State v. Crawley

Barbera, C.J. All forms of first degree murder carry a statutorily-mandated life sentence. See Md. Code Ann., Crim. Law § 2-201 (b) (2002, 2012 Repl. Vol., 2016 Supp.). 1 Although a life ⁵⁵ sentence must be imposed, the sentencing court retains the discretion to suspend any portion of it so long as the suspended portion carries with it a period of probation.

Md. Code Ann., Crim. Proc. § 6-222 (2001, 2008 Repl. Vol., 2016 Supp.); 2 Cathcart v. State, 397 Md. 320, 327 , 916 A.2d 1008 (2007). The absence of a period of probation has the effect of removing the portion of the life sentence that has been suspended, leaving standing only the term-of-years portion of the sentence.

See Cathcart, 397 Md. at 330 , 916 A.2d 1008 . A term-of-years sentence for first degree murder is an illegal sentence that must be corrected by adding a period of probation. Greco v. State, 427 Md. 477, 513 , 48 A.3d 816 (2012). The case before us presents the question of whether a sentence for first degree felony murder containing such an illegality must be corrected as described in Greco when the illegal sentence was imposed pursuant to a plea agreement.

For the reasons that follow, we hold that the rule established by Greco applies regardless of whether the sentence was the product of a plea agreement or upon a conviction following trial. ⁵⁶ I The crime, the plea agreement, and the sentencing This case has its genesis in the 1997 armed robbery and murder of a District of Columbia policeman, Officer Oliver Smith, who was off duty at the time. The subsequent investigation quickly led the police to conclude that Respondent, Anthony Allen Crawley, and two co-actors, Antwaun Brown and Donovan Strickland, were involved in the commission of the crime. Crawley was charged with first degree felony murder and armed robbery. In exchange for his agreement to testify truthfully against Brown and Strickland, Crawley agreed to plead guilty to both charges.

The plea hearing was held in September 1997. At the outset of that hearing, counsel for Crawley made the following request: “We are asking the Court to bind itself to an agreement reached between the State and the Defense that the sentence in this case would be life, which the Court would be required to impose, but that all but thirty-five years would be suspended on the felony murder charge.” The plea agreement, which was read at the hearing, provided in pertinent part: The State, the Court, and the Defendant agree that the Defendant shall be sentenced after the conclusion of the trials of codefendants Antwaun Brown and Donovan Strickland, to life suspend all but 35 years for the aforesaid felony murder charge. The underlying charge of robbery with a deadly weapon will merge, by operation of law, with the felony murder charge at sentencing. The plea agreement did not mention probation, and the court did not utter the term “probation” during the hearing, except in the course of a somewhat lengthy colloquy with Crawley concerning the impact that his guilty plea in the present case could have on his then-current status in the criminal justice system.

Even then, the court’s reference to probation was in asking Crawley whether he was “on any kind of parole or probation at this point in time.” Neither the State nor defense counsel referred to probation in connection with the sentence presented by the plea, and neither brought up the necessity to ⁵⁷ have a period of probation attached to the suspended portion of the life sentence. At the conclusion of the hearing, the court declared its satisfaction that the plea was “knowingly, voluntarily and intelligently made,” and that defense counsel had discussed the plea in detail with Crawley and, with Crawley’s consent, his family. The court then formally accepted the plea agreement. Sentencing took place a little more than a year later, on October 16, 1998.

At the hearing, the court reiterated the agreement in imposing the sentence: The sentence of this Court is, as to Count One, first degree felony murder, that you be sentenced to life in prison. Pursuant to the plea agreement, all but 35 years is suspended, and that sentence is to commence as of February 27th, 1997. As to Count Two, robbery with a deadly weapon, the sentence is that the Court rules that no sentence can be imposed because under felony murder robbery with a deadly weapon merges with Count Number One. No mention of probation was made by anyone at any time during the hearing.

The commitment record indicates a sentence of “life, all but 35 years suspended,” with the box for the probation period left blank. In 2011, Crawley initiated the present challenge to the legality of his sentence. Before addressing that claim, we pause to review the then-evolving jurisprudential landscape in Maryland that bears directly on the claim he makes. II Cathcart v. State, Greco v. State, and their effect on this case Cathcart v. State On February 9, 2007, this Court decided Cathcart, 397 Md. at 320 , 916 A.2d 1008 .

