Gardner v. State

• Decision Date: 24 May 2011
• Docket Number: No. 11,Sept. Term,2010.,11
• Citation: 420 Md. 1,20 A.3d 801
• Parties: Eugene Edward GARDNERv.STATE of Maryland.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

420 Md. 1

20 A.3d 801

Eugene Edward GARDNER

v.STATE of Maryland.

No. 11

Sept. Term

2010.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

May 24, 2011.

Amy E. Brennan, Asst. Public Defender (Paul B. DeWolfe, Public Defender, Baltimore, MD), on brief, for petitioner.Susannah E. Prucka, Asst. Atty. Gen. (Douglas F. Gansler, Atty. Gen. of Maryland, Baltimore, MD), on brief, for respondent.Argued before BELL, C.J., HARRELL, BATTAGLIA, GREENE, MURPHY, ADKINS and BARBERA, JJ.

BARBERA, J.

This case requires us to construe Maryland Code (1988, 2006 Repl.Vol.), § 12–702(b) of the Courts and Judicial Proceedings Article (“C.J.”). That provision prohibits a court from imposing, following an appeal and remand for a new trial or resentencing, “a sentence more severe than the sentence previously imposed for the offense.” ¹ In the ordinary case the “ sentence previously imposed” is the sentence imposed by the judge who presided over the original trial or guilty plea. The wrinkle presented by the case at bar is this: What is the “sentence previously imposed” when that judge's sentence is increased by a three-judge sentence review panel? For the reasons that follow, we hold that, in that instance, the sentence imposed by the three-judge panel is the “sentence previously imposed,” for purposes of § 12–702(b).

I.

The issue we here address has its genesis in the 2005 trial of Petitioner Eugene Gardner in the Circuit Court for Baltimore County. At that trial, Petitioner was found guilty of armed robbery and use of a handgun in the commission of a felony. The sentencing judge imposed concurrent sentences of 25 years' imprisonment without the possibility of parole for armed robbery, and 5 years without the possibility of parole for the handgun violation, for a total sentence of 25 years' incarceration. Petitioner, as he is entitled to do, noted an appeal from the judgments of conviction and sought review of the sentence by a three-judge panel, pursuant to Maryland Code (2002, 2006 Repl.Vol.), §§ 8–102, 8–105 of the Criminal Procedure Article (“C.P.”).² While the appeal was pending, the review panel heard Petitioner's case.³ The panel was unanimous in its decision to increase the sentence originally imposed, concluding that Petitioner “was a serious danger to the public and that it would be appropriate to modify his sentence.” The panel did not change the 25–year, no-parole sentence for armed robbery; the panel, though, increased the sentence on the handgun conviction from 5 to 20 years' incarceration, no part of which was suspended and the first 5 years of which was to be served without parole. The panel directed the sentences to be served consecutively, resulting in an increase in the total sentence from 25 years to 45 years of executed time, followed by five years' probation.

Thereafter, the Court of Special Appeals reversed the judgments of conviction—the grounds for which are irrelevant to our inquiry here—and remanded the case to the Circuit Court for a new trial. Petitioner elected a bench trial, at which the judge found him guilty of the same offenses as before—armed robbery and the handgun offense. The judge then heard from the parties concerning sentencing. Petitioner argued for reimposition of the 25–year sentence that he received from the judge at the conclusion of the first trial. The State argued that the 45–year sentence of the three-judge panel should be followed. The court rejected both suggestions and sentenced Petitioner to a total of 40 years of executed time: 25 years, without parole, for armed robbery and 20 years with all but 15 years suspended, also without parole, for the handgun offense, to run consecutively.

On appeal to the Court of Special Appeals, Petitioner argued that the sentence violates the general prohibition in § 12–702(b) of an increased sentence following remand. Petitioner asserted that the statutory requirement that the sentence imposed on remand be no greater than the “sentence previously imposed” is ambiguous when applied to his case. He further argued that the ambiguity must be resolved in his favor by capping the new sentence at 25 years' imprisonment—the sentence imposed by the original sentencing judge.

The Court of Special Appeals disagreed. That court held that, as applied to Petitioner's case, “the sentence previously imposed” refers to the 45–year sentence imposed by the three-judge sentence review panel. Consequently, the 40–year sentence imposed by the court following re-trial does not violate § 12–702(b).

