State v. Phillips

ELDRIDGE, Judge. In a criminal information filed in the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County on April 14, 1982, Anthony A. Phillips was charged with malicious injury and related offenses. Counsel for Phillips entered his appearance on April 29, 1982. Consequently, under Maryland Code (1957, 1982 Repl.Vol.), Art. 27, § 591, and Rule 746, the 180-day period for trying the case expired on October 25, 1982. 1 On July 3, 1982, the circuit court granted Phillips’s motion to dismiss ⁴⁷⁰ on the ground that the charging document was defective in that it failed to contain the words “against the peace and dignity of the State.” Phillips was indicted in the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County for the same offenses on August 9, 1982.

Counsel for Phillips entered his appearance under the second charging document on August 23, 1982. Thus the 180-day period for commencing trial under the new prosecution, if measured from August 23, 1982, would have expired February 19, 1983. On October 27, 1982, 182 days after the appearance of counsel in the first prosecution, Phillips, by his attorney, orally moved to dismiss the second prosecution because of the State’s failure to bring Phillips to trial within 180 days after the appearance of counsel in the first prosecution. The circuit court granted the motion, holding that the State is not “free to indict on a new indictment unless that is done within the time limits imposed by” § 591 and Rule 746.

The circuit court held that, despite the dismissal of the first prosecution and the new indictment, the time limit for trial under the first prosecution continued to be the deadline for trial under the second prosecution. The Court of Special Appeals affirmed in an unreported opinion. The appellate court rejected the view “that separate charging documents have separate lives and exist independent of each other,” at least for the purposes of Rule 746 and § 591, and held that the date of the appearance of counsel in the first information triggered the running of the 180-day period for the purposes of the second information. The appellate court relied upon its recent decision involving charges which had been nol prossed, stating: “In State v. Glenn, 53 Md.App. 717 , 456 A.2d 1300 (1983), we upheld the dismissal of charges where the State nol prossed the first charging document because of an intrinsic defect and then brought the defendant to trial more than 180 days after the original arraignment on a ⁴⁷¹ second charging document.

Appellant attempts to distinguish the case sub judice from the situation in Glenn by pointing out that here, the court dismissed the charges, while in