Smith v. State of Maryland
| Decision Date | 17 June 1966 |
| Docket Number | No. 10507.,10507. |
| Citation | 362 F.2d 763 |
| Parties | James Francis SMITH, Appellant, v. STATE OF MARYLAND, Appellee. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit |
Morris Lee Kaplan, Baltimore, Md. (Court-assigned counsel), (Michael Lee Kaplan, Baltimore, Md., on brief), for appellant.
Morton A. Sacks, Asst. Atty. Gen. of Maryland (Thomas B. Finan, Atty. Gen. of Maryland, and Robert F. Sweeney, Asst. Atty. Gen. of Maryland, on brief), for appellee.
Thomas S. Currier, Charlottesville, Va., amicus curiae.
Before HAYNSWORTH, Chief Judge, BRYAN, Circuit Judge, and HEMPHILL, District Judge.
In this federal habeas corpus proceeding, Smith attacks his Maryland conviction of obtaining money under false pretenses on the ground of exclusion of nonbelievers in God from the Grand Jury which returned the indictment. He, himself, staunchly professes belief in God, and his conviction was final before the Maryland Court of Appeals declared Article 36 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights invalid. Under those circumstances, we think the petition was properly denied.
In Schowgurow v. State, 240 Md. 121, 213 A.2d 475, the Court of Appeals of Maryland declared the invalidity of Article 36 of Maryland's Declaration of Rights, which, after declaring that no person should be deemed incompetent for jury service by reason of religious belief, restricts the provision to those who believe in God and who believe that they will be Divinely held to a moral accountability for their acts and be rewarded or punished therefor in this world or in a life hereafter. The effect of the provision, as interpreted, was to make nonbelief in any Supreme Being a disqualification for service as a juror. To the extent that Article 36 required such disqualification, the Maryland Court of Appeals found it constitutionally invalid when the indicted defendant was a nonbeliever. In State v. Madison, 240 Md. 265, 213 A.2d 880, the same provision was held to deny due process to a believer.
The Court of Appeals of Maryland in Schowgurow and Madison, however, undertook to limit the retroactive application of its holdings to those cases in which the judgment of conviction had not become final on the date its decision in Schowgurow was announced. It adopted the formulation of Linkletter v. Walker, 381 U.S. 618, 85 S.Ct. 1731, 14 L.Ed. 2d 601, limiting the retroactive application of Mapp v. State of Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 81 S.Ct. 1684, 6 L.Ed.2d 1081.
The petitioner here asserts a federal constitutional right to the benefits of the decision of the Maryland Court of Appeals in Madison notwithstanding the fact that the judgment of conviction he attacks had become final prior to the decision in Schowgurow.
In denying the petition, the District Court wrote a thorough and exhaustive opinion,1 upon the basis of which as applied to this case only, we affirm. Since a number of related cases which will shortly be scheduled for hearing in this court present more difficult problems in this area we think it appropriate to indicate sketchily the basis of our decision of the restricted problem now presented.
Whether Smith's indictment was void in light of Madison, as Smith earnestly contends, or only voidable under state law, is...
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