The defendant Cathcart was convicted by a jury of first degree assault and common law false ⁵⁸ imprisonment. Id. at 322 , 916 A.2d 1008 . He was sentenced to ten years in prison on the assault conviction and to life imprisonment with all but ten years suspended on the false imprisonment conviction. Id.

Cathcart appealed and challenged the life sentence for false imprisonment as disproportionately excessive, in violation of the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of Maryland. Cathcart v. State, 169 Md.App. 379, 388 , 901 A.2d 262 (2006). The Court of Special Appeals, noting in part that “no period of probation was imposed,” concluded that, “[i]f ... appellant serves the entire unsuspended ten years, he will have no future risk of being retaken, as there is no probation to be violated.” Id. at 389 , 901 A.2d 262 . Focusing on what was effectively a ten-year sentence, the Court of Special Appeals readily concluded that the sentence was not unconstitutionally disproportionate to the crime.

Id. at 391 , 901 A.2d 262 . Cathcart sought and we granted a writ of certiorari to review his challenge to what he maintained was an illegal sentence. Before us, Cathcart advanced an argument different from his argument in the Court of Special Appeals. We summarized the new argument this way: Acknowledging that, in the absence of a period of probation attached to the suspended part of the sentence, there will be no occasion for the suspended part of the sentence ever to be executed and that, as a result, he will never have to serve more than ten years on that sentence, [Cathcart] complains that the effect of the sentence [for common law false imprisonment] as articulated [by the Court of Special Appeals to be ten years] and when considered together with the ten-year sentence for assault, is to preclude any parole consideration for the entire duration of the twenty years.

Cathcart, 397 Md. at 324 , 916 A.2d 1008 . To that argument, we responded: We do not agree that the sentences imposed on Cathcart were in any way illegal. The sentence imposed on the assault conviction was well within the permissible statutory range, and, as we shall explain, the sentence imposed for ⁵⁹ false imprisonment, despite its wording, was not a life sentence and has no attribute or collateral consequence of a life sentence. What the court has effectively done is to impose two ten-year sentences, one consecutive to the other, and there is nothing unlawful in its doing so.

Id. at 325 , 916 A.2d 1008 . Our conclusion was grounded in three sentencing principles: “[1] in the absence of statutory authority a court does not possess any power, after sentence has been pronounced, to suspend the execution of its judgment so as to relieve an accused, either in whole or in part, from suffering the sentence imposed”[; 2] that, pursuant to Art. Ill, § 60 of the Maryland Constitution, the General Assembly has the power, by “suitable general enactment,” to provide for the suspension of sentences in criminal cases[;] and [3] that any suspension of execution of a sentence by a court, in whole or in part, must be in conformance with an authorizing statute. Cathcart, 397 Md. at 327 , 916 A.2d 1008 (citing State ex rel. Sonner v. Shearin, 272 Md. 502, 512-13, 518-19 , 325 A.2d 573 (1974)).

For purposes of resolving the sentencing issue presented in Cathcart, we noted: What is relevant from Shearin is the principle that, because the Maryland Constitution has vested in the General Assembly the power to enact legislation providing for the suspension of sentences, if the Legislature, pursuant to that authority, enacts such legislation setting conditions or limitations on the suspension of sentences, courts are not authorized to ignore or act inconsistently with those conditions or limitations. Cathcart, 397 Md. at 328 , 916 A.2d 1008 . We recognized nonetheless that, in Cathcart’s case, because there was not a mandatory minimum sentence for the false imprisonment conviction, the court’s failure to impose a period of probation did not render the sentence illegal, “but simply precludes it from having the status of a split sentence.” Id. at 330 , 916 A.2d 1008 . Important to the case at bar, we addressed the relevance ⁶⁰ of Crim.

Proc. § 6-222 to the analysis. We explained that, “[u]nder what is now CP § 6-222,” courts have the authority to “impose what is commonly referred to as a split sentence.” Cathcart, 397 Md. at 326 , 916 A.2d 1008 . “If a court chooses to use that approach, however, it must comply with the requirements of CP § 6-222, one of which is that there must be a period of probation attached to the suspended part of the sentence.” Cathcart, 397 Md. at 327 , 916 A.2d 1008 . We held that, “[b]ecause the effect of the omission is to limit the period of incarceration to the unsuspended part of the sentence, that becomes, in law, the effective sentence.” Id. at 330 , 916 A.2d 1008 . Greco v. State Five years after Cathcart, we decided Greco .

