Williamson v. State

Murphy, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The appellant was convicted in the Circuit Court for Baltimore County of murder in the first degree, conspiracy to murder, and solicitation of murder. She was sentenced to life imprisonment for murder and to a concurrent five-year term for the merged offenses of conspiracy and solicitation. The Court of Special Appeals reversed the murder conviction.

Williamson v. State, 36 Md. App. 405 , 374 A. 2d 909 (1977). We reversed the judgment of the Court of Special Appeals, thus reinstating the murder conviction, and remanded the case to that court for consideration of appellant's contention that the trial judge failed to exercise discretion when he refused to consider suspending all or part of the life sentence. State v. Williamson, 282 Md. 100 , 382 A. 2d 588 (1978). The Court of Special Appeals found no merit in the contention and affirmed the judgment in an unreported per curiam opinion.

We granted certiorari to consider whether, as alleged by the appellant, the trial judge affirmatively declined to abide by our decision in State v. Wooten, 277 Md. 114, 119 , 352 A. 2d 829, 833 (1976), where we held that “nothing in the language of [Art. 27] § 614A ... prevents] trial judges, in their discretion, from suspending life sentences imposed under [Art. 27] § 413____” The appellant bases her argument upon the following colloquy, which occurred at the time she was sentenced: “THE COURT: As far as the murder conviction is concerned, there’s no choice. She gets life. MR. GLASER [defense counsel]: No, Your Honor, there is a choice.

You can suspend part of it. I brought the Wooten case with me. ²¹⁴ THE COURT: I understand that, and I completely disagree with Judge Raine and the Court of Appeals. I think the Legislature said when a person kills somebody else or causes them to be killed, it’s life. So as ,far as I am concerned, the sentence on the murder charge is life. ... * * MR.

GLASER: I was going to comment to the Court on the Wooten case, but I guess I won’t do that either. THE COURT: No. I have very strong feelings about that.” The appellant argues that the record clearly demonstrates that the trial judge “did nothing more than apply what he considered the applicable legal rule without any consideration of the specific facts or circumstances of the case before him,” and that he thereby failed to exercise judicial discretion. The State contends that the trial court “merely expressed its opinion of disagreement” with Wooten , but did not disregard the import of that decision. Relying on the trial judge’s words “[s]o far as I am