Miles v. State

• Decision Date: 25 November 2013
• Docket Number: No. 36,Sept. Term, 2012.,36
• Citation: 435 Md. 540,80 A.3d 242
• Parties: Jody Lee MILES v. STATE of Maryland.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

435 Md. 540

80 A.3d 242

Jody Lee MILES

v.STATE of Maryland.

No. 36, Sept. Term, 2012.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

Nov. 25, 2013.

Brian Saccenti, Chief Attorney (Paul B. DeWolfe, Public Defender, and Marc A. DeSimone, Jr., Assistant Public Defender, of Baltimore, MD; Robert W. Biddle of Nathans & Biddle LLP of Baltimore, MD; Erika Alsid Short of Chason, Rosner, Leary & Marshall, LLC of Towson, MD) on brief, for Appellant.

James E. Williams, Assistant Attorney General (Douglas F. Gansler, Attorney General of Maryland, of Baltimore, MD) on brief, for Appellee.

HARRELL, BATTAGLIA, GREENE, ADKINS, McDONALD, BELL, ^*LAWRENCE F. RODOWSKY (retired, specially assigned), JJ.

RODOWSKY, J.

The appellant, Jody Lee Miles (Miles), is a convicted murderer who was condemned to death by a jury in the Circuit Court for Queen Anne's County on March 19, 1998. After numerous reviews,¹ Miles, in July 2011, filed a second motion to correct his sentence, claiming that it was illegal.²

Miles asserts that his sentence is illegal because the Maryland death penalty statute violates the Declaration of Rights (MDR) Article 16, which reads:

“That sanguinary Laws ought to be avoided as far as it is consistent with the safety of the State; and no Law to inflict cruel and unusual pains and penalties ought to be made in any case, or at any time, hereafter.”

Appellant's principal position is that, on November 3, 1776, when the Maryland Constitutional Convention adopted our first Constitution and Declaration of Rights, then MDR Article 14, by its reference to “sanguinary laws,” abolished capital punishment, subject to the State safety exception, without regard to the nature of the crime or the method of imposition of that punishment. Article 14 read:

“That sanguinary laws ought to be avoided, as far as is consistent with the safety of the State; and no law to inflict cruel and unusual pains and penalties ought to be made in any case, or at any time hereafter.”

D. Friedman, The History, Development, and Interpretation of the Maryland Declaration of Rights, 71 Temp. L.Rev. 637, 656 (1998) (Friedman–Temple).

Miles also contends that his sentence is illegal because it violates MDR Article 24, which provides:

“That no man ought to be taken or imprisoned or disseized of his freehold, liberties or privileges, or outlawed, or exiled, or, in any manner, destroyed, or deprived of his life, liberty or property, but by the judgment of his peers, or by the Law of the land.”That argument is directed to the provision in the death penalty statute under which his jury determined “whether, by a preponderance of the evidence, the aggravating circumstances outweigh[ed] the mitigating circumstances.” Maryland Code (1957, 1996 Repl.Vol.), Article 27, § 413(h)(1), more recently Maryland Code (2002, 2012 Repl.Vol.), § 2–303(i)(1) of the Criminal Law Article.³

The circuit court denied Miles's motion, and he noted this appeal. He presents two questions:

“1. Is Mr. Miles' death sentence unconstitutional and illegal under the ‘sanguinary Laws' clause of Article 16 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights?

“2. Is Mr. Miles' capital sentence illegal where the jury did not find beyond a reasonable doubt that the aggravating factors outweighed the mitigating factors?”

We shall affirm for the reasons set forth below.

Motion to Dismiss

The State has moved to dismiss the appeal.

Maryland Rule 4–345(a) provides that “[t]he court may correct an illegal sentence at any time.” The State correctly observes that Miles's use of Rule 4–345(a) is not within the letter of our previously decided cases. We have indicated, however, that a sentence may be reviewable under Rule 4–345(a) where a United States Supreme Court decision, promulgated after sentencing, announces a new judicial interpretation of a constitutional provision that brings into question the validity of the statute on which the sentence is based. See Evans v. State, 396 Md. 256, 272, 914 A.2d 25, 34–35 (2006), cert. denied,552 U.S. 835, 128 S.Ct. 65, 169 L.Ed.2d 53 (2007). If the death penalty statute does not comply with the Declaration of Rights, the statute fails, and with it, the sentence. Here, Miles asks this Court to declare a constitutional rule of first impression. We hold that this issue of substantive constitutional law is within Rule 4–345(a).

We conclude otherwise with respect to the dismissal of Miles's appeal on the second issue. His contention is not within Rule 4–345(a) for the reasons ably stated by the circuit court.

