Matthews v. State

• Decision Date: 26 January 2012
• Docket Number: 2011.,Sept. Term,No. 20,20
• Citation: 36 A.3d 499,424 Md. 503
• Parties: Elroy MATTHEWS, Jr. v. STATE of Maryland.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

36 A.3d 499

424 Md. 503

Elroy MATTHEWS, Jr.

v.STATE of Maryland.

No. 20

Sept. Term

2011.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

Jan. 26, 2012.

James M. Nichols and Rebecca L. Smith (Byron L. Warnken of Warnken, LLC, Towson, MD), on brief, for Petitioner.

Cathleen C. Brockmeyer, Asst. Atty. Gen. (Douglas F. Gansler, Atty. Gen. of Maryland, Baltimore, MD), on brief, for Respondent.

Argued before BELL, C.J., HARRELL, BATTAGLIA, GREENE, ADKINS, BARBERA, and JOHN C. ELDRIDGE, (Retired, specially assigned), JJ.

BARBERA, J.

Maryland Rule 4–345, “Sentencing—Revisory power of court,” provides, in pertinent part, “(a) Illegal sentence. The court may correct an illegal sentence at any time.” Elroy Matthews, Jr., Petitioner, invoked Rule 4–345(a) to challenge the legality of the sentence he received following his plea of guilty to certain charges, in the Circuit Court for Baltimore County, as part of a plea agreement. Petitioner argued that the sentence was illegal because it exceeded the sentence to which the court had bound itself. The Circuit Court denied the motion without a hearing, and Petitioner appealed. The Court of Special Appeals held that a challenge to the legality of a sentence on the ground that it violates a binding term of a plea agreement is not cognizable under Rule 4–345(a) and, even if it were, the sentence Petitioner received was not illegal.

For the reasons that follow, we hold that Rule 4–345(a) is an appropriate vehicle for challenging a sentence that is imposed in violation of a plea agreement to which the sentencing court bound itself. We further hold that the sentence Petitioner is serving is illegal because it exceeds the sentencing “cap” to which the Circuit Court agreed to be bound.

I.

Petitioner entered a plea of guilty to charges of attempted first-degree murder, two counts of first-degree assault, and unlawful use of a handgun in the commission of a felony or crime of violence. In exchange for that guilty plea, the State agreed to: (1) enter a nolle prosequi to the remaining counts with which Petitioner was charged in that case; (2) enter a nolle prosequi to the charges in a related case; and (3) argue, with respect to the charges to which Petitioner was pleading guilty, “for incarceration within the—to the top of the guidelines range ...[,] twenty-three to forty-three years.” The State added that it would “be asking for incarceration of forty-three years.... That cap is a cap as to actual and immediate incarceration at the time of initial disposition.” The sentencing court stated that it “agreed to cap any sentence.” In addition, the court advised Petitioner that “theoretically I can give you anything from the mandatory minimum on the one count, which is five years without parole, up to the maximum of life imprisonment.”

At the sentencing proceeding several months later, the State asked the court to “impose a sentence of life imprisonment, suspend all but forty-three years of that.” Petitioner requested “a split sentence and a substantial period of incarceration” and argued that “ten years is appropriate.” The court sentenced Petitioner on the lead count of attempted first-degree murder to life imprisonment, with all but thirty years suspended, with concurrent sentences of twenty-five years for each of the two assault charges, and twenty years, with a mandatory five-year minimum, for the handgun charge. Petitioner thereby received a total sentence of life imprisonment, with thirty years of it as executed time.

The postconviction proceeding

Approximately eighteen months later, Petitioner filed a petition for postconviction relief, followed by an amended petition nearly twenty months later. The amended petition asserted ineffective assistance of counsel for, inter alia, failing to object to the State's breach of the plea agreement in requesting a life sentence with all but forty-three years suspended, instead of a total sentence of forty-three years, inclusive of any suspended portion.

The postconviction court, evidently having reviewed the transcript of the plea hearing,¹ made a finding that the Assistant State's Attorney had said at the plea proceeding that he would recommend “forty-three years,” but then, at sentencing, breached that term of the agreement by recommending “life imprisonment, suspend all but forty-three years.” ² The postconviction court therefore concluded that Petitioner was deprived of the benefit of his bargain. Evidently the parties did not raise, and the postconviction court did not address, what the sentencing court meant by stating at the plea hearing that it had bound itself to “cap” the sentence. The postconviction court nonetheless stated in the order that the plea agreement was “not presented as a binding plea under Rule 4–243(c) [³, [so] the trial court upon resentencing shall be free to impose whatever sentence it feels appropriate.” The postconviction court issued an order granting Petitioner a new sentencing hearing.

