Miller v. State
| Citation | 246 A.3d 776,249 Md.App. 738 |
| Decision Date | 26 February 2021 |
| Docket Number | No. 2097, Sept. Term, 2019,2097, Sept. Term, 2019 |
| Parties | James MILLER v. STATE of Maryland |
| Court | Court of Special Appeals of Maryland |
Submitted by: Eva Shell (Paul B. DeWolfe, Public Defender on the brief), Baltimore, MD, for Appellant.
Submitted by: Karinna M. Rossi (Brian E. Frosh, Attorney General on the brief), Baltimore, MD, for Appellee.
Fader, C.J., Beachley, Alan M. Wilner (Senior Judge, Specially Assigned), JJ.
As conditions of his probation pursuant to a conviction for constructive criminal contempt for failing to pay child support, James Miller, the appellant, had been ordered to: (1) pay child support, including arrears, on a monthly basis; and (2) if unable to pay child support, provide copies of ten job applications per week to Wicomico County Bureau of Support Enforcement (the "Bureau").1 Mr. Miller failed to do either and was charged with violating the terms of his probation. Mr. Miller admitted to the violations but argued that they were "technical" for purposes of § 6-223 of the Criminal Procedure Article (2018 Repl.; 2020 Supp.), and therefore subject to the sentencing limitations in that statute, which the General Assembly enacted as part of the Justice Reinvestment Act ("JRA"). The State argued that the violations constituted "absconding" and were therefore not technical. The Circuit Court for Wicomico County agreed with the State and sentenced Mr. Miller to four years’ imprisonment.
Mr. Miller filed an Application for Leave to Appeal, which this Court granted to address his contention that his sentence is illegal because his probation violations were technical. We hold that Mr. Miller's violations did not constitute absconding and therefore were technical for purposes of the JRA. Accordingly, we will vacate Mr. Miller's sentence and remand for resentencing.
In 2016, Mr. Miller pleaded guilty to one count of constructive criminal contempt for failing to pay child support in the Circuit Court for Wicomico County. The court sentenced him to five years’ imprisonment, with all but 12 months suspended in lieu of 36 months’ probation to be supervised by the Bureau. The court imposed the following conditions of probation:
In March 2018, the State filed a Petition for Violation of Probation, alleging, in pertinent part, that Mr. Miller had violated his probation by failing to make a single child support payment on the arrearage and by failing to submit copies of any job applications during the entire period of his probation. At the violation of probation hearing, the State argued that Mr. Miller's failure to pay child support or to provide copies of job applications were non-technical violations "on the theory that those [violations] constitute an absconding from probation[.]" Mr. Miller did not concede that his violations constituted non-technical violations. His counsel explained that although Mr. Miller had not paid child support or submitted the required job applications, the defense had insufficient information as to whether Mr. Miller had been in contact with his supervising agent since 2016. The court found that Mr. Miller had violated the conditions of his probation, which the court revoked, but it deferred ruling on whether the violations were technical.
At sentencing, Mr. Miller argued that his failure to submit the required job applications was a technical violation. The State disagreed. Although the State acknowledged that the probation order did not require Mr. Miller to meet regularly with his probation officer, it argued that the requirement to submit job applications was the equivalent of required contact with his supervising agent, and that Mr. Miller's failure to submit the applications constituted absconding, a non-technical violation. The court agreed with the State and ruled that the requirement to submit job applications was The court therefore found that Mr. Miller's failure to comply with the requirement to submit job applications constituted absconding, a non-technical violation, and sentenced him to serve his four years of backup time.
In 2016, the General Assembly enacted the JRA, which significantly altered the law governing probation revocation. See 2016 Md. Laws, ch. 515; Crim. Proc. § 6-223. Before the enactment, upon finding a probation violation, a trial court "was authorized to ‘impose any sentence that might have originally been imposed for the crime of which the probationer or defendant was convicted or pleaded nolo contendere.’ " Johnson v. State , 247 Md. App 170, 184, 233 A.3d 275 (2020) (quoting Crim. Proc. § 6-223(d)(2) (2008 Repl., 2016 Supp.)).
The JRA established a category of "technical violations" of probation and provided presumptive limits on the sanctions that courts could impose for such violations. State v. Alexander , 467 Md. 600, 609, 226 A.3d 1 (2020). Doing so "was part of a larger effort to reduce the State's prison population and invest the resulting savings in treatment and recidivism-reducing alternatives to incarceration for low-level offenders." Id. (citing Revised Fiscal and Policy Note for Senate Bill 1005 (June 2, 2016)). The JRA defines a "technical violation" as any violation of probation that does not involve: "(1) an arrest or a summons issued by a commissioner on a statement of charges filed by a law enforcement officer; (2) a violation of a criminal prohibition other than a minor traffic offense; (3) a violation of a no-contact or stay-away order; or (4) absconding." Crim. Proc. § 1-101(q) (). The only one of these categories that the State contends applies to Mr. Miller is absconding, which is defined in § 6-101(b) of the Correctional Services Article as "willfully evading supervision" and "does not include missing a single appointment with a supervising authority."
The JRA establishes "a rebuttable presumption that the limits on the period of incarceration that may be imposed for a technical violation ... are applicable." Crim. Proc. § 6-223(e)(1). Those limits are 15 days’ incarceration for a first technical violation, 30 days’ incarceration for a second technical violation, and 45 days’ incarceration for a third technical violation. Crim. Proc. § 6-223(d)(2)(i). "The presumption may be rebutted if the court finds and states on the record ... that adhering" to the presumptive limits set forth in the statute "would create a risk to public safety, a victim, or a witness."2 Crim. Proc. § 6-223(e)(2).
Mr. Miller contends that the circuit court erred as a matter of law in finding that his failure to provide ten job applications to his supervising agent on a regular basis constituted absconding. The State argues that the court did not err because the requirement to provide the job applications served as the mechanism by which Mr. Miller was to maintain contact with his probation officer, and his failure to comply therefore constituted evasion of supervision.
We ordinarily review a circuit court's decision to revoke probation for an abuse of discretion. Brendoff v. State , 242 Md. App. 90, 108, 213 A.3d 737 (2019). Issues of statutory interpretation, however, are questions of law, which we review without deference. Id. "These two seemingly disparate standards of review are sometimes reconciled with the observation that it is an abuse of discretion for a court to base a decision on an incorrect legal standard." Id . (quoting Rodriguez v. Cooper , 458 Md. 425, 437 n.9, 182 A.3d 853 (2018) ).
In Brendoff , we considered the meaning of "absconding" under § 6-101(b) of the Correctional Services Article in the context of an alleged probation violation resulting from a failure to complete drug treatment as a condition of probation. 242 Md. App. at 107-08, 213 A.3d 737. The State argued that the defendant had absconded from the supervision of two treatment facilities by leaving one facility and failing to attend therapy sessions at a second. Id . The defendant asserted that his failure to complete drug treatment did not equate to "absconding" for purposes of the statute, as there was no evidence that he had "failed to report to his probation agent or ... keep his probation agent apprised of his whereabouts." Id . at 107, 213 A.3d 737.
In reviewing the legislative history of the JRA, we observed that the JRA had adopted the policy recommendations of the report of the Justice Reinvestment Coordinating Council based on three major findings. First, "[a]lmost 60 percent of all prison...
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