Greco was tried and convicted by a jury of first degree premeditated murder, felony murder, and first degree rape. Greco, 427 Md. at 485 , 48 A.3d 816 . The circuit court sentenced Greco to concurrent terms of life imprisonment for the premeditated murder and rape, with all but 50 years suspended; the court did not impose a period of probation. Id. at 486 , 48 A.3d 816 .

No separate sentence was imposed for the felony murder conviction. Id. We determined that “[Greco’s] previously imposed sentence for first degree premeditated murder of life, suspend all but fifty years, was converted by operation of law into a term-of-years sentence of fifty years imprisonment.” Id. at 513 , 48 A.3d 816 . Such conversion, as we had said in Cathcart, “does not necessarily make the sentence illegal but simply precludes it from having the status of a split sentence” under Crim.

Proc. § 6-222. Greco, 427 Md. at 505 , 48 A.3d 816 (emphasis added) (citation omitted). But, unlike the convictions at issue in Cathcart, Greco’s conviction for premeditated murder carried a statutorily-prescribed penalty of life imprisonment, rendering the resultant 50-year sentence illegal. See id. at 505-07, 513, 48 A.3d 816 .

We further explainéd in Greco that correcting a split sentence by tacking on a probationary period was not an abuse of ⁶¹ the authority granted by Maryland Rule 4-345(a). We noted that the courts have revisory power, pursuant to Rule 4-345(a), to correct illegal sentences and, if necessary, can accomplish the correction by increasing the sentence. Greco, 427 Md. at 508 , 48 A.3d 816 . We held: In sum, Petitioner’s previously imposed sentence for first degree premeditated murder of life, suspend all but fifty years, was converted by operation of law into a term-of-years sentence of fifty years imprisonment.

That converted sentence was not authorized by statute; therefore, it was illegal. On remand, the Circuit Court is limited by the maximum legal sentence that could have been imposed, with the illegality removed. That is, the Circuit Court must impose a sentence of life imprisonment, all but fifty years suspended, to be followed by some period of probation. Id. at 513 , 48 A.3d 816 .

III Subsequent proceedings in the present case Crawley’s Motion to Correct an Illegal Sentence In May 2011, after Cathcart but before Greco was issued, Crawley, representing himself, filed a “Memorandum of Law” requesting the circuit court to “Revise Judgment of an Illegal Sentence.” Crawley asserted that the trial court’s failure to impose a period of probation precluded the sentence from having the status of a split sentence. Crawley argued that, under Cathcart, the omission of a period of probation rendered his sentence a fixed term-of-years sentence of 35 years. The circuit court treated Crawley’s pleading as a motion to correct an illegal sentence. By the time the motion came on for a hearing, Greco had been decided.

The circuit court ruled that, pursuant to Greco , Crawley’s sentence was an illegal sentence and a new sentence was necessary to correct the illegality. A resentencing hearing was held on April 26, 2013. The circuit court explained that, although his “personal druthers would be stick with the bind ⁶² ing plea agreement, [because] that’s what the parties agreed to,” he could not because the sentence was illegal. Over defense objection, the court vacated the then-extant sentence and resentenced Crawley to life imprisonment, all but 35 years suspended, with four years of supervised probation. 3 Crawley, satisfied with the 35-year portion of the sentence, but displeased with the addition of the period of probation, appealed that decision to the Court of Special Appeals.

The decision of the Court of Special Appeals and Petition for Writ of Certiorari A majority of the three-judge panel of the Court of Special Appeals reversed the judgment of the circuit court in an unreported opinion. Crawley v. State, No. 467, Sept. Term, 2013, slip op. at 20-21, 2016 WL 4260968 (Md. Ct. Spec. App. Aug. 8, 2016). The panel majority agreed with Crawley that the sentence, as modified by the circuit court, was itself illegal because it added four years of probation not included as a term of the plea agreement.

Id. The panel majority recognized that Crawley’s sentence, as converted by