Pack v. State
| Decision Date | 11 August 2017 |
| Docket Number | No. 1198,1198 |
| Parties | GORDON PACK v. STATE OF MARYLAND |
| Court | Court of Special Appeals of Maryland |
Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County
Case Nos. 02-K-97-001328 & 02-K-97-001344
UNREPORTED
Eyler, Deborah S., Beachley, Shaw Geter, JJ.
Opinion by Beachley, J.
*This is an unreported opinion, and it may not be cited in any paper, brief, motion, or other document filed in this Court or any other Maryland Court as either precedent within the rule of stare decisis or as persuasive authority. Md. Rule 1-104.
In October 1980, appellant Gordon Pack Jr. pled guilty to two counts of first-degree rape in the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County. The circuit court sentenced appellant to life imprisonment on each count, concurrent. Following various post-sentencing filings, in April 2016, appellant filed a motion to correct illegal sentence in the circuit court, arguing that recent United States Supreme Court precedent rendered his sentence unconstitutional. Following a hearing on July 28, 2016, the circuit court denied appellant's motion. Appellant presents the following issue for our review:
Are life sentences for non-homicide crimes committed by a juvenile unconstitutional because Maryland law does not afford the offender a meaningful opportunity to obtain release based on demonstrated maturity and rehabilitation, and instead vests the Governor with unlimited and standardless discretion to deny release on parole?
We hold that because appellant cannot allege that he has suffered a cognizable harm, he lacks standing to maintain this appeal. Accordingly, we affirm the circuit court's decision.
We choose not to discuss the lurid details of the underlying offenses that led to appellant's convictions. It suffices to say that appellant committed the abovementioned offenses as a fifteen-year-old. On October 7, 1980, following appellant's guilty pleas to two counts of first-degree rape, the circuit court sentenced appellant to two concurrent life sentences, and appellant has remained incarcerated since. Almost thirty years after appellant received his life sentences, the United States Supreme Court held it unconstitutional for a state to sentence a juvenile nonhomicide offender to life without the possibility of parole, depriving that juvenile of a "meaningful opportunity to obtain releasebased on demonstrated maturity and rehabilitation." Graham v. Florida, 560 U.S. 48, 75 (2010). The Supreme Court made clear, however, that a state need not guarantee eventual freedom to such an offender. Id.
In response to Graham and its progeny, appellant filed a Motion to Correct Illegal Sentence and Request for Hearing on April 6, 2016. On July 28, 2016, the circuit court held a hearing on appellant's motion. At the hearing, appellant called Ruth Ogle, the program manager for the Maryland Parole Commission (the "Commission"), as his only witness. Ogle testified that since 1994, the Governor has paroled only one inmate sentenced to life. Instead, Ogle explained that when the Commission recommends parole to the Governor, the Governor will typically commute the life sentence to a fixed term of years. Ogle did not testify in any specific regard to appellant's case, and did not know whether appellant had yet had a parole hearing, or whether the Commission had recommended appellant for parole since 1980. At the conclusion of the hearing, the trial court stated:
After reviewing the parties' pleadings, the testimony today as well as the case law that was provided by the parties, I am going to deny the Defendant's Motion to Correct the Illegal Sentence. I do not believe that the cases cited have reached this issue at this point. You have indicated it is an open question. And based upon my review, I do not think they apply to a situation as factually different as this or the mere fact that the Governor has an approval right in our system would invalidate all those sentences.
Appellant timely appealed.
Our analysis begins with a brief overview of the parole process for nonhomicide offenders sentenced to life. In Maryland, the Commission "has the exclusive power to . . . authorize the parole of an individual sentenced under the laws of the State to any correctional facility in the State" as well as to "hear cases for parole or administrative release in which . . . the inmate is serving a sentence of life imprisonment[.]" Md. Code , § 7-205(a)(1), (3)(iii) of the Correctional Services Article ("CS"). "[A]n inmate who has been sentenced to life imprisonment is not eligible for parole consideration until the inmate has served 15 years or the equivalent of 15 years considering the allowances for diminution of the inmate's term of confinement."1 CS § 7-301(d)(1). Parole for such an inmate is governed by CS § 7-301(d)(4), which provides that, "if eligible for parole under this subsection, an inmate serving a term of life imprisonment may only be paroled with the approval of the Governor." For those serving life sentences, the Commission can only review and make recommendations to the Governor. CS § 7-206(3)(i).
In the wake of Graham and its progeny, the Commission amended its regulations in COMAR 12.08.01.18A(3) (amended October 24, 2016), in an apparent attempt to complywith Graham's mandates regarding juvenile offenders.2 COMAR 12.08.01.18A(3) now reads as follows:
Put simply, in Maryland, once a juvenile nonhomicide offender sentenced to life has served fifteen years (or the equivalent period with applicable diminution credits), that offender becomes eligible for parole. If the Commission, considering the new factors setforth in COMAR 12.08.01.18A(3) recommends parole for such an offender, the Governor has the exclusive power to decide whether to grant or deny parole.3
Appellant argues that Maryland's parole system violates the Eighth Amendment in two ways. First, appellant focuses the majority of his brief on the argument that the Governor possesses unfettered discretion to deny parole to an inmate serving a life sentence without having to consider the juvenile's "demonstrated maturity and rehabilitation, or the distinctive attributes of youth"—standards the Supreme Court in Graham required the States to explore when considering parole for juvenile nonhomicide offenders. Appellant notes that neither CS § 7-301(d)(4), nor any other statutory provision currently requires the Governor to consider any particular standards in making a parole decision. This unfettered discretion to deny parole, appellant argues, renders CS § 7-301(d)(4) unconstitutional as applied to juvenile nonhomicide offenders such as himself, who were sentenced to life. Secondly, in one-and-a-half pages of his thirty-eight page brief, appellant alleges that the applicable COMAR regulations fail to comply with Graham. Specifically, appellant argues that COMAR 12.08.01.18A(3) is unconstitutional because it does not require theCommission to treat age as a mitigating factor, and that the Commission need not consider whether the offender has reformed.
The Court of Appeals "has emphasized, time after time, that [its] strong and established policy is to decide constitutional issues only when necessary." VNA Hospice of Md. v. Dep't of Health and Mental Hygiene, 406 Md. 584, 604 (2008) (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting Burch v. United Cable, 391 Md. 687, 695 (2006)). The Supreme Court has explained that, to have constitutional standing, a party "must have suffered an 'injury in fact'—an invasion of a legally protected interest which is . . . actual or imminent, not 'conjectural' or 'hypothetical[.]'" Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560 (1992) (internal citations and quotation marks omitted).
Pursuant to Maryland's parole procedures, the Commission must first recommend appellant for parole before the Governor can consider whether to ultimately grant parole. Here, appellant does not claim that the Commission has recommended him for parole, and it is unclear whether this will ever occur. In the absence of a recommendation for parole by the Commission, there is no need to decide a constitutional issue regarding the Governor's alleged unfettered discretion in the parole process. Furthermore, to the extent appellant claims that the factors contained in COMAR 12.08.01.18A(3) may be applied in unconstitutional ways, he does not allege that the Commission has actually applied thesenew factors in his case,4 nor does he provide us with any basis—aside from his own speculation—to support the notion that they will be applied unconstitutionally. Appellant's claims, in the parlance of Lujan, are "conjectural" or "hypothetical."
Appellant also lacks standing to argue that Maryland's parole system is unconstitutional as applied to all juvenile nonhomicide offenders. The United States Supreme Court has stated that, "As a general rule, if there is no constitutional defect in the application of the statute to...
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