Simmons v. Director of Patuxent Institution

SybERT, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The applicant, who had been sentenced to imprisonment for housebreaking, was found by a jury to be a defective delinquent and he now seeks leave to appeal. The chief contention is that there was insufficient evidence to support the finding. The applicant was represented by coun ⁶⁶³ sel at the hearing.

Ele had a rather long record of offenses as a juvenile and as an adult, including car thefts and breaking and entering. Dr. Boslow, the director, and other staff officials of Patuxent reported that he “shows definite indications of emotional imbalance of a type which renders him a danger to society”. Applicant was quoted as saying, “I could hardly control stealing. * * * I just don’t go along with society’s laws.” Dr. Waterman, an independent psychiatrist who examined him at his request, concurred in the findings of the Patuxent staff and recommended commitment. There was sufficient evidence from which the jury could properly find defective delinquency.

The applicant next claims that his commitment constitutes double jeopardy; that the defective delinquent law violates the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution and the Maryland Declaration of Rights by discriminating against him as a person or as a member of a group, and that the statute permits cruel and unusual punishment by providing for an indeterminate “sentence”. Similar claims advanced in Eggleston v. State, 209 Md. 504 (1956), were found to be without merit. It is further contended that the statute is ex post facto in effect, since the issue of his being a defective delinquent was not raised in the trial for housebreaking, thus depriving him in the subsequent delinquency hearing of the protections which must he afforded to one accused of crime. The short answer is that the statute is civil, not penal, in nature and its end objective is not punishment but treatment.

McElroy v. Director, 211 Md. 385 (1956). Even if applicant’s characterization were correct, the prohibition against ex post facto laws relates only to penal statutes. Applicant maintains