Goins v. State

• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals
• Writing for the Court: MOYLAN; When for the clear benefit of the defendant
• Citation: Goins v. State, 425 A.2d 1374, 48 Md.App. 115 (Md. App. 1981)
• Decision Date: 04 March 1981
• Docket Number: No. 849,849
• Parties: Henry Joseph GOINS v. STATE of Maryland.

Page 115

48 Md.App. 115

425 A.2d 1374

Henry Joseph GOINS v. STATE of Maryland.

No. 849.

Court of Special Appeals of Maryland.

March 4, 1981.

Gary W. Christopher, Asst. Public Defender, with whom was Alan H. Murrell, Public Defender of Maryland, on brief, for appellant.

Maureen O'Ferral, Asst. Atty. Gen., with whom were Stephen H. Sachs, Atty. Gen., of Maryland, William R. Hymes, State's Atty. and A. Gallatin Warfield, III, Asst. State's Atty., Howard County, on brief, for appellee.

Argued before MOYLAN, MASON and COUCH, JJ.

MOYLAN, Judge.

A legal rule is not an end in itself but only a means toward an end. It is a working tool that is designed with a deliberate purpose to help achieve some desired goal. The service of the rule and the service of its animating purpose will, if it is wisely designed, coincide in the vast majority of cases. Because no scheme fashioned by mortals can anticipate the infinite variety of human experience, however, there will inevitably be occasions when the blind adherence to a rule and the pursuit of its undergirding purpose are in opposition. On such rare occasions there can be no doubt but that the service of the deeper purpose is paramount. To fail to recognize this is to cease to be judges and to become mere automatons. As Chief Judge Sobeloff observed for the Court of Appeals in Berry v. State, 202 Md. 62, 67, 95 A.2d 319, "An indispensable ingredient in judgment, in court as well as out of it, is a modicum of common sense."

Such common sense dictates that we recognize at the outset that the appellant, Henry Joseph Goins, was convicted by a Howard County jury, presided over by Judge J. Thomas Nissel, of very serious criminal behavior. He was convicted of rape in the first degree, of kidnapping, of armed robbery and of the use of a handgun in the commission of a felony. Judge Nissel saw fit to impose three concurrent twelve-year sentences, along with a concurrent five-year sentence for the handgun violation. Upon this appeal, the appellant raises the single contention that he should have had all charges against him forever dismissed because his trial commenced on the 195th day following the appearance of his counsel, 15 days beyond the limit imposed by Maryland Rule 746. He makes this claim notwithstanding the fact that it was his own dereliction in allowing 72 days to lapse before filing his plea of not guilty by reason of insanity that was the effective cause for not meeting the projected January, 1980, trial date that was well within the 180-day guideline.

As we begin our more detailed recitation, the wisdom of State v. Hicks, 285 Md. 310, 335, 403 A.2d 356, is our ever resounding leitmotif:

"It would, in our judgment, be entirely inappropriate for the defendant to gain advantage from a violation of the rule when he was a party to that violation."

The appellant committed his crimes on September 6, 1979. He was charged on October 2 and the appearance of his counsel was entered. On that day, the sands of time, as measured by Maryland Rule 746, began to run. Those sands were due to run out on March 30, 1980. In the meantime, the appellant petitioned for reverse waiver to the juvenile court, a hearing was held on that petition and the petition was denied. Trial on the merits was scheduled for January 30, 1980. On December 13, however, appellant's counsel entered the plea of not guilty by reason of insanity, 72 days after his initial appearance. On December 21, the court made a timely referral of the appellant to the Department of Mental Hygiene. Notwithstanding the fact that Article 59, Section 26(a) gives the Department 60 days after referral in which to forward a report of its findings to the court, the court ordered the Department to report its findings before February 8, hopefully expediting the process by some two weeks. Even if that optimal time schedule had been met, the inexorable course of events dictated that the appointed January 30 trial date would go by the boards, whether such non-event was formally noted or not.

The appellant, as a secondary but related theme to his argument, urges that the literal terms of Rule 746 b were not woodenly complied with:

"Upon motion of a party made in writing or in open court and for extraordinary cause shown, the county administrative judge or a judge designated by him may grant a change of trial date."

It is enough to note with respect to the January 30 trial date that no trial, in fairness to the defense, could possibly have been held on that day. Everybody knew it and nobody showed up. That neither party, appellant or State, sought a formal obituary for the trial date and that no official words were spoken over its demise, are beside the point. A self-evident event needs no herald.

The central thrust of the appellant's argument is that the trial did not occur within 180 days. The reason for this is quite apparent. On January 25, a letter was sent by the Clifton T. Perkins Hospital Center to Judge Guy J. Cicone the County Administrative Judge, which stated in pertinent part:

"Unusually heavy demands from the Division of Correction and from the County detention centers for admission of psychiatrically ill patients for treatment have consumed our bed space. We find ourselves unable to schedule admissions within the specified time period. Therefore, an additional sixty days in which to complete the evaluation is respectfully requested. Should an extension not meet with your approval, please contract this office."

Recognizing the reasonableness of the request and alluding to the "unusually heavy demands" mentioned in the Department's request, Judge Cicone, on January 29, extended the time in which to file the report to April 8, 1980. That report was actually received by the court and logged in on April 10. Remarkably, the appellant's trial commenced four days later on April 14.

The appellant does not question the fact that it was in his best interests to defer the trial until the report from Perkins had arrived. Indeed, the trial would have been a farce without such report. He does not question the fact that the necessary wait for that report constituted "extraordinary cause" for delaying the trial within the contemplation of Rule 746 as then written. ¹ He seeks rather a mechanical incantation of Rule 746 b. From the mechanistic coign of vantage, he lays down a broad enfilade of subcharges. He points out that the change in trial date just "grew like Topsy" and that nobody ever "granted" such change in so many words. Compounding that, he urges, no judge was ever "designated by" the County Administrative Judge to grant such a change and the County Administrative Judge himself never knowingly granted the change. In support of this he offered a stipulation from Judge Cicone that when Judge Cicone granted the 60-day extension of time to Clifton T. Perkins, Judge Cicone was dealing with that extension as a self-contained phenomenon and was not even thinking of any impact it might have on the 180-day requirement of Rule 746. The appellant urges yet further that even had an appropriate judicial figure knowingly granted a change of trial date, the Rule's required predicate that such granting of change be "upon motion of a party made in writing or in open court," had not been complied with.

If we were to apply that...