Bodeau v. State
| Decision Date | 01 October 2020 |
| Docket Number | No. 1365, Sept. Term, 2019,1365, Sept. Term, 2019 |
| Citation | 248 Md.App. 115,239 A.3d 865 |
| Parties | Edward Andre BODEAU v. STATE of Maryland |
| Court | Court of Special Appeals of Maryland |
Argued by Michael T. Torres (Paul B. DeWolfe, Public Defender, on the brief) Baltimore, MD, for Appellant.
Argued by Brenda Gruss (Brian E. Frosh, Atty. Gen., on the brief) Baltimore, MD, for Appellee.
Panel: Kehoe, Leahy, Sally D. Adkins (Senior Judge, Specially Assigned), JJ.
Contents
Almost five decades after his 1971 conviction for daytime burglary, appellant Edward Bodeau sought to vacate the conviction by filing a petition for a writ of error coram nobis in the Circuit Court for Montgomery County. He asserted that the daytime-burglary conviction was constitutionally infirm, obtained after the trial court explained to the jury that its instructions on applicable legal principles were "advisory only." Bodeau also alleged that even though he had long since served his sentence for the 1971 conviction, he was suffering collateral consequences: The conviction had been used as a predicate offense for the mandatory life-without-parole sentence that he has been serving since he was convicted of armed robbery in 1989.
After a hearing, the circuit court denied Bodeau's coram nobis petition. The court's decision was not based on the petition's merits. Instead, the court ruled that coram nobis relief was barred by the equitable doctrine of laches—that Bodeau had unreasonably delayed in bringing his challenge to the advisory-only instructions, prejudicing the State's ability to reprosecute Bodeau for the daytime burglary should a new trial be awarded.
Bodeau's appeal asks us to decide whether the circuit court erred in denying his coram nobis petition on laches grounds. In concluding that the court did err, we add a footnote to the "tortured history" of advisory-only instructions in Maryland. State v. Adams-Bey , 449 Md. 690, 695, 144 A.3d 1200 (2016). We address the extent to which a petitioner in Bodeau's situation can be said to have unreasonably delayed in challenging his conviction before the Court of Appeals held in Unger v. State , 427 Md. 383, 48 A.3d 242 (2012), that a failure to have objected to advisory-only instructions in a pre-1981 criminal trial would not amount to a waiver of the issue. We will hold that Bodeau's failure to file a petition for a writ of error coram nobis was not unreasonable until, at the earliest, Unger was filed. It was only then that the Court of Appeals held that a failure to have objected to advisory-only instructions in a pre-1981 criminal trial did not amount to a waiver of the issue. This was critical for Bodeau because his 1971 trial counsel had not objected to the advisory only instruction. We will reverse the circuit court's judgment and remand the case for further proceedings.
Bodeau's life sentence without parole
In August 1971, a Montgomery County jury tried Bodeau on charges of daytime burglary and theft of property valued at $100 or more. At the time, daytime burglary (or housebreaking) was considered a crime of violence in Maryland.1 Before sending the jury to deliberate, the trial court told the jurors that, under Maryland's constitution, they were "the sole judges of the law" and that, accordingly, its instructions were "advisory only" and "not binding." The court then instructed the jury on several legal principles, including the applicable burden of proof and the elements required to meet that burden for each of the offenses charged. Bodeau did not object to any of these instructions.
The jury convicted Bodeau on both counts, and the court sentenced him to concurrent seven-year terms of incarceration for each offense. Bodeau unsuccessfully appealed his convictions to this Court, and the Court of Appeals denied his petition for a writ of certiorari. Bodeau's subsequent petition for post-conviction relief was also denied. None of Bodeau's contentions in either proceeding were based on the trial court's advisory-only instructions.
