Richmond v. State

• Decision Date: 01 September 1991
• Docket Number: No. 59,59
• Citation: 604 A.2d 483,326 Md. 257
• Parties: Guy Lancaster RICHMOND v. STATE of Maryland. ,
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

Page 257

326 Md. 257

604 A.2d 483

Guy Lancaster RICHMOND v. STATE of Maryland.

No. 59, Sept. Term, 1991.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

April 13, 1992.

Michael J. Moran, Assigned Public Defender, Towson, for appellant.

Kathryn Grill Graeff, Asst. Atty. Gen. (J. Joseph Curran, Jr., Atty. Gen., both on brief), Baltimore, for appellee.

Argued before MURPHY, C.J., and ELDRIDGE, RODOWSKY, McAULIFFE, CHASANOW, KARWACKI and ROBERT M. BELL, JJ.

KARWACKI, Judge.

This case concerns the protection afforded by the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment against multiple punishments for the same offense.

I.

On February 5, 1987, a fire broke out in a two story apartment building located at Dallas Place in Temple Hills. The building contained approximately ten units. The fire originated in the ground floor apartment of Martha Gobert and quickly spread to the apartment located across a common hallway, occupied by Wanda Pfeiffer, and to the apartment located above the Gobert unit, occupied by Evelyn Saunders. All three apartment units were substantially damaged before the fire could be extinguished.

An official investigation of the fire disclosed that Guy L. Richmond, Jr., the appellant, had arranged for three of his confederates to set fire to Gobert's apartment. Richmond and Gobert worked for the same employer, and Richmond recently had been suspended from his job because of a work place grievance filed against him by Gobert.

On October 19, 1987, after a bench trial before the Circuit Court for Prince George's County, Richmond was convicted of three separate counts of an indictment, charging violation of Maryland Code (1957, 1982 Repl.Vol.) Article 27, § 6 ¹ for procuring the burning of the "dwelling houses" of Gobert, Pfeiffer, and Saunders. Thereafter, he was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment on each count with the terms to run consecutively. The Court of Special Appeals affirmed his convictions and sentences in an unreported opinion filed on December 22, 1988.

On March 30, 1990, Richmond sought post conviction relief pursuant to Md.Code (1957, 1987 Repl.Vol.) Art. 27, §§ 645A-645J, alleging, inter alia, that he had been denied effective assistance of appellate counsel in his appeal from his convictions and sentences because no challenge based upon the Double Jeopardy Clause was made to the multiple sentences imposed upon him for what he asserts was a single offense. The hearing court agreed that Richmond had been denied effective assistance of appellate counsel and granted him a belated appeal on the double jeopardy issue. Such an appeal was filed to the Court of Special Appeals. We issued a writ of certiorari on our own motion, prior to argument before the intermediate appellate court, to consider the important issue presented by the belated appeal.

II.

Richmond contends that the burning of three apartments was the result of one criminal act, that it is but one offense proscribed by Art. 27, § 6, and that the imposition of multiple sentences for this one offense violates double jeopardy principles. The Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment ² protects against a second prosecution for the same offense after acquittal, a second prosecution for the same offense after conviction, and multiple punishments for the same offense. United States v. Halper, 490 U.S. 435, 440, 109 S.Ct. 1892, 1897, 104 L.Ed.2d 487, 496 (1989); North Carolina v. Pearce, 395 U.S. 711, 717, 89 S.Ct. 2072, 2076, 23 L.Ed.2d 656, 664-65 (1969); Randall Book Corp. v. State, 316 Md. 315, 323, 558 A.2d 715, 719 (1989); Brown v. State, 311 Md. 426, 431, 535 A.2d 485, 487 (1988). Because Richmond was subjected to only one prosecution, his contention deals with the prohibition against multiple punishments for the same offense. Multiple punishment challenges generally arise in two different sets of circumstances: those involving two separate statutes embracing the same criminal conduct, and those involving a single statute creating multiple units of prosecution for conduct occurring as a part of the same criminal transaction. Gore v. United States, 357 U.S. 386, 393-94, 78 S.Ct. 1280, 1285, 2 L.Ed.2d 1405, 1411 (1958) (Warren, C.J., dissenting); Randall Book Corp., 316 Md. at 324, 558 A.2d at 720; Brown, 311 Md. at 431, 535 A.2d at 487. Richmond's contention in the instant case is of the second type.

Whether a particular course of conduct constitutes one or more violations of a single statutory offense depends upon the appropriate unit of prosecution of the offense and this is ordinarily determined by reference to legislative intent. Brown, 311 Md. at 432, 535 A.2d at 488. See Missouri v. Hunter, 459 U.S. 359, 103 S.Ct. 673, 74 L.Ed.2d 535 (1983); Ladner v. United States, 358 U.S. 169, 79 S.Ct. 209, 3 L.Ed.2d 199 (1958); Bell v. United States, 349 U.S 81, 75 S.Ct. 620, 99 L.Ed. 905 (1955); United States v. Universal Corp., 344 U.S. 218, 73 S.Ct. 227, 97 L.Ed. 260 (1952); Ebeling v. Morgan, 237 U.S. 625, 35 S.Ct. 710, 59 L.Ed. 1151 (1915). See also Satterfield v. State, 325 Md. 148, 599 A.2d 1165 (1992); Dickerson v. State, 324 Md. 163, 596 A.2d 648 (1991).

