Ridenour v. State

• Decision Date: 31 December 2001
• Docket Number: No. 1838,1838
• Citation: 787 A.2d 815,142 Md. App. 1
• Parties: William Dale RIDENOUR, Jr. v. STATE of Maryland.
• Court: Court of Special Appeals of Maryland

787 A.2d 815

142 Md. App. 1

William Dale RIDENOUR, Jr. v. STATE of Maryland.

No. 1838, Sept.Term, 2000.

Court of Special Appeals of Maryland.

December 31, 2001.

Thomas M. Donnelly (Byron L. Warnken and Law Offices of Bonnie L. Warnken, on brief), Baltimore, for appellant.

Annabelle L. Lisic, Asst. Atty. Gen. (J. Joseph Curran, Jr., Atty. Gen., both of Baltimore and Christian Jensen, State's Atty. for Caroline County, Denton, on brief), for appellee.

Argued before SALMON, DEBORAH S. EYLER, and THEODORE G. BLOOM (Ret'd, Specially Assigned), JJ.

DEBORAH S. EYLER, Judge.

In the Circuit Court for Caroline County, William Dale Ridenour, Jr., the appellant, was charged with first degree burglary, several lesser included burglary offenses, and theft over $300. He pled guilty to first degree burglary pursuant to a negotiated plea agreement; as part of that agreement, the State nolle prossed the remaining charges. On August 28, 2000, the appellant was sentenced to a 15-year term, eight years of which were to be served and seven years of which were to be suspended in favor of five years' supervised probation.

The appellant filed an application for leave to appeal, which was granted. He presents three questions for review. We have adopted the State's reworded and combined restatement of those questions:

I. Did the trial court properly sentence the appellant consistent with the terms of the plea agreement?

II. Did the trial court impose sentence based on impermissible considerations?[¹]

For the following reasons, we answer "yes" to both questions. Accordingly, we shall vacate the sentence imposed by the circuit court and remand the case for a new sentencing hearing, by a different judge. We shall recite the pertinent facts in our discussion of the issues.

DISCUSSION

I.

On June 7, 2000, the appellant and the State entered into a written "Plea Agreement" in which the appellant agreed to plead guilty to first degree burglary and the State agreed to nolle pros the remaining charges. Paragraph 9 of the Plea Agreement provides, in pertinent part:

The sentence disposition and/or other judicial action will be: The court will bind itself to a split sentence with initial time to serve not to exceed sentencing guideline range, with the balance of the sentence suspended in favor of supervised probation....

The guideline range was two to eight years. On August 28, 2000, the appellant was sentenced by a circuit court judge (now retired) to a total of 15 years, eight of which were suspended in favor of five years' probation.

The appellant contends that the Plea Agreement was a binding agreement, under Md. Rule 4-243(a)(6), which the court accepted, but the court then failed to impose a sentence in accordance with the terms of the Plea Agreement. Specifically, he argues that, when read in light of Md. Code (1957, 1996 Repl. Vol., 2001 Supp.), Art. 27, § 641A(a), which authorizes split sentences, and the cases interpreting that statute, the Plea Agreement called for a maximum total sentence of two to eight years, part of which would be suspended. Therefore, the 15-year sentence imposed by the trial court was not in accordance with the Plea Agreement.² The State agrees that the Plea Agreement was binding and was accepted by the court, but disagrees that the sentence imposed by the court did not comport with its terms. The State argues that the phrase "initial time to serve" in the Plea Agreement meant the time that the appellant would serve in prison, i.e., the executed portion of the sentence. Thus, the agreement was that the appellant would be sentenced to no less than two and no more than eight years of prison time. There was no agreement, however, about the length of the balance of the sentence—that is, the suspended portion— except, of course, that it could not be for a number of years that when added to the "initial time to serve" would exceed the 20-year statutory maximum penalty for first degree burglary. We agree with the State.

A plea agreement is a contract between the defendant and the State. Ogonowski v. State, 87 Md.App. 173, 182-83, 589 A.2d 513, cert. denied, 323 Md. 474, 593 A.2d 1127 (1991). In determining the meaning of a plea agreement, we apply the principles of contract interpretation. Recently, the Court of Appeals, in Wells v. Chevy Chase Bank, F.S.B., 363 Md. 232, 250, 768 A.2d 620 (2001), summarized those principles as follows:

