State v. Hicks

ON REMAND ON MOTION FOR RECONSIDERATION ADKINS, Judge. This appeal reaches this Court after remand from the Court of Appeals. We are directed to reconsider whether the Circuit Court for Baltimore City erred in granting appellee’s request for a writ of coram nobis in light of the opinion of the Court of Appeals in Skok v. Maryland, 361 Md. 52 , 760 A.2d 647 (2000). In 1979 Doug Anthony Hicks, appellee, pled guilty to and was convicted of robbery.

He was sentenced on April 23, 1979, to ten years of incarceration, which was suspended in favor of five years on probation. On June 11,1981, Hicks was found in violation of his probation and was sentenced to ten years incarceration. He completed his term of incarceration for that offense. On October 25, 1996, Hicks filed an Emergency Petition for Writ of Error Coram Nobis, challenging his 1979 robbery plea and seeking to prevent the use of the 1979 robbery conviction in a pending sentencing in federal court in connection with his federal conviction as a felon in possession of a handgun.

Following a hearing, Hicks’ petition was granted and his 1979 conviction vacated. The State timely noted an appeal, asking us to determine if the circuit court erred in granting Hicks’ petition for coram nobis relief where the issuance of the writ was predicated upon questions of law and matters in issue at Hicks’ 1979 guilty plea proceeding. In an unreported decision issued June 14, 2000, we vacated the granting of the petition and remand ⁴ ed the case for further proceedings. In light of the broadened scope of a coram nobis proceeding authorized by the Court of Appeals in Skok , we affirm the decision of the circuit court.

FACTS AND LEGAL PROCEEDINGS The agreed statement of facts submitted at Hicks’ guilty plea hearing on March 8,1979, established that at 6:10 p.m. on November 22, 1978, Hicks and Karl Davis, who was armed with a revolver, approached David Love and David Begham on a street in Baltimore City and proceeded to rob the two men. A Maryland Transportation Authority (MTA) pass valued at $25 was taken from Mr. Love, and nothing was taken from Mr. Begham. Hicks and Davis then told the victims to kneel, and then walked down the street and out of sight. At that point the police were notified and Messrs.

Love and Begham gave a description of the robbers to the police. Subsequently, Hicks and Davis were arrested. The police officers recovered the gun and Mr. Love’s MTA pass. On the morning of March 8, 1979, just prior to the guilty plea hearing, Hicks was seen by the Court Medical Services Office (“CMSO”) for an evaluation on his motion to transfer the matter to the juvenile court.

At the hearing, the court placed on the record “a fair statement of what transpired” in an earlier chambers discussion, and stated that the “report [of the CMSO] was being dictated at that very minute, [and] that the [c]ourt would have the report in its hands in the early afternoon.” The court then stated that the Administrator of the CMSO advised that it “was going to recommend that the [c]ourt not grant a request for a waiver, reverse waiver.” The following then transpired: [DEFENSE ATTORNEY]: Based upon the fact Your Hon- or has related those matters on the record to counsel, I had discussed the merits of the Motion for Reversed Waiver with both Mr. Hicks and his mother, Mrs. Dorothy Hicks, who is present in [c]ourt at the moment, and it was my recommendation to him, based upon the plea overtures made by [the State’s attorney] that we abandon the Motion ⁵ for Waiving Jurisdiction to the Juvenile Court of Baltimore City that was filed in this case, that it be abandoned or withdrawn, as the case may be. So we are withdrawing that motion at this time, Your Honor, with the consent of Mr. Hicks. Step forward, Mr. Hicks. Do you understand what I have just told the [c]ourt concerning the Motion that I filed on your behalf to have your case sent back to Juvenile Court? [Mr. Hicks]: Yes.

Hicks then entered a plea of guilty to the crime of robbery, and was sentenced. Eighteen years later, on October 25, 1996, Hicks filed an Emergency Petition for Writ of Error Coram Nobis, in conjunction with a motion to shorten the time to answer and a request for an expedited hearing. In this petition, Hicks informed the court that he had been “found guilty of felon in possession of a handgun ... in the United States District Court for the District of Maryland.... Sentencing is scheduled for November 13, 1996.

Unless this petition is granted, the conviction ... will be improperly used not only to increase his sentence ... but as the predicate offense for the federal conviction.” The basis for the petition was Hicks’ allegation that the conviction was constitutionally invalid for six reasons: (1) neither the court nor counsel advised Hicks during the guilty plea litany of the burden of proof and standard of proof required in a criminal case; (2) he was not advised that he was presumed innocent; (3) he was not advised of the nature of the charges against him, and no effort was made to determine if he understood the charges; (4) he was not adequately examined by the criminal court’s medical office on his motion to transfer jurisdiction to the juvenile court; (5) he was denied effective representation by counsel; and (6) his guilty plea was neither voluntary nor intelligent. On December 1, 1997, the circuit court held a hearing on Hicks’s motion for coram nobis relief. After the hearing, on ⁶ February 12, 1999, the petition for writ of error coram nobis relief was granted and the 1979 judgment of conviction and sentence entered against Hicks were vacated. The State timely appealed that order.