When we seek to ascertain and effectuate legislative intent, "we look first to the words of the statute, read in light of the full context in which they appear, and in light of external manifestations of intent or general purpose available through other evidence." Cunningham v. State, 318 Md. 182, 185, 567 A.2d 126, 127 (1989). See State v. Bricker, 321 Md. 86, 92, 581 A.2d 9, 12 (1990); Davis v. State, 319 Md. 56, 60, 570 A.2d 855, 857 (1990); Kaczorowski v. City of Baltimore, 309 Md. 505, 513, 525 A.2d 628, 632 (1987). In doing so, we give the language of the statute its natural and ordinary signification, bearing in mind the statutory aim and objective. Harford County v. University, 318 Md. 525, 529, 569 A.2d 649, 651 (1990); NCR Corp. v. Comptroller, 313 Md. 118, 124-25, 544 A.2d 764, 767 (1988); Boulden v. Mayor, 311 Md. 411, 414, 535 A.2d 477, 479 (1988); In Re Ramont K., 305 Md. 482, 484, 505 A.2d 507, 508 (1986). Moreover, we approach the analysis of the language from a "commonsensical," rather than a technical perspective, United States v. Universal Corp., 344 U.S. at 221, 73 S.Ct. at 229, 97 L.Ed. at 264; Dickerson, 324 Md. at 171, 596 A.2d at 652, always seeking to avoid giving the statute a strained interpretation or one that reaches an absurd result. Potter v. Bethesda Fire Dep't, 309 Md. 347, 353, 524 A.2d 61, 64 (1987); Schweitzer v. Brewer, 280 Md. 430, 438-39, 374 A.2d 347, 352 (1977). We must assume that the words of the statute defining the crime of unlawfully burning property have the meaning naturally given them in ordinary usage, in the absence of anything to indicate contrary intent; there being no room for construction, if the language is plain and unambiguous. Wimpling v. State, 171 Md. 362, 370, 189 A. 248, 252 (1937).

It is manifest from the language employed in Art. 27, § 6 that the General Assembly intended the unit of prosecution to be "any dwelling house" burned. The issue before us is not thereby resolved, however, because the term "dwelling house" is not defined in the statute; we must determine whether each individual apartment unit burned constitutes a separate dwelling house.

By Ch. 138 of the Acts of 1809 the Legislature prescribed punishments for various common law crimes. Section 5 of that Act dealt with the crime of arson, which at common law is the willful and malicious burning of the dwelling house of another, either by night or by day. R. Perkins and R. Boyce, Criminal Law, 273-74 (3d ed. 1982); 3 C. Torcia, Wharton's Criminal Law, § 345 (14th ed. 1980). It merely referred to the common law crime and provided for the punishment of death or, alternatively, a maximum of 20 years in the penitentiary. Ch. 138, § 5 of the Acts of 1809. See Cochrane v. State, 6 Md. 400, 405 (1854) (The Act of 1809, ch. 138, only provides for the punishment of the crime of arson without defining it; the crime is therefore left as it stood at common law). In 1904, the General Assembly slightly expanded upon the common law definition of arson by making illegal the burning of one's own dwelling house if the intent in burning it was to injure or defraud. Ch. 267, § 6 of the Acts of 1904.

The first substantive attempt to codify the elements of the crime of arson occurred in 1929. Ch. 255, § 6 of the Acts of 1929. The wording of the statute in force today, Art. 27, § 6, remains unchanged since that time. ³ While retaining the common law definition of arson in Art. 27, § 6, other sections of Art. 27 have been added by the Legislature to cover burning of buildings not specified in § 6, burning of personal property of another, burning goods with the intent to defraud an insurer, attempted arson, and other criminal burnings. Art. 27, §§ 7-10. The language of Art. 27, § 6 prohibiting the burning of a "dwelling house," however, which was adopted from the common law, has not been varied.

Thus, Maryland has retained the common law definition of arson in Art. 27, § 6. ⁴ Hannah v. State, 3 Md.App. 325, 329-30 n. 1, 239 A.2d 124, 127 n. 1, cert. denied, 251 Md. 749 (1968). Sir William Blackstone explained the reasons why arson is considered such a serious crime:

"ARSON, ab ardendo, is the malicious and wilful burning of the house or outhouses of another man. This is an offence of very great malignity, and much more pernicious to the public than simple theft: because, first, it is an offence against that right, of habitation, which is acquired by the law of nature as well as by the laws of society; next, because of the terror and confusion that necessarily attends it; and, lastly, because in simple theft the thing stolen only changes it's [sic] master, but still remains in esse for the benefit of the public, whereas by burning the very substance is absolutely destroyed."

4 W. Blackstone, Commentaries

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Thus, at common law, arson is an offense against the...