Wilson v. State

Ham:mond, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. William W. Wilson was sentenced on July 6, 1960, by the Circuit Court for Allegany County to three years imprisonment for breaking and stealing property over the value of one dollar. He had plead guilty to the charge, and no appeal was noted from the judgment and sentence. He had plead not guilty to the other two counts of the indictment—larceny and receiving, and the State had accepted the pleas.

On February 17, 1961, Wilson filed a motion “to strike out and correct an illegal sentence under Rule 744 a * * That rule provides: “The court may correct an illegal sentence at any time.” His claim was that the count to which he plead guilty was ambiguous since his plea could be construed as ¹⁰¹ one to Code (1957), Art. 27, Sec. 342—breaking with intent to steal—for which the maximum penalty is eighteen months imprisonment, as well as to Code (1957), Art. 27, Sec. 33— breaking and stealing—which carries a maximum penalty of ten years. After a hearing, Judge Harris refused to modify the sentence and Wilson noted a timely appeal. The case came here and was briefed and argued by appellant and the State on the premise or assumption that there now exists the same right of appeal from a refusal to correct a sentence, which we held, in Roberts v. Warden, 206 Md. 246 , existed before the enactment of the Post Conviction Procedure Act. That Act specifically provides in Code (1961 Supp,), Art. 27, Sec. 645A (b), that there no longer is an appeal to this Court “in habeas corpus or coram nobis cases, or from other common law or statutory remedies which have heretofore been available * * Maryland Rule 744 a has “the force of law, until rescinded, changed or modified” by this Court or the Legislature under the express terms of Art. IV, Sec. 18, of the Constitution of Maryland and is, therefore, to be considered a “statutory remedy” within the meaning of the Post Conviction Procedure Act (Sec. 645A (b) of Art. 27 of the Code).

As Judge Henderson said in State v. D’Onofrio, 221