Byrd v. Warden of Md. Penitentiary, 1
| Decision Date | 20 January 1959 |
| Docket Number | No. 1,1 |
| Citation | 219 Md. 681,147 A.2d 701 |
| Parties | Robert BYRD v. WARDEN OF THE MARYLAND PENITENTIARY. Post Conviction |
| Court | Maryland Court of Appeals |
Before BRUNE, C. J., and HENDERSON, HAMMOND, PRESCOTT and HORNEY, JJ.
This is the first application for leave to appeal under the Post Conviction Procedure Act (Code, 1958 Supp., Art. 27, Sections 645A to 645J) that has reached this Court.
In 1952 applicant was sentenced to life imprisonment by Judge Woodward of the Circuit Court for Montgomery County after conviction of assault with intent to rape. Twice he has unsuccessfully sought leave to appeal from a denial of the writ of habes corpus. Byrd v. Warden, 210 Md. 662, 124 A.2d 284; Byrd v. Warden, 216 Md. 656, 140 A.2d 694.
On July 16, 1958, Byrd filed a petition seeking relief under the Post Conviction Procedure Act. The affidavit to the petition set forth that he was a pauper and in the petition he prayed that the court file his petition 'under the forma pauperis laws of Maryland'. Five days after the petition was filed, the State moved to dismiss it, and nine days later, Judge Anderson granted the motion.
The Post Conviction Procedure Act provides in Sec. 645E that if the petition alleges that the petitioner 'is unable to pay the costs of the proceeding or to employ counsel' and the court is satisfied as to the truth of the allegation, it 'shall order that the petitioner proceed as an indigent person, and appoint counsel for him.' The lower court did not appoint counsel, deciding from the pleadings before him that all of the matters on which the petitioner relied had been presented, and decided adversely to him, in the habeas corpus cases.
We read the statute as requiring counsel to be appointed in every case in which the court is satisfied that the allegation of the petitioner that he is unable to pay the cost of the proceeding is true (unless petitioner voluntarily and intelligently waives the right to counsel). Since the mandate of the statute in this respect was not followed, the case must be remanded for the appointment of counsel. Hill v. State, 218 Md. 120, 145 A.2d 445; Bryant v. State, Md., 145 A.2d 777.
Most of Byrd's allegations are similar to, if not the same as, those he has relied on before in his efforts to be granted habeas corpus. We note that his present application contained an additional allegation--that Judge Woodward told him that his appeal to the Court of Appeals (which he noted within proper...
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State v. Wetzel
...issues is barred. Like provisions in postconviction acts have been considered in other jurisdictions. Byrd v. Warden of Maryland Penitentiary, 219 Md. 681, 147 A.2d 701, holds a petition for postconviction relief was properly dismissed where the same grounds had been relied on and relief de......
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Ingram v. Warden of Md. House of Correction, 47
...v. Warden, 1958, 218 Md. 649, 145 A.2d 766, and cannot be raised again in this proceeding. Section 645A(a), supra; Byrd v. Warden, 1959, 219 Md. 681, 147 A.2d 701. In the first Ingram case [218 Md. 649, 145 A.2d 766], supra, which was an application for leave to appeal from a denial of the ......
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Banks v. Warden of Md. Penitentiary, 16
...who was represented by counsel at the trial--[as he was at a second post conviction hearing afforded him when the decision in Byrd v. Warden, Md. 1959, 147 A.2d 701, came to the attention of Judge Cullen]--pleaded guilty to an indictment in which he was charged with having violated the narc......