Palacorolle v. State

• Decision Date: 06 July 1965
• Docket Number: No. 353,353
• Citation: 211 A.2d 828,239 Md. 416
• Parties: Paul PALACOROLLE v. STATE of Maryland.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

Page 416

239 Md. 416

211 A.2d 828

Paul PALACOROLLE v. STATE of Maryland.

No. 353.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

July 6, 1965.

Stanley Alpert, Baltimore, for appellant.

Julius A. Romano, Asst. Atty. Gen. (Thomas B. Finan, Atty. Gen., and Charles E. Moylan, Jr., State's Atty. for Baltimore City, Baltimore, on the brief), for appellee.

Before PRESCOTT, C. J., and HAMMOND, MARBURY, SYBERT, and OPPENHEIMER, JJ.

OPPENHEIMER, Judge.

The appellant, an eighteen year old defendant with a tenth grade education, was tried before Judge Harlan, sitting without a jury, in the Criminal Court of Baltimore, under indictments charging him with resisting arrest and disorderly conduct. Prior to a plea of guilty to both indictments, the Clerk read the indictments aloud to the appellant. Thereafter the appellant offered his pleas of guilty, whereupon Judge Harlan advised him of his right to the appointment of counsel at the expense of the State. The appellant refused. Judge Harlan advised him that a plea of guilty to resisting arrest authorizes the imposition of any fine or sentence not cruel and inhuman. The appellant responded that he understood his right to the appointment of counsel and that he understood that his plea of guilty to resisting arrest could result in such fine or sentence. The State then inquired whether any promises of leniency or other promises were made to the appellant, to which he replied in the negative.

The State told the court that on October 3, 1964, at approximately 11:00 p. m., Officer Harold Stein, detailed in plain clothes to East Baltimore Street for the purpose of apprehending any possible window breakers or plunderers of automobiles, observed the appellant in a dazed condition walking past him into the doorway of a shop, try the door, walk away and try the door of an automobile at the curb, walk to a parking lot and attempt to get into an open car; whereupon Officer Stein approached the appellant and identified himself as a police officer, to which the appellant replied, 'I fought police before.' Officer Stein attempted to question him as to his actions; the appellant started yelling and using profane language; the officer placed him under arrest and, after making a call for the police wagon, the appellant said, 'You're not going to take me in * * * I'm going to get away from you.' The appellant made an unsuccessful attempt to break away. After the arrival of the police wagon, Officer Stein climbed in with the appellant and while enroute to the police station the appellant lunged at Officer Stein attempting to strike and kick him. He was subdued by Officer Stein and another officer.

The appellant took the stand and testified that he remembered opening the car door and a police officer coming up to him and grabbing him by the belt of his pants. The officer asked him 'what I was doing. I turned around and then I come to my senses. I didn't know what I was doing. So the police officer said, 'You got any identification?' So I took my wallet out of my pocket. He grabbed by wallet out of my hand, looking at it. I had a newspaper clipping in my wallet about when I got in trouble with a police officer. I got sentenced to sixty days over the City jail. He said, 'you like to fight police, huh?' He started pulling me down to the call-box. I pulled back on him and he grabbed me and took me down to the wagon and called the wagon. The wagon came and they threw me inside. I didn't lunge at him or anything as the statement says but I did resist when he pulled me down to the call-box. I pulled away from him.'

Upon questioning by the court, the appellant testified that he had been drinking heavily. He had a juvenile record, which included acts of violence. In 1963, when he was past the juvenile age, he had been sentenced to not more than eighteen months for auto larceny. The sentence was suspended, and he was sent to the Maryland Training School, but, after an escape from that School, served some months in a penal institution. In 1964, he had had three convictions for disorderly conduct, and, at the time of the crimes here involved, was on probation. Despite his youth, he was no stranger to the processes of the criminal law.

The appellant was sentenced to two years on the charge of resisting arrest and sixty days on the disorderly conduct charge, the sentences to run concurrently.

The appellant contends that his age, limited formal education and his intoxicated condition at the time of the arrest together with his version of the facts demonstrate that he could not have had the requisite understanding of the nature of the charges against him to have intelligently entered his pleas of guilty, nor understood the consequences of proceeding without benefit of counsel. A youthful defendant of limited education may nonetheless demonstrate to the satisfaction of the court that he possesses the requisite understanding of the nature of acts sufficient to amount to a knowing and voluntary waiver of constitutional protections. Bean v. State, 234 Md. 432, 199 A.2d 773 (1964) and cases therein cited. See also Cooper v. State, 231 Md. 248, 253, 189 A.2d 620 (1963). The question of whether there has been a knowing and voluntary waiver is largely a question of fact to be determined as a preliminary matter by the trial judge. Johnson v....