Nichols v. State

• Decision Date: 07 November 2018
• Docket Number: No. 8, Sept. Term, 2018,8, Sept. Term, 2018
• Citation: 196 A.3d 457,461 Md. 572
• Parties: Darryl NICHOLS v. STATE of Maryland
• Court: Court of Special Appeals of Maryland

461 Md. 572

196 A.3d 457

Darryl NICHOLS

v.STATE of Maryland

No. 8, Sept. Term, 2018

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

November 7, 2018

Argued by Julie M. Reamy, Assigned Public Defender (Julie M. Reamy, Atty. At Law, LLC, Baltimore, MD), on brief, for Petitioner/Cross-Respondent.

Argued by Sarah Page Pritzlaff, Asst. Atty. Gen. (Brian E. Frosh, Atty. Gen. of Maryland, Baltimore, MD), on brief, for Respondent/Cross-Petitioner.

Argued Before: Barbera, C.J., Greene,^* Adkins, McDonald, Watts, Hotten, Getty, JJ.

Watts, J.

Under the law of the case doctrine, "a decision [that is] rendered in a [prior] appeal ... is binding in a later appeal." Law of the Case , Black's Law Dictionary (10th ed. 2014). In other words, once an appellate court

has ruled upon a question [that is] properly presented [in] an appeal[—]or, if the ruling [is] contrary to a question that could have been raised and argued in that appeal on the then[-existing] state of the record[—]such a ruling becomes the law of the case[,] and is binding on the [parties, the appellate court,] and [lower] courts alike, unless changed ..., and neither the questions [that were] decided[,] nor the ones that could have been raised and decided[,] are available to be raised in a subsequent appeal.

Dep't of Pub. Safety & Corr. Servs. v. Doe, 439 Md. 201, 216-17, 94 A.3d 791, 800 (2014) (cleaned up). The law of the case doctrine's "purpose is to prevent piecemeal litigation[;] without it[,] any party ... could institute as many successive appeals as ... his [or her] imagination could produce new reasons to assign as to why his [or her] side ... should prevail, and the litigation would never terminate." Dabbs v. Anne Arundel Cty., 458 Md. 331, 345 n.15, 182 A.3d 798, 806 n.15 (2018) (cleaned up).

In this case, a defendant unsuccessfully challenged a sentence for conspiracy to commit false imprisonment in an appeal, then challenged the sentence and sought resentencing on the count on a different ground at a resentencing proceeding. We must determine, among other issues, whether the law of the case doctrine barred the trial court from considering the defendant's new challenge to the sentence for conspiracy to commit false imprisonment.

In the Circuit Court for Baltimore City, the State, Respondent/Cross-Petitioner, charged Darryl Nichols, Petitioner/Cross-Respondent, with multiple crimes. After Nichols was convicted, the circuit court sentenced him to: life imprisonment, with all but fifty years suspended, for first-degree felony murder; life imprisonment, with all but fifty concurrent years suspended, for false imprisonment; fifty concurrent years of imprisonment for conspiracy to commit false imprisonment; five concurrent years of imprisonment for extortion; five concurrent years of imprisonment for conspiracy to commit extortion; followed by five years of supervised probation. Thus, Nichols's original aggregate sentence was life imprisonment, with all but fifty years suspended, followed by five years of supervised probation.

Nichols appealed. The Court of Special Appeals vacated Nichols's life sentence, with all but fifty years suspended, for false imprisonment, holding that, under this case's circumstances, the maximum sentence for false imprisonment was thirty years of imprisonment. See Darryl Nichols v. State, No. 169, Sept. Term, 2014, 2016 WL 1622079, at *5 (Md. Ct. Spec. App. Feb. 4, 2016).¹ The Court of Special Appeals also vacated Nichols's convictions for first-degree felony murder and conspiracy to commit extortion, affirmed the rest of his convictions and sentences, and remanded for resentencing as to false imprisonment. See Nichols, 2016 WL 1622079, at *6. The Court of Special Appeals rejected Nichols's contention that his sentence for conspiracy to commit false imprisonment must be vacated because conspiracy to commit false imprisonment is a lesser-included offense of conspiracy to commit kidnapping. See id. at *5 n.5.

At a resentencing proceeding, Nichols's counsel challenged his sentence for conspiracy to commit false imprisonment on a different ground—namely, that his sentence for conspiracy to commit false imprisonment violated Md. Code Ann., Crim. Law (2002, 2012 Repl. Vol.) ("CR") § 1-202, which states: "The punishment of a person who is convicted of conspiracy may not exceed the maximum punishment for the crime that the person conspired to commit." Nichols's counsel contended that, under CR § 1-202, given that Nichols's sentence for false imprisonment could not exceed thirty years, neither could his sentence for conspiracy to commit false imprisonment.

