Baker v. State

Citation389 Md. 127,883 A.2d 916
Decision Date03 October 2005
Docket NumberNo. 132,132
PartiesWesley Eugene BAKER v. STATE of Maryland.
CourtCourt of Appeals of Maryland

Gary W. Christopher, First Asst. Federal Public Defender (Franklin W. Draper, Asst. Federal Public Defender, and William B. Purpura, Assigned Public Defender, on brief), Baltimore, for appellant.

Annabelle L. Lisic, Asst. Atty. Gen. (J. Joseph Curran, Jr., Atty. Gen. of MD, on brief), Baltimore, for appellee.

Michael Millemann; David Walsh-Little, Baltimore; Deanne M. Ottaviano, Lisa A. Estrada, Arent Fox, P.L.L.C., Washington, DC, brief of amicus curiae John Booth-El.

William J. Murphy, John J. Connolly, Murphy & Shaffer, L.L.C., Baltimore; John J. Gibbons, Lawrence S. Lustberg, Claudia Van Wyk, Gitanjali S. Gutierrez, Jonathan Hafetz, Megan Lewis, Gibbons, Del Deo, Dolan, Griffinger & Vecchione, P.C., Newark, NJ, of counsel, brief of amicus curiae NAACP in support of appellant.

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

HARRELL, Judge.

We consider here whether the Circuit Court for Harford County erred in denying a Motion to Correct an Illegal Sentence, without holding an evidentiary hearing, where the defendant relied principally on an empirical, government-sponsored study of Maryland's implementation between 1978 and 1999 of its death penalty statute, released publicly in early 2003 and published formally in 2004, to support an allegation of constitutional error in the 1992 imposition on him of the sentence of death. We hold that the Circuit Court neither erred as a matter of law nor abused its discretion; therefore, we affirm.

I.

On 26 October 1992, Wesley Eugene Baker ("Baker") was convicted by a jury in the Circuit Court for Harford County1 of the first-degree murder of Jane Frances Tyson, robbery of Mrs. Tyson with a deadly weapon, and use of a handgun in the commission of a felony. The court,2 four days later, sentenced Baker to death for the conviction of murder, as well as to forty years of incarceration—twenty years for robbery with a deadly weapon and a consecutive twenty years for the use of a handgun in the commission of a felony.

On direct appeal, this Court affirmed Baker's convictions and sentence of death. Baker v. State, 332 Md. 542, 632 A.2d 783 (1993),cert. denied, 511 U.S. 1078, 114 S.Ct. 1664, 128 L.Ed.2d 380 (1994) ("Baker I"). Baker filed subsequently a number of petitions and motions in Maryland state courts. Their dispositions, none favorable to Baker, are explained in Baker v. State, 367 Md. 648, 790 A.2d 629 (2002),cert. denied, 535 U.S. 1050, 122 S.Ct. 1814, 152 L.Ed.2d 817 (2002) ("Baker II") (affirming denial of a motion for new sentencing based on newly discovered evidence and denial of a motion to correct an illegal sentence based on Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466, 120 S.Ct. 2348, 147 L.Ed.2d 435 (2000));3Baker v. State, 377 Md. 567, 833 A.2d 1070 (2003),cert. denied, 541 U.S. 944, 124 S.Ct. 1673, 158 L.Ed.2d 370 (2004) ("Baker III") (affirming denial of a motion to quash an illegal sentence and warrant of execution on grounds that the sentencing circuit court judge changed his county of residence for a period of time during his term and thus violated the judicial residency requirement of Article IV, Section 2 of the Maryland Constitution); Baker v. State, 383 Md. 550, 861 A.2d 48 (2004),cert. denied,___ U.S. ___, 125 S.Ct. 1931, 161 L.Ed.2d 775 (2005) ("Baker IV") (affirming denial of a motion to correct an illegal sentence based upon a constitutional challenge, grounded on Ring v. Arizona, 536 U.S. 584, 122 S.Ct. 2428, 153 L.Ed.2d 556 (2002), to the preponderance of the evidence standard used to weigh aggravating circumstances against mitigating circumstances during the sentencing proceeding).

Most recently and the instigation for the present appeal, Baker filed in the Circuit Court on 18 October 2004 a Motion to Correct an Illegal Sentence, a Motion to Reopen the Post-Conviction Proceeding, and a Petition for Post-Conviction Relief. Principally relying on a statistical study, commissioned by Governor Parris N. Glendening in September 2000, conducted by Professor Raymond Paternoster of the University of Maryland,4 and published formally in the Spring of 2004,5 Baker argued that his death sentence was imposed in a racially-biased (Baker is African-American and the victim of his crimes was Caucasian; Baker alleged that the death penalty was sought more frequently in such situations than in other racial combinations of accused and victim) and geographically-biased (Baker asserted that the State's Attorney for Baltimore County, who elected to pursue the death penalty and whose office prosecuted the case against him, sought such punishment in eligible cases more frequently than state's attorneys for other Maryland jurisdictions) manner. The Paternoster Study essentially examined the statewide implementation of Maryland's death sentence scheme between 1978 and 1999.6 Baker argued the death penalty statute was applied to him unconstitutionally.7 All motions were denied by the Circuit Court on 18 November 2004, as was Baker's subsequent Motion for Reconsideration. Although we denied Baker's application for leave to appeal the denial of his post-conviction initiatives, Baker v. State, 384 Md. 537, 865 A.2d 563 (2005),8 we granted his application for leave to appeal the denial of the Motion to Correct an Illegal Sentence.

II.

