Slater v. Warden of Maryland Penitentiary

Hammond, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. On the evening of November 24, 1959, Warner Slater, the applicant for leave to appeal, along with two other persons, participated in two robberies. The trio, their faces shrouded in silk stockings, held up at gunpoint the owner of a drug store and then the proprietor of a liquor store, making off with some $600.00. One of the fugitives was shot and killed as he fled from the liquor store, and Slater and another, Collins E. Miller, were apprehended by the police.

Slater and Miller were convicted of robbery with a deadly weapon in the Criminal Court of Baltimore, and, on January 15, 1960, were sentenced to twenty years in the Maryland Penitentiary for each robbery, the sentences to run consecutively. They appealed to this Court, contending that the evidence was insufficient to convict. We affirmed. Miller v. State, 223 Md. 354 .

Thereafter, Slater petitioned the Baltimore City Court for a writ of habeas corpus, which was refused by Judge Oppenheimer on November 9, 1962. An application for the same writ directed to the United States District Court was denied by Judge Thomsen. Applicant filed a petition in the Criminal Court of Baltimore under the Uniform Post Conviction Procedure Act, which was denied by Judge Cullen on April 25, 1963. He now seeks leave to appeal.

In his discursive petition Slater listed eight separate grounds for relief, as follows: 1. The Assistant State’s Attorney perjured himself by misrepresenting testimony to the Court of Appeals. 2. Petitioner was illegally arrested and his arrest constituted an illegal search and seizure. 3. Evidence was introduced at the trial without proof. 4.

The trial court suppressed evidence that was vital to the defense of the Petitioner. ⁶¹¹ 5. The Criminal Court of Baltimore acted in prejudice to the rights of Petitioner when it appointed same counsel to take his appeal of its verdict. 6. Sentence was illegal and obtained in violation of the Fourth, Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution and Articles Nineteen and Twenty-three of the Maryland Bill of Rights. 7. The trial counsel was totally inept. 8.

Several police officers and other named prosecuting witnesses who testified at the trial presented perjured testimony, and the Assistant State’s Attorney was aware of such perjury. We have examined the State’s brief in Slater’s appeal to this Court and