Brady v. Warden, Md. Penitentiary

• Decision Date: 29 September 1967
• Docket Number: No. 131,131
• Citation: 233 A.2d 378,2 Md.App. 146
• Parties: John L. BRADY v. WARDEN, MARYLAND PENITENTIARY. Post Conviction
• Court: Court of Special Appeals of Maryland

Page 146

2 Md.App. 146

233 A.2d 378

John L. BRADY v. WARDEN, MARYLAND PENITENTIARY.

Post Conviction No. 131.

Court of Special Appeals of Maryland.

Sept. 29, 1967.

Before ANDERSON, MORTON, ORTH and THOMPSON, JJ.

PER CURIAM.

John L. Brady was convicted of murder in the first degree by a jury in the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County on December 8, 1958, and was sentenced to death. His conviction was affirmed on appeal, sub nom. Boblit v. State, 220 Md. 454, 154 A.2d 434. He subsequently filed a motion to set aside the judgment and sentence on the ground that an unsigned statement of his co-defendant, Boblit, that was in the hands of the police, would have corroborated the applicant's testimony that it was Boblit and not he who did the actual killing. He claimed that he did not have knowledge of this until after the affirmance of his appeal. The Court of Appeals dismissed his appeal from the denial of that motion on the ground that his only avenue of relief was the Uniform Post Conviction Procedure Act. Brady v. State, 222 Md. 442, 160 A.2d 912.

Brady then filed a petition for post conviction relief on substantially the same grounds as contained in the previous motion. The Court of Appeals granted leave to appeal from the lower court's denial of relief and, noting that Brady's sole claim of prejudice 'goes to the punishment imposed,' held that while Boblit's statement should have been made available to Brady, nothing in it could have reduced Brady's offense below murder in the first degree, so that there was no occasion to retry the issue of Brady's guilt; but since Boblit's statement may have influenced the jury as to the punishment to be imposed upon Brady, he was entitled to have a jury empanelled 'to determine whether the finding already made of guilty of murder in the first degree should or should not be modified by the addition of the words 'without capital punishment" and that should the jury decline to add the words 'without capital punishment' then the 'sentence will be for the determination of the Court on the basis of the evidence produced on the rehearing,' referring to Section 143 of Article 27 of the Maryland Code which limits the punishment for first degree murder to either life imprisonment or death. The court thus reversed the judgment of the post conviction court below, and 'remanded with instructions to enter an order, not inconsistent with this opinion, for a new trial on the question of punishment only.' Brady v. State, 226 Md. 422, 174 A.2d 167. The Supreme Court of the United States, finding no denial of due process in the court's determination to grant a new trial limited to the issue of punishment only, affirmed that decision. Brady v. State of Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215.

The 'new trial on the question of punishment only' had not been held when Schowgurow v. State, 240 Md. 121, 213 A.2d 475 was decided. Since the legal principles enunciated in that landmark decision were applicable to convictions which had not become 'final' before rendition of the opinion on October 11, 1965, Brady filed the instant post conviction petition, contending therein that because his sentence had not yet been imposed on the retrial, there was no final judgment of conviction existing against him on that critical date.

In Schowgurow, the Court of Appeals adopted the definition of 'finality' set forth in Linkletter v. Walker, 381 U.S. 618, 85...