Under Maryland Rule 4-345(a), "[t]he court may correct an illegal sentence at any time."9 Generally such a motion is "not appropriate where the alleged illegality `did not inhere in [the defendant's] sentence.'" Evans v. State, 382 Md. 248, 278, 855 A.2d 291, 309 (2004), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 125 S.Ct. 1325, 161 L.Ed.2d 113 (2005) (alteration in original) (quoting State v. Kanaras, 357 Md. 170, 185, 742 A.2d 508, 517 (1999)). Consequently, a motion to correct an illegal sentence historically was entertained only where the alleged illegality was in the sentence itself or the sentence never should have been imposed. See, e.g., Evans, 382 Md. at 251,

855 A.2d at 292-93 (alleging an illegal sentence because the trial judge's application of an amendment to the death penalty statute, which became effective a few months after the murders, violated the ex post facto clauses of the U.S. and Maryland constitutions); Jones v. State, 384 Md. 669, 672, 866 A.2d 151, 152-53 (2005) (alleging an illegal sentence because the verdict was not announced orally in open court so as to allow the jury to be polled and hearkened to the verdict, and thus violated Maryland Rule 4-327); State v. Griffiths, 338 Md. 485, 496-97, 659 A.2d 876, 882 (1995) (alleging an illegal sentence because the imposition of a greater offense followed by the imposition of a sentence for a lesser included offense created a cumulative sentence prohibited by double jeopardy protections); Walczak v. State, 302 Md. 422, 427, 488 A.2d 949, 951 (1985) (alleging an illegal sentence because "the imposition of restitution as a condition of probation d[id] not authorize a trial court to order restitution to a victim of a crime of which [the defendant] was not convicted"); Roberts v. Warden of Maryland Penitentiary, 206 Md. 246, 249, 111 A.2d 597, 598 (1955) (alleging an illegal sentence on two convictions of assault because the sentence exceeded that which was permitted by law);10

Bond v. State, 78 Md. 523, 524, 28 A. 407, 407 (1894) (alleging an illegal sentence because the two sections of the Maryland Code, under which the sentence was imposed, were "repugnant and totally inconsistent, and cannot therefore be enforced").11 Thus, where the sentence or sanction was itself lawful, a Rule 4-345(a) motion was not an appropriate vehicle to challenge the legality of a sentence. Evans, 382 Md. at 279,

855 A.2d at 309.

We recently recognized an exception in capital sentencing cases to these historic principles. Where a decision in an unrelated case rendered by the U.S. Supreme Court, following imposition of the death sentence in a given Maryland case, supplied a new judicial interpretation of a constitutional provision that might support an argument that an alleged error of constitutional dimension may have contributed to the imposition of the death sentence in that given case, we indicated that a motion to correct an illegal sentence was a proper vehicle to raise the new constitutional argument. In Oken v. State, 378 Md. 179, 184-85, 835 A.2d 1105, 1108 (2003),cert. denied, 541 U.S. 1017, 124 S.Ct. 2084, 158 L.Ed.2d 632 (2004), Oken raised a constitutional challenge to the Maryland death penalty statute in a Rule 4-345(a) motion to correct an illegal sentence. He relied on two U.S. Supreme Court opinions12 decided after his 1991 Maryland death sentence proceeding. Oken, 378 Md. at 185-86,835 A.2d at 1108-09. This Court reviewed the merits of Oken's constitutional claims, concluding that, despite the new Supreme Court cases, the Maryland death penalty statute was not unconstitutional on its face where the jury or judge may conclude by a preponderance of the evidence that the aggravating factors outweigh any mitigating factors. Oken, 378 Md. at 185-86, 269,835 A.2d at 1108, 1157-58. That Oken addressed the constitutional issues raised in a Rule 4-345(a) context was noted subsequently by the Court in Evans and summarized as follows:

The defendant Oken argued, relying on recent Supreme Court cases, that a constitutional error in the capital sentencing proceeding contributed to the death sentence. Section 2-303(i) of the Maryland death penalty statute provides that the trier of facts "shall determine by a preponderance of the evidence whether the aggravating circumstances under subsection (g) of this section outweigh the mitigating circumstances." (Emphasis added). In Oken, the case was presented to the sentencing jury under this "preponderance of the evidence" standard. The defendant Oken had raised no
...

To continue reading

Request your trial
24 cases
  • Ingram v. State
    • United States
    • Court of Special Appeals of Maryland
    • May 2, 2008
    ...is intrinsically and substantively unlawful. See Evans v. State, 389 Md. 456, 463, 886 A.2d 562, 565 (2005); Baker v. State, 389 Md. 127, 133, 883 A.2d 916, 919 (2005); Randall Book Corp. v. State, 316 Md. 315, 321-23, 558 A.2d 715, 718-19 (1989). As we made clear in Randall Book Corp., any......
  • Carlini v. State
    • United States
    • Court of Special Appeals of Maryland
    • December 18, 2013
    ...flaw and would not establish an illegality that inhered in the sentence itself. 397 Md. at 467, 918 A.2d 506. In Baker v. State, 389 Md. 127, 883 A.2d 916 (2005), a death penalty case, the defendant claimed that the sentence was illegal because he had erroneously been precluded from enterin......
  • Evans v. State
    • United States
    • Court of Special Appeals of Maryland
    • December 19, 2006
    ...The subsequent decision relied upon must constitute "a new judicial interpretation of a constitutional provision." Baker v. State, 389 Md. 127, 134, 883 A.2d 916, 920 (2005). In an effort to squeeze within that limited exception, Evans relies, as to his complaint about the performance of co......
  • Evans v. State, No. 18
    • United States
    • Maryland Court of Appeals
    • November 10, 2005
    ...the motion was denied, and second, that it was denied without affording him the opportunity to conduct discovery. In Baker v. State, 389 Md. 127, 883 A.2d 916 (2005), responding to precisely the same argument made by Wesley Baker, we held that a motion to correct an illegal sentence filed p......
  • Request a trial to view additional results

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT