Swift v. State

Hornby, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. Price (“Redtop”) Swift (the defendant) was tried and convicted by the Circuit Court for Prince George’s County sitting without a jury of an assault with intent to have carnal knowledge of a female child under the age of fourteen years. On this appeal from the judgment and sentence entered on the verdict, the defendant alleges that the trial court committed four reversible errors: (i) that he was convicted of a crime which does not exist; (ii) that he was denied a speedy trial; (iii) that a witness was allowed to testify after she had been excluded under the rule; and (iv) that the evidence was legally insufficient to justify the conviction. In this Court, the State moved to dismiss the appeal pursuant to the provisions of Maryland Rule 830 e on the ground that the brief of the appellant was not filed within the time limited by section a of the rule.

Since the power to dismiss is discretionary and the State failed to allege or show prejudice, the motion will be denied. See Foster-Porter Enterprises v. De Mare, 198 Md. 20 , 81 A. 2d 325 (1951). (i) The defendant contends that the first count of the indictment under which he was tried should have been dismissed because it did not state a crime of which he could be convicted in Maryland. The indictment was drawn in the phraseology of Code (1957), Art. 27, § 12, 1 but the claim is that the statute prescribes only the penalty and does not state ³⁰⁴ that the conduct therein condemned is a crime.

The contention is based on the theory that since an “assault with intent” was not a crime at common law, and since the only provision in the criminal code relating to the assault with intent for which the defendant was prosecuted is the penalty section, there is no prescribed conduct to which the proscribed penalty could be applied. The argument is ingenious, but it is clearly without substance. As we read the statute, originally enacted by the Acts of 1809 (Ch. 138, § 4), we think it is implicit that the very description of the crime for which the penalty was provided is in and of itself a sufficient definition of the felonious conduct that is forbidden by the statute. That this is so was clearly indicated in Cooper v. State, 205 Md. 162 , 106 A. 2d 129 (1954), where the elements necessary to prove the crime (in the order set forth in the statute) were enumerated as: “first, the assault, without regard to the degree of violence used; second, the intent to carnally know; and third, that the age of the girl be under fourteen.” This Court also recognized that there is such a crime as is proscribed by § 12 (of Art. 27), supra, in Weinecke v. State, 188 Md. 172 , 52 A. 2d 73 (1947) and in Rau v. State, 133 Md. 613 , 105 Atl. 867 (1919).

In addition to what this Court has said on other occasions —even though the rule is that criminal statutes should be strictly construed—we think that § 12 (of Art. 27), supra, as enacted is a reasonably clear and valid manifestation of the legislative intent to provide that an assault upon a female child under the age of fourteen with intent to carnally know her is a crime. We hold therefore that the statute, in fixing the penalty for a course of conduct minutely described therein as a crime, effectively made such forbidden conduct a felony in this State. (“) There was no substantial evidence of delay in the trial and such as existed was waived. The defendant was arrested on July 6, 1959, on a warrant charging him with rape and was held without bail for the action of the Grand Jury.

He waived a preliminary hearing and was indicted on September 18. On September 28 he entered a plea of not guilty by reason of ³⁰⁵ insanity and was ordered to Crownsville State Hospital on September 30 for examination. The superintendent of the hospital certified by letter under date of December 11 that the defendant was sane. On January 14, 1960, bail was set for the first time and the case was continued, over objection, for sixty days.

The case was taken out of the regular assignment on March 9 when it was discovered that the Department of Mental Hygiene—not the superintendent of the hospital— should have submitted the sanity report. The case was finally tried on April 21. Under these circumstances the defendant claims that he was denied a speedy trial, and coupled this contention with a meritless complaint that he had not been admitted to bail. Until the indictment had been returned there was at least a possibility that the defendant might be charged with a capital offense.

In such case, it is settled that the allowance of bail is a matter within the sound discretion of the trial court, Fischer v. Ball, 212 Md. 517 , 129 A. 2d 822 (1957), and there was no showing of an abuse