State v. Ewell

Henderson, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. In this application by the State for leave to appeal from the granting of post conviction relief by Judge Duckett in the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County, we granted leave to appeal and heard argument. The question posed is whether the trial court properly allowed credit to the appellee, against the period of confinement under his original sentence of five years, for the time spent in Crownsville State Hospital. The facts disclosed by the record show that Ewell was convicted of statutory burglary on April 14, 1958, and given an indeterminate sentence not to exceed five years.

On January 25, 1960, he was paroled. On March 10, 1960, he was again arrested and charged with statutory burglary. While awaiting trial in the Annapolis jail, he attempted suicide and was sent to Crownsville, a State hospital for the insane, tie testified that he was sent there by Judge Michaelson, presumably under Code (1957), Art. 59, secs. 9 or 11. Cf.

Hazel v. State, 226 Md. 254, 262 . But the record does not show it, and it is possible that ⁵⁸ he was committed upon the certificate of two physicians under Code (1957), Art. 59, sec. 1, or upon petition of the jailer under Code (1957), Art. 27, sec. 711. In any event the staff of Crownsville evidently considered him to be mentally deranged, for he remained there for 377 days. On May 10, 1961, Ewell was discharged from Crownsville as recovered and able to stand trial.

He was returned to the Annapolis jail. On May 12, 1961, he was tried and convicted by Judge Michaelson and sentenced to ten years in the House of Correction. The order did not specify when this sentence should begin, and the prison authorities correctly calculated that it should begin at the end of the original five year term. See Code (1957), Art. 41, sec. 125.

Cf. Burkett v. Warden, 214 Md. 603 , and Justice v. Warden, 203 Md. 651 . But in arriving at the discharge date, the prison authorities added the 473 days during which Ewell was absent from the House of Correction on parole, although it clearly appears that for 377 days of the period he was confined in Crownsville. The Board of Parole and Probation held a hearing on July 28, 1961, and revoked the parole previously granted, without credit for the time spent outside the prison.

When the matter was raised on petition for post conviction relief, Judge Duckett ruled as a matter of law that the petitioner was entitled to credit for the days spent in Crownsville and ordered and declared that the new sentence began on May 18, 1962, instead of on May 30, 1963. Maryland Rule 764 provides that “[t]he court may correct an illegal sentence at any time.” Code (1963 Supp.), Art. 27, sec. 645A authorizes a proceeding “to set aside or correct the sentence” if “the sentence exceeds the maximum authorized by law, or * * * is otherwise subject to> collateral attack * * *.” We think the proper legal construction of the sentences is open to review on post conviction. See Burkett v. Warden, supra (a habeas corpus case). This is not a case of modification or reduction of a sentence, but the question posed is simply one of statutory construction, as applied to virtually undisputed facts.

The State argues that the trial court had no power to modify a revocation of parole because discretion is granted to the Board of Parole and Probation under Code (1957), Art. 41, sec. 115. It is true that the Board has discretion under that ⁵⁹ section to allow or