Deville v. State

• Decision Date: 23 September 2004
• Docket Number: No. 132 Sept. Term 2003.,132 Sept. Term 2003.
• Citation: 858 A.2d 484,383 Md. 217
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals
• Parties: Oscar Louis DEVILLE v. STATE of Maryland.

858 A.2d 484

383 Md. 217

Oscar Louis DEVILLE v. STATE of Maryland.

No. .

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

September 23, 2004.

Geraldine K. Sweeney, Asst. Public Defender (Stephen E. Harris, Public Defender, on brief), Baltimore, for Petitioner.

Devy Patterson Russell, Asst. Atty. Gen. (J. Joseph Curran, Jr., Atty. Gen. of MD, on brief), Baltimore, for Respondent.

Argued before BELL, C.J., RAKER, WILNER, CATHELL, HARRELL, BATTAGLIA, and GREENE, JJ.

RAKER, Judge.

In this case, we must decide whether home detention¹ qualifies as "confinement in a correctional institution" under Maryland's enhanced penalty statute directed at habitual criminal drug offenders. Maryland Code (1957, 1996 Repl. Vol., 2001 Supp.), Article 27, § 286(d)² of the Controlled Dangerous Substances law, provides that a defendant who "has been convicted twice" of similar offenses under § 286(b)(1) or (b)(2) and has served a "term of confinement of at least 180 days in a correctional institution" is subject to a prison term of no less than twenty five years. We shall hold that a period of home detention does not meet the statutory requirement of confinement in a correctional institution and therefore, the sentence prescribed by § 286(d) may not be imposed where the requisite term of confinement was spent in home detention.

I.

On January 22, 2002, Prince George's County police executed search and seizure warrants on the vehicle of Oscar Louis Deville and Apartment 303 at 6449 Hilmar Drive, in Forestville, Deville's purported residence. In his bedroom, police found crack cocaine and related drug paraphernalia. Deville was subsequently convicted of possession of cocaine with intent to distribute. The State sought application of the mandatory sentencing provisions of Md. Code (1957, 1996 Repl. Vol., 2001 Supp.), Art. 27 § 286(d).³

Two prior convictions served as the State's basis for seeking enhanced sentencing. The first occurred in 1990, when Deville pled guilty to possession of cocaine with intent to distribute. For this offense he was sentenced to incarceration for five years, all of which was suspended in favor of a thirty-six-month term of supervised probation. The second conviction occurred on February 18, 1999, when Deville was sentenced for conspiracy to distribute cocaine. He was sentenced to ten years incarceration, all suspended except for eighteen months "house arrest thru AADC [Anne Arundel Detention Center] to begin on 2/22/1999," with five years probation. Deville served his sentence under the County house arrest program, where he received day-for-day credit; he fully served nine months of this sentence in home detention and was subsequently released.

The State contended that house arrest or home detention was equivalent under the statute to time served in a correctional institution, and that Deville had therefore satisfied the required 180 days confinement under § 286(d). The trial judge agreed and sentenced Deville to imprisonment for 25 years without the possibility of parole. Deville noted a timely appeal to the Court of Special Appeals, and that Court affirmed, based largely on this Court's holding in Dedo v. State, 343 Md. 2, 680 A.2d 464 (1996).

We granted Deville's petition for writ of certiorari to consider whether time spent in home detention can fulfill the 180 days confinement in a correctional institution as required under § 286(d). We must determine whether home detention is the equivalent of confinement in a correctional facility under Maryland's enhanced penalty statute for recidivist drug offenders.

II.

As we have so often stated, the chief objective of statutory construction is to discover and effectuate the actual intent of the legislature in enacting the statute. See Price v. State, 378 Md. 378, 387, 835 A.2d 1221, 1226 (2003)

. We begin with the plain language of the statute, and where the language of the statute is ambiguous, our task is to resolve that ambiguity, in light of the legislative intent, using all the resources and tools of statutory construction at our disposal. See id. Ordinary and popular understanding of the English language dictates interpretation of terminology within legislation. See Gargliano v. State, 334 Md. 428, 435, 639 A.2d 675, 678 (1994).

Where the language of a statute is ambiguous or unclear, we examine legislative history, prior case law, and statutory purpose. See Melgar v. State, 355 Md. 339, 347, 734 A.2d 712, 716 (1999)

. A statute is ambiguous when there are two or more reasonable alternative interpretations of the statute. See Price, 378 Md. at 387,

835 A.2d at 1226. Ambiguous or equivocal statutory language requires us to consider not only the ordinary meaning of words, but also to interpret how that language relates to the overall meaning, setting, and purpose of an act. See Gargliano, 334 Md. at 436,

639 A.2d at 678. Therefore, when interpreting unclear language within a statute, we consider both the particular and broad objectives of the legislation, in addition to the overall purpose of the statutory scheme. See id. at 436, 639 A.2d at 678-79. In other words, we do not view the plain language in isolation, but analyze the entire statutory scheme as a whole. See Outmezguine v. State, 335 Md. 20, 41, 641 A.2d 870, 880-81 (1994).

