Sewell v. Director of Patuxent Institution

Per Curiam. In his application for leave to appeal from a redetermination of defective delinquency and recommitment to Patuxent Institution made by Judge Byrnes, sitting without a jury in the Superior Court of Baltimore City, Lawrence J. Sewell, who was convicted of robbery in 1957 and determined to be a defective delinquent and committed to Patuxent in 1961, makes a broadside attack (framed in eleven allegations) on the constitutionality of the defective delinquent statute and the manner in which it is administered. We have previously considered and rejected ten of his contentions as not being adequate grounds for relief. The other seems to be in two parts, the first of which claims that.

Sewell could not have been given a fair hearing because “Judge Byrnes helped, aided, assisted, or abetted in the passing of Art. 31B,” and thus knows of the “farce [sic] nature of Patuxent.” This is devoid of merit as it presupposes the defective delinquent statute to be not what it purports to be and what the Legislature and this Court have said that it is, namely, an Act “to protect society from the dangers of persons whose actions evidence a propensity toward criminal activity, with the statutory emphasis being on confinement and treatment * * *.”