“As noted supra, Defendant challenged this weighing procedure in his August, 2007 motion to correct illegal sentence. In that motion, defendant primarily relied on Cunningham v. California, 549 U.S. 270 [127 S.Ct. 856, 166 L.Ed.2d 856] (2007), a U.S. Supreme Court decision that was published in January, 2007. Defendant argued that, pursuant toCunningham, Maryland's capital sentencing scheme violates the Sixth Amendment unless it requires that aggravating factors outweigh mitigating factors beyond a reasonable doubt. Defendant additionally asserted that the sentencing procedure violates Article 21 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights. SeeMd.Code, Ann., Const. Art. 21 (2003, 2011 Supp.).

“This Court denied the motion on January 4, 2008. Defendant timely appealed. Significantly, Defendant never explicitly raised the issue of the constitutionality of the weighing procedure under the Declaration of Rights. Rather, Defendant focused his argument on the Sixth Amendment. For reasons not directly pertinent to the issues currently before this Court, the Court of Appeals affirmed the denial of Defendant's motion, holding that ‘Maryland's capital sentencing procedure does not violate [the] Sixth Amendment.’ Miles v. State, 421 Md. 596, 607 (2011). The Court did not address the sentencing procedure's constitutionality with respect to the Maryland Declaration of Rights.

“Defendant's current motion, again, challenges the sentencing procedure under the Declaration of Rights. Defendant concedes that although Article 21 was mentioned in the 2007 motion, the Declaration of Rights issue was not explicitly raised before the Court of Appeals. Defendant now ‘requests that this Court vacate his sentence of death on the ground that permitting the death sentence based on a jury finding by a preponderance of the evidence that the aggravating factors outweighed the mitigating factors violated the Maryland Declaration of Rights.’ Revised Supplemental Motion at 2. This time, Defendant primarily relies on Article 24 of the Declaration of Rights which provides, in pertinent part, that ‘no man ought to be ... deprived of his life ... but by the judgment of his peers, or by the Law of the land.’ Md.Code Ann., Const. Art. 24. (2003, 2011 Supp.).

* * *

“Defendant cites no new judicial interpretation in the case at bar. Consequently, Defendant's motion may be cognizable under Rule 4–345(a) only under the general rule, where the alleged error resulted in illegality of the sentence itself. Defendant's Article 24 argument does not challenge the inherent illegality of his death sentence. Rather, it alleges error in the underlying procedure that resulted in the sentence. ‘The notion of an “illegal sentence” ... deals with substantive law, not procedural law.’ Corcoran v. State, 67 Md.App. 252, 255 (1986). An error in a sentencing procedure, even if it is of a constitutional dimension, may very well result in an inherently and substantively legal sanction. Cf. State v. Wilkins, 393 Md. 269, 275 (2006) (citing Randall [ Book Corp. v. State ], 316 Md. [315], 323 [558 A.2d 715, 719 (1989) ] ) (‘An error committed by the trial court during the sentencing proceeding is not ordinarily cognizable under Rule 4–345(a) where the resulting sentence or sanction is itself lawful.’); Evans [396 Md. at 271–72, 914 A.2d at 34]. Indeed, ‘a sentence, proper on its face, [does not] become[ ] an “illegal sentence” because of some arguable procedural flaw in the sentencing procedure.’ Corcoran, 67 Md.App. at 255 . Therefore, the motion to correct an illegal sentence is not an appropriate vehicle to address Defendant's Article 24 argument.

“The Court's decision is consistent with the narrow scope of the motion to correct illegal sentence. See Tshiwala [ v. State ], 424 Md. [612], 619 [37 A.3d 308, 312 (2012) ]. A [Rule] 4–345(a) motion is generally cognizable only where there is no conviction warranting any sentence, see, e.g., Ridgeway v. State, 369 Md. 165 (2002), or where the sentence exceeds the limits imposed by law, see, e.g., Matthews [ v. State ], 424 Md. 503 [36 A.3d 499 (2012) ]. See Chaney v. State, 397 Md. 460, 466 (2007). Because imposing a punishment under these circumstances is particularly egregious, Rule 4–345(a) ‘creates a limited exception to the general rule of finality, and sanctions a method of opening a judgment otherwise final and beyond the reach of the court.’ State v. Griffiths, 338 Md. 485, 496 (1995). In all other cases, the interests of finality outweigh a defendant's interests in challenging alleged errors beyonda direct appeal and a post-conviction petition.”

(Footnotes omitted).

Because Miles's second contention is not cognizable under Rule 4–345(a), the circuit court was correct in denying relief under that rule on the preponderance argument. That does not result, however, in a dismissal of the appeal on that issue. Rather, we shall affirm.

Parties' Contentions

Miles's Submission

The principal argument advanced by Miles is that, textually, Article 14 of the 1776 MDR abrogated capital punishment. The argument consists of four steps, which we have reordered.

1. “A ‘sanguinary law’ is a law authorizing the imposition of the death penalty”;

2. “The word ‘ought’ means ‘shall’ ”;

3 “ ‘[T]o be avoided’ means ‘to be refrained from’ or ‘to be made void’ ”; and

4. “The phrase ‘as far as is consistent with the safety of the State’ means ‘unless necessary for the security of the State of Maryland.’ ” ⁴

Miles...