same time he pleaded guilty to the indictment for storehouse breaking); that the lack of counsel invalidated the two convictions mentioned; and that therefore his commitment to Patuxent was invalid, upon the theory that the defective delinquency proceeding was based, in part, upon the two convictions. However, the record before us is silent as to the assault and unauthorized use cases. Rather, the record originates with the docket entries in the storehouse breaking case. Those docket entries, after reflecting the proceedings and sentence in that case, next show the proceedings in the defective delinquency case, and finally note the instant post conviction proceedings. ⁵⁴⁷ The applicant’s position is without merit.

Counsel was appointed for him in the storehouse breaking case, and he pleaded guilty to the charge in the presence of his attorney. In fact, the applicant does not challenge the validity of that conviction. Storehouse breaking, a misdemeanor punishable by possible imprisonment in the penitentiary, is one of the