In determining the meaning of contractual language, Maryland courts have long adhered to the principle of the objective interpretation of contracts. [Auction and Estate Representatives, Inc. v.] Ashton, 354 Md. [333,] 340, 731 A.2d 441 [(1999)]; Calomiris [v. Woods,] 353 Md. 425, 435, 727 A.2d 358 (1999); Adloo v. H.T. Brown Real Estate, Inc., 344 Md. 254, 266, 686 A.2d 298 (1996); Maryland v. Attman/Glazer P.B. Co., 323 Md. 592, 604, 594 A.2d 138 (1991); Cloverland Farms Dairy, Inc. v. Fry, 322 Md. 367, 373, 587 A.2d 527, (1991); Feick v. Thrutchley, 322 Md. 111, 114, 586 A.2d 3 (1991); Aetna Cas. & Sur. Co. v. Insurance Comm'r, 293 Md. 409, 420, 445 A.2d 14 (1982). Under the objective interpretation principle, where the language employed in a contract is unambiguous, a court shall give effect to its plain meaning and there is no need for further construction by the court. Ashton, 354 Md. at 340, 731 A.2d 441; [JBG/Twinbrook Metro Ltd. Pshp. v.] Wheeler, 346 Md. 601, 625, 697 A.2d 898 (1997); Insurance Comm'r, 293 Md. at 420, 445 A.2d 14. "If a written contract is susceptible of a clear, unambiguous and definite understanding ... its construction is for the court to determine." Rothman v. Silver, 245 Md. 292, 296, 226 A.2d 308 (1967).

Further, "the clear and unambiguous language of an agreement will not give way to what the parties thought the agreement meant or was intended to mean." Ashton, 354 Md. at 340, 731 A.2d 441 (citing Adloo, 344 Md. at 266,686 A.2d 298; General Motors Acceptance Corp. v. Daniels, 303 Md. 254, 261, 492 A.2d 1306 (1985); Board of Trustees v. Sherman, 280 Md. 373, 380, 373 A.2d 626, (1977)). See also Beckenheimer's Inc. v. Alameda Assocs. Ltd. Partnership, 327 Md. 536, 611 A.2d 105 (1992)("A party's intention will be held to be what a reasonable person in the position of the other party would conclude the manifestations to mean"). The words employed in the contract are to be given their ordinary and usual meaning, in light of the context within which they are employed. Kasten Constr. Co. v. Rod Enters., Inc., 268 Md. 318, 329, 301 A.2d 12 (1973); Liller v. Logsdon, 261 Md. 367, 370, 275 A.2d 469 (1971); Belmont Clothes, Inc. v. Pleet, 229 Md. 462, 467, 184 A.2d 731, (1962); ST Sys. Corp. v. Maryland Nat'l Bank, 112 Md. App. 20, 34, 684 A.2d 32 (1996).

As we have stated, the appellant maintains that the meaning of the phrase "initial time to serve" in the Plea Agreement must be determined by reference to § 641A, and cases decided thereunder. Section 641A(a)(3) authorizes "split sentences" by providing: "The court may impose a sentence for a specified period and provide that a lesser period be served in confinement, suspend the remainder of the sentence and grant probation...." The appellant points out that in Hanson v. Hughes, 52 Md.App. 246, 447 A.2d 892 (1982), this Court explained with respect to section 641A(a)(3):

The clear import of this is that the power of partial suspension relates only to suspension of execution. The court must impose the full sentence; it may then suspend execution of a part of it. The effect of such a partial suspension is... that: "When a portion of a sentence is suspended it merely means that a person is permitted to serve a portion of his sentence at home. The sentence is the total of the part served at the prison and at home."

Id. at 253, 447 A.2d 892 (quoting Picklesimer v. State, 254 S.C. 596, 176 S.E.2d 536, 538 (1970)).

To be sure, section 641A(a)(3) and the excerpt from Hanson v. Hughes quoted above make plain that a split sentence is one in which the court imposes a total sentence and suspends the execution of a part of it. In other words, a lesser suspended period of years is carved out of the total sentence and is not executed. Yet, the language of the Plea Agreement in this case does not track the language of section 641A(a)(3), so that the phrase "initial term to serve" reasonably could be read to mean the total sentence imposed (that is, both the executed and suspended parts of the sentence). Although that technically is how a split sentence works, the wording of the Plea Agreement addresses the executed and suspended portions of the split sentence separately: "The initial time to serve," which was not to exceed eight years, and "the balance of the sentence," which was to be suspended and for which no time limit was designated. Moreover, in the context of a split sentence, it is clear that "initial time to serve" means the executed part of the sentence, during which the defendant will be serving time in prison.

The appellant's interpretation of the phrase "initial time to serve" not only runs contrary to its meaning in the context of the full paragraph in which it appears, but also would render other language in that paragraph meaningless. Specifically, the phrase "the balance of the sentence suspended in favor of supervised probation" loses meaning under the appellant's reading of the paragraph. If, as the appellant argues, the "initial time to serve" is the total sentence, then there would be no "balance of the sentence" beyond that. The phrases are only both meaningful when the total number of years of the sentence is higher than the number of years in the "initial time to serve"; then, there is a "balance," i.e., a differential of years for which execution of the sentence is suspended, in favor of probation.

The court's sentence of 15 years, of which seven years were to be served in prison with the balance (eight years) suspended, in favor of probation, was not contrary to the terms of the...