In our June 14, 2000 unreported decision, we vacated the writ and remanded the case for the trial court to consider whether the absence of the CMSO report was a sufficient basis by itself to grant coram nobis relief. The Court of Appeals, after accepting a petition for certiorari filed by both parties, directed that we reconsider our decision in light of its decision in Skok v. State, 361 Md. 52 , 760 A.2d 647 (2000). Additional facts will be added as necessary to our discussion of the issue. DISCUSSION I. Appealability Of Decision On Coram Nobis Petition In the first appeal to this Court, Hicks challenged the State’s right to appeal a decision on a petition for coram nobis.

We held in an unreported opinion that the State did have a common law right to appeal, which was not removed by the provisions of the Post Conviction Procedure Act, Md.Code (1957,1996 Repl. Vol.), Art. 27, § 645A. In Skok , the Court of Appeals held, in a ruling of first impression, that a defendant has a right of appeal from a decision on a petition for coram nobis pursuant to the broad right of appeal given in the general appeals statute. Skok, 361 Md. at 65-66 , 760 A.2d 647 ; Md.Code (1974, 1998 Repl.Vol.), § 12-301 of the Courts and Judicial Proceedings Article (“CJ”).

Because a petition for writ of coram nobis is a civil proceeding, Ruby v. State, 353 Md. 100, 111 , 724 A.2d 673 (1999), the State is not limited to the circumstances described in CJ § 12-302(c). Rather, following Skok , we now hold that the State has the same statutory right of appeal that the Skok Court recognized with respect to a defendant. ⁷ II. Analysis Of The Trial Court’s Decision The trial court rested its decision to grant Hicks’s petition on four grounds: (1) Hicks was not given advice as to the burden of proof or the standard of proof, and was not advised that he would be presumed innocent; (2) Hicks was not advised of the nature of charges against him; (3) The CMSO did not conduct an adequate evaluation of Hicks at the time of his guilty plea; and (4) Hicks’s guilty plea was neither voluntary nor intelligent. In our June, 2000 opinion, we held that the trial court erred with respect to grounds (1), (2), and (4) because those grounds were based on procedural defects that were not properly correctable on a petition for coram nobis.

We also vacated the circuit court’s ruling with respect to the third ground because the record was not sufficiently complete for us to determine whether the circumstances surrounding the CMSO report constituted facts unknown to the original court, “which, if known, would have prevented the judgment which actually was entered from being entered.” Keane v. State, 164 Md. 685, 689 , 166 A. 410 (1933). The Court of Appeals’ decision in Skok to broaden the scope of coram nobis relief causes us to modify our decision as to each of these grounds. A. Procedural Defects The record of Hicks’s guilty plea established that he was not advised in court as to the burden of proof, the standard of proof, or the presumption of innocence. Nor was he given advice as to the elements of the offense of robbery.

The trial court found that the failure to give advice to Hicks regarding these matters was a “basis to grant relief.” It further found, as a separate “basis to grant relief,” that because the convict ⁸ ing court failed to advise Hicks in 1979 as to the elements of the offense, the plea of guilty to the robbery charge was not voluntary or intelligent. The grounds for Skok’s petition for coram nobis were similar. He challenged the voluntariness of his plea for nolo contendere on the grounds that the circuit court failed to comply with the requirements of Rule 4-242(c) and (d). Specifically, he argued that the court did not require that the facts supporting the plea be read in open court in the defendant’s presence, did not expressly find on the record that the factual basis supported a finding of guilty, did not advise Skok of the possible consequences of his plea, and did not properly advise Skok of his right to a jury trial.

Skok, 361 Md. at 57 , 760 A.2d 647 . The Court of Appeals, after examining the history of the coram nobis proceeding in other jurisdictions, rejected traditional constraints on coram nobis, finding that “[m]ore recent cases and sound public policy warrant a somewhat broader scope of coram nobis.” Id. at 70 , 760 A.2d 647 . Seeking to distinguish Skok , the State now argues: The particular types of “serious collateral consequences” anticipated by the Court of Appeals as potential grounds for expanded coram nobis relief involve the “proliferation of recidivist statutes” in recent years and “recent changes in federal immigration laws, regulations, and administration,” resulting in a “plethora of deportation proceedings against non-citizens based on relatively minor criminal convictions.” Thus, the Court of Appeals held that Skok’s recently being subject to deportation based upon his criminal convictions constituted serious collateral consequences warranting consideration of a petition for coram nobis relief in his case____ In contrast ... Hicks’s case involves neither recent changes in immigration laws nor recent recidivist sentencing concerns.

Rather, Hicks’s 1979 state robbery conviction was the basis of, as well as a necessary element of, his federal conviction under 18 U.S.C. § 924 for his subsequent ⁹ possession of a handgun under the federal statute prohibiting possession of a handgun by a felon. Notwithstanding the expanded availability of coram nobis to raise challenges based upon questions of law, because Hicks’s case involves no intervening changes in law, he states no grounds warranting coram nobis relief as made available under Skok . We believe the State takes an overly restrictive view of the Court of Appeals’ decision in Skok . Although Skok assigned as reasons for its decision the intervening changes in immigration law, and recidivist statutes, it did not carve out a special remedy limited only to those persons subject to a recidivist statute or deportation proceeding.

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