We granted Petitioner's request to consider the following question:

Where retrial and conviction follow a successful appeal, and Cts. & Jud. Proc. Art. § 12–702(b) prohibits a court from imposing a sentence more severe than the sentence previously imposed except in certain circumstances, is the trial court bound by the original trial judge's sentence or a subsequent sentence imposed by a three-judge panel?

II.

Petitioner argues, as he did before the Court of Special Appeals, that the “sentence previously imposed” in § 12–702(b) is ambiguous when, as in the present case, a three-judge panel has increased the sentence imposed by the original trial judge. He argues: “The plain language of § 12–702(b) does not tell us which ‘sentence previously imposed’ is the ‘sentence previously imposed’ for purposes of applying the rule that a sentence cannot be increased after a successful appeal....” The resulting ambiguity, Petitioner continues, dictates application of the rule of lenity, which requires that the lesser of the two previous sentences control for purposes of re-sentencing.

The State, not surprisingly, has a very different view. The State argues that there is no such ambiguity in § 12–702(b), because the sentence imposed by the three-judge panel supplanted the sentence imposed by the original sentencing judge, thereby becoming the operative “sentence previously imposed” for purposes of capping any new sentence, following appeal and remand.

Resolution of the issue involves the often-cited rules of statutory interpretation, which we recently summarized:

The cardinal rule of statutory interpretation is to ascertain and effectuate the real and actual intent of the Legislature. A court's primary goal in interpreting statutory language is to discern the legislative purpose, the ends to be accomplished, or the evils to be remedied by the statutory provision under scrutiny.

To ascertain the intent of the General Assembly, we begin with the normal, plain meaning of the statute. If the language of the statute is unambiguous and clearly consistent with the statute's apparent purpose, our inquiry as to the legislative intent ends ordinarily and we apply the statute as written without resort to other rules of construction. We neither add nor delete language so as to reflect an intent not evidenced in the plain and unambiguous language of the statute, and we do not construe a statute with forced or subtle interpretations that limit or extend its application.

We, however, do not read statutory language in a vacuum, nor do we confine strictly our interpretation of a statute's plain language to the isolated section alone. Rather, the plain language must be viewed within the context of the statutory scheme to which it belongs, considering the purpose, aim, or policy of the Legislature in enacting the statute. We presume that the Legislature intends its enactments to operate together as a consistent and harmonious body of law, and, thus, we seek to reconcile and harmonize the parts of a statute, to the extent possible consistent with the statute's object and scope. Where the words of a statute are ambiguous and subject to more than one reasonable interpretation, or where the words are clear and unambiguous when viewed in isolation, but become ambiguous when read as part of a larger statutory scheme, a court must resolve the ambiguity by searching for legislative intent in other indicia, including the history of the legislation or other relevant sources intrinsic and extrinsic to the legislative process. In resolving ambiguities, a court considers the structure of the statute, how it relates to other laws, its general purpose and relative rationality and legal effect of various competing constructions.

In every case, the statute must be given a reasonable interpretation, not one that is absurd, illogical or incompatible with common sense.

State v. Johnson, 415 Md. 413, 421–22, 2 A.3d 368, 373 (2010) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted).

We begin the task of ascertaining the General Assembly's intent in enacting § 12–702(b), by resort to the plain language of that provision. Petitioner contends that, in light of its context, the Legislature “most probably intended” the phrase “the sentence previously imposed” to mean the original sentence imposed by the circuit court. That contention is contrary to the original text of the statute. As enacted in 1966, § 12–702(b) contained the language at issue in the case before us (i.e., on remand, a court “may not impose a sentence more severe than the sentence previously imposed”), and then, as now, subsection (b) included an exception to the general rule prohibiting increased sentences on remand. Prior to July 1, 1988, though, subsection (b)(2) stated that one requirement of the exception was that “[t]he reasons [for the increased sentence] are based upon objective information concerning identifiable conduct on the part of the defendant occurring after the original sentence was imposed.” (Emphasis added.) House Bill 1139, effective July 1, 1988, deleted from subsection (b)(2) the phrase “occurring after the original sentence was imposed.” See 1988 Md. Laws Ch. 722. The Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee's Floor Report regarding H.B. 1139 reveals that the purpose of that deletion was

to correct situations in which the first sentence was given while the judge was unaware of information that would have resulted in a greater sentence had the...