Street v. State

COLE, Judge. The question presented in this case is whether a fine may be imposed as part of a sentence upon conviction of the common-law crime of false imprisonment. We set forth the salient facts as follows. At 8:30 a.m. on August 8, 1983, Valerie McNeal, the prosecutrix, got into a cab driven by appellant, George Street.

When the cab reached McNeal’s destination, the meter read $2.50. McNeal had $2.46 in change, plus one ten-dollar bill and one twenty-dollar bill. When she discovered that she was four cents short in change, McNeal offered appellant the ten-dollar bill. Appellant refused the bill, citing a city ordinance which provides that cab drivers need not carry more than $5.00 in change.

Appellant also rejected McNeal’s suggestion that one or both of them obtain change for the ten-dollar bill at a nearby establishment. When McNeal attempted to get out of the cab, she found that the rear doors were locked. Despite McNeal’s repeated requests, appellant refused to disengage the locks, which he controlled. The parties argued for approximately twenty-five minutes, with the meter running all the while.

After being ignored by numerous pedestrians, McNeal finally managed to obtain the assistance of a passerby, Cora Williams. Williams, acting as mediator, persuaded appellant to accept the ten-dollar bill in payment of the fare, which now amounted to $5.20. Appellant gave Williams a five-dollar bill, which she promptly turned over to McNeal. Shortly thereafter, a police officer arrived on the scene and appellant finally released McNeal from the cab. ²⁶⁴ Appellant was charged with false imprisonment.

He was tried and convicted in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City. The trial judge sentenced appellant to one-year imprisonment and a $500 fine with the prison term suspended in favor of three years probation. In Street v. State, 60 Md.App. 573 , 483 A.2d 1316 (1984), the Court of Special Appeals affirmed the circuit court’s judgment. In response to appellant’s petition, we issued a writ of certiorari to address the important question presented.

I At the outset, we note a few points concerning the history and development of fines as criminal sanctions at common law. The use of fines in criminal cases predates the Magna Carta, which prohibited the imposition of excessive fines and assessments. See 4 W. Blackstone, Commentaries ³⁷². Compared with other forms of punishment used at common law, the imposition of a fine was a mild penalty indeed.

Criminal sentences embodied a litany of abhorrent practices, including cutting off the hand or ears, slitting the nostrils, branding the hand or face, whipping, the pillory, and the ducking-stool. Moreover, Blackstone writes that “[djisgusting as this catalogue (of punishments) may seem, it will afford pleasure to an English reader, and do honour to the English law, to compare it with that shocking apparatus of death and torment, to be met with in the criminal codes of almost every other nation in Europe.” Id. at 370-71. Thus, the development and use of pecuniary penalties, in the form of fines, contrasted sharply with the various methods of corporal punishment that had been employed as criminal sanctions at common law. The earliest fines were agreements between the judge and the prisoner to avoid imprisonment, at a time when the judge had no power to impose pecuniary punishments.

See J.W.C. Turner, Kenny’s Outlines of Criminal Law 199 (17th ed. 1958). These fines constituted a major source of the royal power and revenue. An eminent authority on the common law writes: ²⁶⁵ It appears that the old kings of England put themselves entirely on the footing of the barbarous eastern princes, whom no man must approach without a present, who sell all their good offices, and intrude themselves into every business, that they may have a pretence of extorting money. Even justice was avowedly bought and sold; the king’s court itself, though the supreme judicature of the kingdom, was open to none who brought not large presents to the king, the bribes given for the expedition, delay, suspension and, doubtless, for the perversion of justice, were entered into the public registers of the royal revenue, and remain as monuments of the perpetual iniquity and tyranny of the times.

M. Hale, The History of the Common Law of England 184 n.F (1820). At common law, a fine, either with or without imprisonment, was punishment for a misdemeanor. See IX Hals-bury’s Laws of England 230 (2d ed. 1933); J.W.C. Turner, supra, at 575; P. Fitzgerald, Criminal Law and Punishment 251 (1962); 1 Russell on Crime 768 (J.W.C. Turner 11th ed. 1958). As to felonies, conviction entailed the automatic forfeiture of the felon’s property.

Thus, the power to impose a fine for a felony was not necessary. P. Fitzgerald, supra, at 251. In exercising its discretion as to the amount of the fine, the court considered the egregiousness of the particular offense and the financial condition of the offender, as well as other factors. See IV W. Blackstone, supra, at 371; J.W.C. Turner, supra, at 575.

II In this case, appellant was charged with false imprisonment. This Court has defined false imprisonment as the “unlawful detention of a person against his will.” Midgett v. State, 216 Md. 26, 38-39 , 139 A.2d 209, 216 (1958) (citing Clark & Marshall, Treatise on the Law of Crime § 220 (5th ed. 1952); L. Hochheimer, Law of Crimes and Criminal Procedure § 316 (2d ed. 1904)). It is a common-law offense in Maryland, the penalty for which is not statutorily ²⁶⁶ prescribed. Midgett, supra, 216 Md. at 39 , 139 A.2d at 216 .

At common law, false imprisonment was classified as a misdemeanor. See 4 W. Blackstone, supra, at 216; R. Perkins, Criminal Law 175 (3d ed. 1969); LaFave & Scott, Criminal Law 58-59 (1972); 2 Wharton’s Criminal Law § 209 (C. Torscia 14th ed. 1979); IX Halsbury’s Laws of England, supra, at 470-71. As set forth above, misdemeanors at common law were punishable by fine, imprisonment, or both. We have noted on several occasions that the only restrictions on sentencing for a common-law crime are (absent a penalty prescribed by statute) that the sentence be within the reasonable discretion of the trial judge and that it not be cruel and unusual punishment.

In Burley v. State, 226 Md. 94 , 172 A.2d 394 (1961), the appellant asserted that a sentence of five years for common-law assault was excessive and thus violated the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment set forth in Article 25 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights. We held that under the circumstances of that case, including appellant’s conviction on prior occasions of crimes against the person, the sentence imposed did not constitute cruel and unusual punishment. In Heath v. State, 198 Md. 455 , 85 A.2d 43 (1951), this Court rejected a similar contention as to appellant’s five-year sentence for common-law assault. The Court declared: Still, from early times, when misdemeanors were punished by whatever fine or imprisonment the judge might deem it right to impose, it has been the judicial