State v. Bratt

Fader, C.J. In 2018, the appellee, Larry Daniel Bratt, filed a motion to correct an illegal sentence in which he argued that his sentence was illegal because he had not received the full amount of credit for time during which he was incarcerated before his conviction. The appellant, the State of Maryland, contends that the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County erred when it granted that motion, struck Mr. Bratt's then-existing sentence, and resentenced him. Our resolution of that claim centers on the effect, if any, of the circuit court's 2017 amendment of Mr. Bratt's commitment record-made at Mr. Bratt's request-to reflect the full amount of credit to which he was entitled. Mr. Bratt concedes that the 2017 amendment gave him all the credit to which he was entitled, but contends that the amendment was of no force or effect because it was accomplished without first providing him a hearing.

The State argues that the 2017 amendment was valid, that no hearing was required to accomplish it, and, therefore, that Mr. Bratt's sentence was legal at the time he filed his motion in 2018 and so could not be "corrected." Notably, both parties are in complete agreement that Mr. Bratt's current sentence, which is identical to the sentence that was on the books following the 2017 amendment, is legal and correct. The terms of Mr. Bratt's current sentence thus do not hang on our decision here. Instead, the real consequence of our decision is whether Mr. Bratt will receive a new opportunity to seek a modification of that sentence. Rule 4-345(e) allows a defendant to file a motion seeking modification of a sentence "within 90 days after imposition of a sentence." Mr. Bratt filed such a motion within 90 days of the court resentencing him.

If Mr. Bratt is correct that his sentence at the time he filed his 2018 motion was illegal, that means the court was correct to strike it and impose a new sentence, his motion for modification was timely, and the court may consider it. If the State is correct that the sentence as it stood in 2018 was legal, then there was no basis for striking it and the motion for modification must be denied as untimely. Either way, Mr. Bratt's current sentence, for all practical purposes, stays the same. We conclude that the 2017 amendment was effective and that Mr. Bratt's sentence was legal at the time he filed his motion in 2018.

We will therefore reverse. BACKGROUND On August 8, 1983, a jury sitting in the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County found Mr. Bratt guilty of two counts of first degree murder. That same day, the court sentenced Mr. Bratt to two life sentences to be served consecutively. This Court affirmed the conviction.

Bratt v. State , 62 Md. App. 535 , 490 A.2d 728 (1985). The facts supporting Mr. Bratt's conviction, which are irrelevant to our disposition here, are recited in this Court's opinion on Mr. Bratt's direct appeal. See id. In 1992, Mr. Bratt wrote a letter to the trial judge in which he requested credit for pretrial incarceration for (1) ten months served at the Anne Arundel County Detention Center and (2) three months served at the Dekalb County Jail in Georgia.

Mr. Bratt claimed to have been "locked up on July 16, 1982," but provided no supporting documentation. He further asked the court to modify his two life sentences from consecutive to concurrent terms. The court denied his request. In 1995, the Maryland Division of Corrections sent a letter to the trial judge in which it (1) identified that Mr. Bratt had been detained at the Anne Arundel County Detention Center before his conviction, beginning on October 26, 1982, and (2) asked whether the court intended his sentence to be imposed beginning on that date, rather than on the date of sentencing.

In response, the court issued an order stating: "After reviewing the file, the Court determines that Larry Bratt, under Art. 27 § 638C, is entitled to credit for time served in custody prior to the conviction. Thus, the sentence will run from the time of incarceration in the Anne Arundel County Detention Center on 10/26/82." On September 13, 1995, a new commitment record was entered reflecting the October 26, 1982 commencement date. Over the ensuing years, Mr. Bratt raised multiple challenges to his sentence. 1 Most relevant to this appeal are his two most recent, both of which asked the circuit court to change the start date for his first sentence from October 26, 1982 to July 16 of that year. First, in October 2017, Mr. Bratt filed a Petition for Pre-Trial Incarceration Credit and Correction of Commitment Record (the "2017 Petition for Credit"), in which he asserted that he was incarcerated for 102 days in Georgia before being transferred to Anne Arundel County and requested that the court award him credit against his sentence by "issu[ing] an Amended Commitment Record indicating that [his] sentence" began on July 16, 1982.

