Parks v. State

• Decision Date: 31 January 1980
• Docket Number: No. 23,23
• Parties: Joseph W. PARKS v. STATE of Maryland.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

Page 11

287 Md. 11

410 A.2d 597

Joseph W. PARKS v. STATE of Maryland.

No. 23.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

Jan. 31, 1980.

George E. Burns, Jr., Asst. Public Defender, Baltimore (Alan H. Murrell, Public Defender, Baltimore, on the brief), for appellant.

F. Ford Loker, Asst. Atty. Gen., Baltimore (Stephen H. Sachs, Atty. Gen., Baltimore, on the brief), for appellee.

Argued before MURPHY, C. J., and SMITH, DIGGES, ELDRIDGE, ORTH, ^* COLE and DAVIDSON, JJ.

COLE, Judge.

Once again we are presented with a set of circumstances where we must determine if the defendant's claim of double jeopardy prevents the State from trying him for the same offense a second time.

The facts are not in dispute. The defendant, Joseph W. Parks, while an inmate at the Maryland Correctional Camp Center, escaped, and a detainer based on an indictment charging escape was lodged against him. After being apprehended and returned to prison, he filed a Request for Disposition of Intrastate Detainer pursuant to Maryland Code (1957, 1976 Repl. Vol., 1978 Cum.Supp.), Art. 27, § 616S which required that he be tried within 120 days after receipt of the request by the proper authorities. He was not in fact brought to trial until 124 days later. He moved to dismiss the indictment due to the State's failure to comply with the time strictures of § 616S. The Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County denied the motion, found the defendant guilty of escape and sentenced him to six months imprisonment, consecutive to the sentence then being served. The defendant appealed and the Court of Special Appeals reversed and remanded the case in an unreported opinion, Parks v. State, No. 75, September Term, 1977, filed October 21, 1977. The circuit court pursuant to this decision dismissed the indictment.

The Grand Jury, shortly thereafter, returned a new indictment charging the defendant with the same offense. He moved to dismiss this indictment on grounds of double jeopardy. The Circuit Court of Anne Arundel County denied his motion and he appealed again to the Court of Special Appeals which affirmed the circuit court. Parks v. State, 41 Md.App. 381, 397 A.2d 212 (1979).

In its opinion the intermediate appellate court first traced in great detail the relevant legislative history of § 616S and pointed out that the 1976 amendments to this section provided that dismissal caused by the State's failure to comply with the applicable time limits was without prejudice to the State to reindict. It concluded that the only question to be decided was whether a retrial following dismissal, pursuant to the statute, violates the double jeopardy clause. That court held that there was no such violation since jeopardy did not attach at the first trial for the reason that the trial court, by the express terms of § 616S(e), ¹ was then without jurisdiction to hear the case. It relied on the proposition that a judgment entered by a court having no jurisdiction is absolutely void and is, therefore, no bar to subsequent indictment and trial in a court which has jurisdiction of the offense.

We granted certiorari limited solely to the question of

whether retrial of appellant upon a new indictment after dismissal of the charge arising from the original detainer because the State failed to bring the escape charge to trial within the statutory period under Md.Code (1957 Ed., 1978 Cum.Supp.), Article 27, § 616S, would place him twice in jeopardy for the same offense.

Before us the defendant contends that the lower court erred in finding that jurisdiction as used in § 616S is synonymous with jurisdiction which enables a court to exercise the power to hear a case. He argues that having once been tried, convicted and sentenced jeopardy attached and that he cannot be made to stand trial for the same offense again.

The State, on the other hand, contends that while this Court could affirm on the theory that jeopardy did not attach because the trial court was without jurisdiction, the sounder approach is that even if jeopardy did attach to the first trial, retrial is not barred because the defendant's conviction was reversed by his own choice.

The prohibition against placing an accused twice in jeopardy for the same offense is rooted in the common law of this State and in addition is mandated by virtue of the fifth and fourteenth amendments to the United States Constitution. Benton v. Maryland, 395 U.S. 784, 89 S.Ct. 2056, 23 L.Ed.2d 707 (1969); Block v. State, 286 Md. 266, 407 A.2d 320 (1979); State v. Shaw, 282 Md. 231, 383 A.2d 1104 (1978); Parojinog v. State, 282 Md. 256, 384 A.2d 86 (1978).