The Re-sentencing

As is customary, the original sentencing judge presided at the re-sentencing. The Assistant State's Attorney informed the sentencing judge that the postconviction court had “ultimately determined that when I [the State] said ‘Life suspend all but forty-three’ as opposed to ‘forty-three,’ that somehow breached the plea agreement that had been reached.” The State added that the postconviction court's ruling had no bearing on the legality of the sentence the court originally imposed. The State argued that the sentencing court could “turn around and impose the same very sentence that you imposed before and there would be nothing unlawful.”

Petitioner disagreed with the State's understanding of the import of the postconviction court's ruling. Petitioner, represented by counsel, argued that the court was bound at re-sentencing not to exceed a total sentence of forty-three years, with no more than thirty years of executed time. Petitioner reasoned that the court had indicated at the plea hearing that it would “cap any sentence” in response to the State's representation that the guidelines range was “twenty-three to forty-three years” and the State would “ argue for the top.” Further, the State's agreement to recommend “forty-three years” was intertwined inextricably with the court's stated agreement at the plea hearing to “cap” Petitioner's sentence. And, given that the postconviction court granted Petitioner a new sentencing proceeding because the State had breached the plea agreement by recommending life imprisonment, suspend all but forty-three years, it necessarily followed that the court's sentence of life, all but thirty years suspended, was likewise illegal in that it violated the agreed-upon “cap” of forty three years of both executed and un-executed time. Finally, because the court's original sentence contained only thirty years of executed time, the new sentence, capped at a total of forty-three years, could not contain more than thirty years of executed time.

The court re-imposed the original sentence of life, suspend all but thirty years, on the lead count of attempted murder, with concurrent sentences on each of the remaining three counts. The court explained why it believed it could re-impose that sentence: “[T]he Court is of the opinion I was clear at the time I accepted this individual's plea, I was clear at the time I sentenced this individual, and that the sentence in this case that I could give [Petitioner] would be life on the first count suspend all but thirty years....”

Petitioner thereafter filed, pursuant to Maryland Rule 4–345(a), the “Motion to Correct Illegal Sentence” that is the subject of the present appeal. We have mentioned that the motion was denied without a hearing, and Petitioner appealed. See State v. Wilkins, 393 Md. 269, 273, 900 A.2d 765, 767 (2006) (noting that the denial of a motion to correct an illegal sentence is an appealable final order).

The Appeal

On appeal to the Court of Special Appeals, Petitioner supported his argument that his sentence was illegal with two recently decided cases from this Court, Cuffley v. State, 416 Md. 568, 7 A.3d 557 (2010), and Baines v. State, 416 Md. 604, 7 A.3d 578 (2010). In those cases, about which we shall say more infra, we held that, when the record of a plea proceeding reflects that a defendant reasonably could have understood that the sentencing court agreed to be bound to a certain maximum sentence, inclusive of any suspended portion, then the court that imposes a sentence in excess of that maximum breaches the plea agreement. In that circumstance, the original sentence is illegal and the court must re-sentence the defendant, if that is the defendant's wish, in accordance with the terms of the plea agreement. See Cuffley, 416 Md. at 586, 7 A.3d at 567; Baines, 416 Md. at 620, 7 A.3d at 588.

The State responded that Petitioner's new sentence was not illegal. The State also argued preliminarily that Petitioner's challenge could not be presented by way of a Rule 4–345(a) motion to correct an illegal sentence. The State asserted that Rule 4–345(a) is not a proper vehicle for raising the type of sentencing illegality that Petitioner was claiming.

The Court of Special Appeals agreed with both of the State's contentions and affirmed the judgment of the Circuit Court. Matthews v. State, 197 Md.App. 365, 387, 13 A.3d 834, 847 (2011). The intermediate appellate court held that Petitioner's challenge failed at the threshold because his claim that the sentence violated the plea agreement was not cognizable under Rule 4–345(a). 197 Md.App. at 375, 13 A.3d at 840. That court further held that, in any case, the sentence was not illegal. Id. at 378, 13 A.3d at 841. On that score, the Court of Special Appeals saw the pertinent question as whether the sentencing court “complied with the mandate of [the postconviction court]” to impose whatever sentence the court deemed appropriate. Id. at 386–87, 13 A.3d at 847. The Court of Special Appeals concluded...