In the motion, Mr. Bratt requested a hearing "pursuant to Rule 4-345(f)." The State did not oppose the relief requested in the 2017 Petition for Credit, but asked the court to grant it "without a hearing." On November 3, 2017, without a hearing, the circuit court granted the petition and ordered the clerk to issue an amended commitment record "indicating that Petitioner's sentence commence as of 16 July 1982." The clerk then issued an amended commitment record stating that "[t]he Defendant's Commitment is to have a commencement date of July 16, 1982." We refer to that change as the 2017 Amendment. Second, in January 2018, Mr. Bratt filed a Motion to Correct Illegal Sentence (the "2018 Motion to Correct"). In the 2018 Motion to Correct, Mr. Bratt recited that he had requested a hearing in the 2017 Petition for Credit but did not receive one. As a result of that failure, he claimed, (1) the 2017 Amendment was "of no legal force or effect," and, therefore, (2) his original sentence, which had been imposed without affording him full credit for time served, was still in effect and illegal.

The court held a hearing on the motion, during which the State and Mr. Bratt agreed that he was entitled to 102 days' credit for time served in Georgia and that the proper start date of his sentence was July 16, 1982. The State, however, argued that Mr. Bratt had received all the relief he was entitled to in 2017 and, therefore, that his then-current sentence was lawful. At the conclusion of the hearing, the court granted Mr. Bratt's 2018 Motion to Correct. In its oral ruling and as reflected in a written order entered the same day, the court: (1) agreed with Mr. Bratt that the 2017 Amendment "was not sufficient to correct the illegal sentence as a hearing in open court was required"; and (2) concluded, therefore, that Mr. Bratt's sentence was then illegal because he was "currently serving two consecutive life sentences PLUS 102 days for two counts of first degree murder when the maximum sentence allowed by law would be two consecutive life sentences." As a result, in open court, the court struck the existing sentence and resentenced Mr. Bratt to "life in prison" on the first count, to begin on July 16, 1982, and a consecutive life sentence on the second count.

The court then informed Mr. Bratt that he had "90 days to file a modification of sentence," which Mr. Bratt subsequently did. The State timely appealed. DISCUSSION I. THE ORDER GRANTING MR. BRATT'S 2018 MOTION TO CORRECT AN ILLEGAL SENTENCE IS APPEALABLE .

As a preliminary matter, Mr. Bratt asks us to dismiss this appeal as not allowed by law. He argues that the State has no right of appeal pursuant to § 12-302 of the Courts and Judicial Proceedings Article because the circuit court did not actually impose or modify Mr. Bratt's sentence; instead, he argues, the court "recognized an illegal sentence and corrected it." We find no merit in Mr. Bratt's motion. As an initial matter, we note that Mr. Bratt's position with respect to his motion to dismiss-that the circuit court did not actually modify his sentence or impose a new one-is inherently contradictory to his position on the merits-that the circuit court correctly granted his 2018 motion because the prior sentence was unlawful and the new one is lawful. If Mr. Bratt were to prevail on his motion to dismiss on the basis that the circuit court did not actually impose a new sentence, his motion for modification would have to be denied for the same reason.

Mr. Bratt is saved from that fate, however, because we conclude that his motion to dismiss is without merit. Section 12-302(c) provides that "[t]he State may appeal from a final judgment if the State alleges that the trial judge: ... [i]mposed or modified a sentence in violation of the Maryland Rules." Md. Code Ann., Cts. & Jud. Proc. § 12-302 (c)(3)(ii) (Repl. 2013; Supp. 2018). Here, after concluding that Mr. Bratt's existing sentence was illegal, the circuit court expressly struck that sentence and imposed a new one.

The State contends that the circuit court did so in violation of the Maryland Rules. Specifically, the State contends that Mr. Bratt's prior sentence was not illegal and, therefore, that the circuit court had no valid basis to strike it and impose a new sentence. The State's appeal is therefore authorized by § 12-302(c)(3)(ii). Mr. Bratt's arguments to the contrary are unavailing.

We struggle to understand his contention that the court did not really impose a new sentence, both because it is inconsistent with his merits argument and because it ignores what the court said it actually did, which was to strike the prior sentence and impose a new, albeit identical, one. And the cases on which Mr. Bratt relies are inapposite. State v. Warfield , 148 Md. App. 178 , 811 A.2d 382 (2002), was superseded by the statutory provision on which the State now relies, see State v. Karmand , 183 Md. App. 480 , 488-89, 961 A.2d 1152 (2008), and in State v. Clements , 461 Md. 280 , 294, 192 A.3d 686 (2018), the Court of Appeals determined that the provision did not apply because the circuit court had not yet imposed a new sentence. We will deny the motion to dismiss.