The basic premise for enforcing the prohibition is to prevent the State from making repeated attempts to convict an individual, thereby subjecting him to the hazards of trial, embarrassment, expense, and anxiety as well as enhancing the possibility that even if innocent, he may still be found guilty. In accordance with this premise the United States Supreme Court and this Court have applied certain constitutional guarantees protecting the accused against unwarranted retrial.

These guarantees consist of constitutional protection against (1) a second prosecution for the same offense after acquittal; (2) a second prosecution for the same offense after conviction; (3) and multiple punishment for the same offense. North Carolina v. Pearce, 395 U.S. 711, 89 S.Ct. 2072, 23 L.Ed.2d 656 (1969). It is this second ground of protection that the defendant claims was denied him in the instant case. He argues that he was placed in jeopardy by the trial court which had jurisdiction over the subject matter and of his person. He contends that the holding of the Court of Special Appeals that the trial court had lost its jurisdiction, that jeopardy never attached, and that its judgment was a nullity and void is unsupported by the law. We shall now determine what, if any, merit there is in these contentions.

Since United States v. Ball, 163 U.S. 662, 16 S.Ct. 1192, 41 L.Ed. 300 (1896) was decided, it has been settled that the second ground of protection imposes no limitation upon the power of a competent tribunal to retry a defendant who has succeeded in getting his first conviction set aside. In Ball, three men were charged with the murder of one William T. Box. The jury returned a verdict of guilty against two and not guilty against the third, M. F. Ball. The two convicted defendants appealed and won a reversal on the ground that the indictment was defective, in that it failed to state when and where Box died. All three defendants were retried; all three pleaded former jeopardy; all three were convicted.

The Supreme Court extended the first protection guaranteed by the fifth amendment to Ball who had been acquitted in his prior trial, stating that

we are unable to resist the conclusion that a general verdict of acquittal upon the issue of not guilty to an indictment undertaking to charge murder, and not objected to before the verdict as insufficient in that respect, is a bar to a second indictment for the same killing. (163 U.S. at 669, 16 S.Ct. at 1194).

The Supreme Court went on to hold that

(t)he verdict of acquittal was final and could not be reviewed, on error or otherwise, without putting him twice in jeopardy, and thereby violating the Constitution. (Id. at 671, 16 S.Ct. at 1195). ²

As to the convictions of Ball's two confederates the Supreme Court affirmed. The Court explained that

(t)heir plea of former conviction cannot be sustained, because upon a writ of error sued out by themselves, the judgment and sentence against them were reversed, and the indictment ordered to be dismissed. . . . (I)t is quite clear that a defendant, who procures a judgment against him upon an indictment to be set aside, may be tried anew upon the same indictment, or upon another indictment, for the same offense of which he had been convicted. (Id. at 671-72, 16 S.Ct. at 1195).

Ball, then, makes clear that a defendant who successfully challenges his conviction may be retried by a court of competent jurisdiction, the rationale being that the defendant wiped the slate clean and the parties may start anew. Not only is the right of the defendant to an error-free trial protected but the societal interest that the guilty should be punished is preserved.

The Court of Special Appeals did not find this teaching of Ball applicable. The Court interpreted the statute as ousting the trial court of jurisdiction to try the defendant on a charge of escape. This the statute did not do; it sought to restrain the trial court from trying the defendant under that particular charging document. The court misconceived jurisdiction as it pertains to proceedings involving claims of double jeopardy.

A trial court has jurisdiction for purposes of double jeopardy when it has jurisdiction over the subject matter and the person of the defendant. A statute which seeks to limit the period in which a court should exercise its authority does not deprive it of jurisdiction for purposes of double jeopardy considerations. Thus, if the court exercises its power outside the prescribed period, its judgment is not thereby rendered void but only voidable. The defendant is subjected to the full force of the judgment until he attacks its validity. As the United States Supreme Court said in Benton v. Maryland, 395 U.S. at 796, 89 S.Ct. 2056, 2064, 23 L.Ed.2d 707, the defendant "could quietly have served out his sentence under this 'void' indictment had he not appealed his burglary conviction. Only by accepting the option of a new trial could the indictment be set aside; at worst the indictment would seem only voidable at the defendant's option, not absolutely void."

We have in recent decisions of this Court attempted to clarify the meaning of jurisdiction for purposes of applying the principles of double jeopardy. Block v. State, supra; Parojinog v. State, supra. In Parojinog petitions were filed in the juvenile division of the District Court of Maryland (...