The circuit court reasoned, however, that it lacked the authority to resentence Nichols for conspiracy to commit false imprisonment, as the Court of Special Appeals had remanded for resentencing only as to false imprisonment. The circuit court resentenced Nichols to thirty years of imprisonment for false imprisonment, consecutive to the existing fifty-year sentence for conspiracy to commit false imprisonment. Nichols's new aggregate sentence was eighty years of imprisonment. Nichols's counsel argued that, by making Nichols's new sentence for false imprisonment consecutive to the existing sentence for conspiracy to commit false imprisonment, the circuit court had impermissibly increased his aggregate sentence above the original aggregate sentence of life imprisonment with all but fifty years suspended. The circuit court was unpersuaded.

For comparison of Nichols's original sentences to the status of his sentences after the resentencing proceeding, we set forth the following table:

Crime: Original Sentence: Status After Resentencing
                Proceeding
                First-degree         Life imprisonment, with all but        N/A (conviction vacated)
                felony murder        fifty years suspended
                False                Life imprisonment, with all but        Thirty consecutive years of
                imprisonment         fifty concurrent years suspended       imprisonment
                Conspiracy to        Fifty concurrent years of              Fifty years of imprisonment
                commit false         imprisonment
                imprisonment
                Extortion            Five concurrent years of               Remained the same
                                     imprisonment
                Conspiracy to        Five concurrent years of               N/A (conviction vacated)
                commit extortion     imprisonment
                                     Life imprisonment, with all but
                Aggregate            fifty years suspended, followed by     Eighty years of imprisonment
                sentence:            five years of supervised probation
                

Nichols appealed again. The Court of Special Appeals determined that the law of the case doctrine barred the circuit court from considering Nichols's second challenge to his sentence for conspiracy to commit false imprisonment. See Darryl Nichols v. State, No. 1277, Sept. Term, 2016, 2017 WL 6492681, at *3 (Md. Ct. Spec. App. Dec. 19, 2017). But, the Court of Special Appeals agreed with Nichols that, under Md. Code Ann., Cts. & Jud. Proc. (1974, 2013 Repl. Vol.) ("CJ") § 12-702(b) —which states that, generally, on remand, a trial court "may not impose a sentence more severe than the sentence previously imposed for the offense"—the circuit court had impermissibly increased his aggregate sentence by making his new sentence for false imprisonment consecutive to his existing sentence for conspiracy to commit false imprisonment for a total of eighty years of active incarceration. See Nichols, 2017 WL 6492681, at *6. The Court of Special Appeals vacated Nichols's sentence for false imprisonment, affirmed in all other respects, and remanded with instructions to impose a new sentence for false imprisonment that would not result in a new aggregate sentence of more than fifty years of active incarceration. See id.

Before us, Nichols contends that the Court of Special Appeals erred in concluding that the law of the case doctrine barred the circuit court from considering at the resentencing proceeding his second challenge to his sentence for conspiracy to commit false imprisonment. Nichols argues that his fifty-year sentence for conspiracy to commit false imprisonment violates CR § 1-202 because it exceeds the thirty-year maximum sentence that he received for false imprisonment. The State disagrees with Nichols, and asserts that the Court of Special Appeals erred in determining that the circuit court had impermissibly increased Nichols's sentence by imposing a new aggregate sentence of eighty years of imprisonment where Nichols had been originally sentenced to life imprisonment with all but fifty years suspended.

Below, in Part I, consistent with existing case law, we hold that the law of the case doctrine does not bar a trial court from considering under Maryland Rule 4-345(a) an issue as to a sentence's legality that an appellate court has not resolved. Here, the Court of Special Appeals erred in concluding that the law of the case doctrine barred the circuit court from considering Nichols's second challenge to his sentence for conspiracy to commit false imprisonment, as the Court of Special Appeals did not resolve that challenge in the first appeal.

In Part II, addressing the merits of that challenge, we hold that, under CR § 1-202, where a defendant is convicted of both a crime and conspiracy to commit that crime, a trial court cannot impose for the conspiracy a sentence that exceeds the maximum sentence that the trial court imposed for the crime that the person conspired to commit. The plain language of CR § 1-202 requires this result. And, although there is no ambiguity as to CR § 1-202's language, its legislative history confirms the General Assembly's intent that a defendant's punishment for conspiracy to commit a crime not exceed the punishment that the defendant received for the crime that the defendant conspired to commit. Here, given that the circuit court sentenced Nichols to thirty years of imprisonment for false imprisonment, the circuit court could not impose a sentence of more than thirty years of imprisonment for conspiracy to commit...