Enhanced penalty statutes are highly penal statutes and must be construed strictly in order to prevent punishment not contemplated by the Legislature. See Melgar, 355 Md. at 347-48,

734 A.2d at 716-17; Gargliano, 334 Md. at 437,

639 A.2d at 679; Dickerson v. State, 324 Md. 163, 172, 596 A.2d 648, 652 (1991); Jones v. State, 324 Md. 32, 38, 595 A.2d 463, 466 (1991). When there is doubt as to the Legislature's intent regarding the application of an enhanced penalty, the rule of lenity requires that any ambiguity within criminal statutes be interpreted in favor of the defendant. See Melgar, 355 Md. at 347,

734 A.2d at 717 (citations omitted). See also Rewis v. United States, 401 U.S. 808, 812, 91 S.Ct. 1056, 1059, 28 L.Ed.2d 493, 497 (1971). We reiterated the rule in Melgar as follows:

"[A]n enhanced penalty statute, is highly penal and must be strictly construed so that the defendant is only subject to punishment contemplated by the statute. When doubt exists regarding the punishment imposed by a statute, the rule of lenity instructs that a court `not interpret a ... criminal statute so as to increase the penalty that it places on an individual when such an interpretation can be based on no more than a guess as to what [the legislature] intended.'"

355 Md. at 347, 734 A.2d at 716-17 (citations omitted).

Applying these principles, we conclude that home detention cannot satisfy the predicate 180-day term of confinement in a correctional institution required by § 286(d). Rather, we hold that this requisite period of incarceration must be spent within a penal institution such as a jail, detention center or prison.⁴

III.

Section 286, the statute here at issue, provides in relevant part:

"(d)(1) A person who is convicted under subsection (b)(1) or subsection (b)(2) of this section or of conspiracy to violate subsection (b)(1) or subsection (b)(2) of this section shall be sentenced to imprisonment for the term allowed by law, but, in any event, not less than 25 years and subject to a fine not exceeding $100,000 if the person previously:

(i) Has served at least 1 term of confinement of at least 180 days in a correctional institution as a result of a conviction of a previous violation of this section or § 286A of this article; and

(ii) Has been convicted twice, where the convictions do not arise from a single incident:

1. Under subsection (b)(1) or subsection (b)(2) of this section;

2. Of conspiracy to violate subsection (b)(1) or subsection (b)(2) of this section;

3. Of an offense under the laws of another state, the District of Columbia, or the United States that would be a violation of subsection (b)(1) or subsection (b)(2) of this section if committed in this State; or

4. Of any combination of these offenses."

As we explained in Melgar, this mandatory penalty can be broken into three primary factors. First, the defendant must be convicted of either violating or conspiring to violate § 286(b)(1) or (b)(2). See Melgar, 355 Md. at 344,

734 A.2d at 714-15. Second, the defendant must have two prior § 286(b)(1) or (b)(2) convictions arising from separate incidents. See id. at 344, 734 A.2d at 715. Third, the defendant must have served a term of confinement of at least 180 days in a correctional institute as a result of a previous § 286 or § 286A conviction. See id. Petitioner challenges neither the first nor the second prong of this test; therefore we concern ourselves only with the examination of the third factor.

Commonly known as "Three Strikes" laws, statutes that mandate enhanced penalties for certain repeat criminal offenders exist in different forms in every state and in the federal government. See Gargliano, 334 Md. at 434,

639 A.2d at 677. Such statutes have a long history in the United States,⁵ but it was during the 1990s that they became particularly popular throughout the country. See Michael Vitiello, Three Strikes: Can We Return to Rationality?, 87 J. Crim. L. & Criminology 395, 400 (1997). Three strikes laws differ in a number of significant ways including, but not limited to, the number of requisite prior felonies, the nature of predicate prior and current offenses, the age of the past offense, and the length of the term of the prior sentence. Id. at 400-01, 639 A.2d 675. These requirements both limit and broaden the extent of recidivist mandatory sentencing.

Provisions requiring prior incarceration, as opposed to the predicate felony-conviction requirements, serve to limit the breadth of qualifiers under recidivist statutes. We have found a limited number of state habitual offender laws with this requirement, but where such limitations exist, they restrict the number of people that satisfy the definition of a recidivist...