II

THE COURT ERRED IN GRANTING MR. BRATT'S 2018 MOTION TO CORRECT AN ILLEGAL SENTENCE . We "review[ ] without deference the issue of whether a sentence is illegal." Nichols v. State , 461 Md. 572 , 598, 196 A.3d 457 (2018). That is because "the only question is whether the ultimate sentence itself is or is not inherently illegal.

That is quintessentially a question of law calling for de novo appellate review." Carlini v. State , 215 Md. App. 415 , 443, 81 A.3d 560 (2013). A. The Parties' Arguments Because neither party's argument entirely meet that of the other, we pause to explain the disconnect. As we see it, the critical issue is the state of Mr. Bratt's sentence when he filed the 2018 Motion to Correct. Mr. Bratt contends that his sentence at that time was two consecutive life terms of imprisonment, with credit only for the time he spent detained in Anne Arundel County and no credit for his time served in Georgia beginning on July 16, 1982. 2 Mr. Bratt reaches that conclusion by disregarding the 2017 Amendment according to the following logic: (1) under Rule 4-345 (f), a court is not permitted to modify or correct a sentence without holding a hearing; (2) in Mateen v. Saar , the Court of Appeals stated that a modification of a sentence that is made without a hearing is "of no legal force or effect," 376 Md. 385 , 399, 829 A.2d 1007 (2003) ; and, therefore, (3) the 2017 Amendment, which was made without a hearing, is void.

The State's response is addressed primarily to an argument that Mr. Bratt never makes, at least not on appeal: that the sentence as it existed after the 2017 Amendment was illegal because he was not provided a hearing before that change was made. The State contends that that claim is not cognizable under Rule 4-345(a) because it is premised on a procedural problem-the failure to hold a hearing-rather than a substantive deficiency inherent to the sentence itself. 3 The State also presents two additional arguments that apply equally to the claim Mr. Bratt actually makes-that his sentence as it stood beginning in 1995, and continued until the court acted in 2018, was illegal because it did not fully credit his time served-and to the argument that the State believes Mr. Bratt is making. First, relying on Haskins v. State , 171 Md. App. 182 , 189, 908 A.2d 750 (2006), the State argues that a motion to correct an illegal sentence based on the failure to provide credit for time served is not cognizable under Rule 4-345(a). Second, the State contends that the circuit court actually awarded Mr. Bratt credit for time served in 1995, and that the only issue addressed in the court's November 2017 order was correcting the amount of credit to which Mr. Bratt was entitled.

That problem was not fully corrected earlier, the State argues, because it was not until October 2017 that Mr. Bratt provided documentation to verify the fact and length of his incarceration in Georgia. We address each of these arguments below. B. A Defendant Is Entitled to Credit for Time Served. Under § 6-218(b) of the Criminal Procedure Article, a defendant is entitled to "credit against and a reduction of the term of a definite or life sentence ... for all time spent in custody of a correctional facility ...." Md. Code Ann., Crim.

Pro. § 6-218 (b)(1) (Repl. 2018). Thus, subject to caveats not relevant here, a sentence imposed against a defendant must credit him or her for time spent in custody. See Lawson v. State , 187 Md. App. 101 , 107, 975 A.2d 357 (2009) ("[U]pon conviction, a defendant must be credited for time he has served in custody because of that crime.") (internal quotation marks removed); Smith , 31 Md. App. at 315, 356 A.2d 320 ("Credit is required to be given for time spent in custody ...."). Because the parties agree as to the amount of time Mr. Bratt spent incarcerated before trial, they also agree that the correct start date for his sentence is July 16, 1982.

C. A Claim That an Inmate Has Been Denied Credit for Time Served Can Be Raised in a Motion to Correct an Illegal Sentence Under Rule 4-345(a). The parties disagree as to whether a motion to correct an illegal sentence can be premised on the failure to provide proper credit for time served. Mr. Bratt relies primarily on Smith v. State in arguing that a motion to correct an illegal sentence is a proper mechanism to challenge the failure to provide appropriate credit. In Smith , the circuit court sentenced a defendant found guilty of murder to 12 years' incarceration without affording credit for 19 months'