Eighteen years later, in November 1989, Bodeau faced another Montgomery County jury. This time, he was convicted of armed robbery. The prosecution sought a sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. This sentence was mandated by a four-strikes statute, Md. Code (1957, repl. vol. 1992), art. 27, § 643B(b),2 which then provided:
Any person who has served three separate terms of confinement in a correctional institution as a result of three separate convictions of any crime of violence shall be sentenced, on being convicted a fourth time of a crime of violence, to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Regardless of any other law to the contrary, the provisions of this section are mandatory.
At the time of his 1989 sentencing, the State asserted that Bodeau had been convicted of seven at least arguably predicate offenses for the purposes of § 643B(b).3 There were two issues before the sentencing court, neither of which appears to have been fully resolved. The first was the degree to which Bodeau's federal and Virginia convictions could be treated as predicate offenses in light of differences between the elements of the offenses as established by the laws of those jurisdictions, and the elements of the offenses that were then considered "crimes of violence" for purposes of Art. 27, § 643B(b). The second was whether Bodeau had actually served separate terms of confinement for each predicate conviction. Ultimately, the sentencing court concluded that there were at least three predicate convictions (one being the 1971 daytime burglary conviction), and that Bodeau had served separate terms for each of them. On this basis, Bodeau received a life sentence without the possibility of parole.
Bodeau's petition for a writ of error coram nobis
Almost thirty years into his life sentence, on January 25, 2019, Bodeau filed a petition for a writ of error coram nobis in the Circuit Court for Montgomery County seeking to invalidate his 1971 daytime-burglary conviction. Bodeau contended that the conviction was constitutionally infirm because the trial judge had given the jury improper "advisory only" instructions. See Stevenson v. State , 289 Md. 167, 180, 423 A.2d 558 (1980) (); Montgomery v. State , 292 Md. 84, 91, 437 A.2d 654 (1981) (). The instructional error, Bodeau contended, was structural and therefore not subject to harmless-error analysis, State v. Waine , 444 Md. 692, 705, 122 A.3d 294 (2015) ; was preserved despite his failure to object, Unger v. State , 427 Md. 383, 391, 48 A.3d 242 (2012) ; and, at least in the context of post-conviction relief, was a "constitutional infirmity ... of the sort that will always invalidate the conviction," State v. Adams-Bey , 449 Md. 690, 708, 144 A.3d 1200 (2016) (cleaned up).
Bodeau claimed he was entitled to coram nobis relief because, despite having fully served his sentence for the daytime-burglary conviction, he continued to suffer collateral consequences. As noted above, the 1971 conviction was used by the State to justify the mandatory life-without-parole sentence he received for his 1989 armed robbery conviction. Without the 1971 conviction, Bodeau asserted, he would not have been subject to the four-strikes statute at his 1989 sentencing for armed robbery and instead would have faced a maximum punishment of twenty years in prison without the possibility of parole.
In its answer to Bodeau's petition, the State did not contest the propriety of the advisory-only instructions given at the 1971 daytime-burglary trial. Nevertheless, the State argued three reasons why Bodeau's coram nobis petition should be denied. First, said the State, Bodeau would lose on the merits: He could not establish that he was "suddenly" facing "significant collateral consequences" as a result of the 1971 conviction. His enhanced life-without-parole sentence was a "foreseeable and predictable criminal punishment." Second, the State contended that even without the 1971 conviction for daytime burglary, "the State would still be able to establish that other convictions could serve as the predicate for the enhanced sentence." Third, the State asserted that, even if Bodeau could make out a prima facie case for coram nobis relief, relief was barred by the equitable doctrine of laches. According to the State, Bodeau had unreasonably delayed in bringing his challenge to the advisory-only instructions, and this delay had impeded the State's ability to reprosecute him for the daytime burglary charge should a new trial be awarded.4
The circuit court held a two-day hearing on Bodeau's petition in May 2019. The parties elaborated on the arguments made in their filings, focusing principally on the laches defense raised by the State. Just as they do in this appeal, the parties disputed when Bodeau began to "delay" in asserting his rights (as early as 1971 or as late as 2012) and whether that delay (as long as forty-eight years or as short as seven years) was "unreasonable." The parties also disputed the degree to...
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