Woolford v. Warden

Horney, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. Alton R. Woolford, who was denied a writ of habeas corpus by Schnauffer, J., of the Circuit Court for Frederick County, has made application to this Court for leave to appeal. The petitioner was convicted in the Criminal Court of Baltimore (Warnken, J.) on charges of carrying a deadly weapon and larceny of a motor vehicle, and was sentenced ⁶⁴² on March 4, 1957, to two consecutive terms of one year each in the Maryland House of Correction. In his petition for the writ of habeas corpus, addressed to the Circuit Court for Frederick County, the petitioner recited: (a) that he was sentenced to a term of three years on December 18, 1952, which expired on March 29, 1955; (b) that he was sentenced to another term of eighteen months on September 23, 1953, to begin at the expiration of the previous term — March 29, 1955; (c) that on July 25, 1955, he was paroled for the remainder of the second sentence, or fourteen months; (d) that the parole was not broken and expired on September 29, 1956; (e) that on February 4, 1957, he was arrested on the charges for which he was sentenced on March 4, 1957; (f) that the Parole Board notified the court that the petitioner would be charged as a parole violator, whereupon bail was raised to $10,000; (g) that the two consecutive sentences passed on March 4, 1957, were to begin “at the expiration of [the] sentence [he was] now serving for violation of parole”; and (h) that three months later his parole “was dropped”; but the charge was not; and the petitioner was still charged “as a parole violator”.

In his petition for the writ the petitioner alleged that his constitutional rights were violated because (i) he was refused counsel at the trial in which he was sentenced to two consecutive terms aggregating two years; (ii) and (iii) that false accusations were made against him by the Parole Board, which deprived him of a fair and impartial trial; (iv) that he was deprived of “all his jail time”; (v) that he was deprived of “his chances of making probation”; and (vi) that his “2 years does not run true to the court commitment papers, * * * [which] makes * * * commitment * * * false.” In his application for leave to appeal, his “memorandum” and his “motion to proceed with appeal in forma pauperis”, petitioner repeats in greater detail the recitals set forth in (a) through (e) and (h) above, and, in addition to the violations of his constitutional rights set forth in (i) through (iii) and (vi), he clarifies his contentions by pointing out (1) that he was charged as a parole violator five months after the parole had expired, which expiration took place before ⁶⁴³ the arrest, trial and conviction referred to in (e) ; (2) that he does not claim that the trial court was unfair, but alleges that the parole violation charge did him damage; (3) that he does not claim that Judge Warnken was bound to place him on probation, but reasserts that, if the parole violation had not been placed against him, he might have had a chance to “make probation”; and (4), in addition to inquiring how the Parole Board can revoke his parole when he was not on parole, it having expired before he was last sentenced, without a violation thereof, prays this Court to “render a remedy” for the “grave error made by the Department of Probation and Parole”. While the trial court records