Stanley v. State

• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals
• Writing for the Court: Bell
• Citation: Stanley v. State, 887 A.2d 1078, 390 Md. 175 (Md. App. 2005)
• Decision Date: 13 December 2005
• Docket Number: No. 80, September Term, 2004.,80, September Term, 2004.
• Parties: Charles STANLEY v. STATE of Maryland.

Page 1078

887 A.2d 1078

390 Md. 175

Charles STANLEY v. STATE of Maryland.

No. 80, September Term, 2004.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

December 13, 2005.

Martha Weisheit, Asst. Public Defender (Nancy S. Forster, Public Defender, on brief), for petitioner.

Shannon E. Avery, Asst. Atty. Gen. (J. Joseph Curran, Atty. Gen., on brief), for respondent.

Argued before BELL, C.J. RAKER, WILNER, CATHELL, HARRELL, BATTAGLIA and GREENE, JJ.

BELL, C.J.

Charles Stanley, the petitioner, was convicted, on January 24, 2003, by a jury in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City, of possession of a firearm after previously having been convicted of a crime of violence, in violation of Maryland Code (1957, 1996 Repl.Vol., 2001Cum. Supp.) Art. 27, § 449(e).¹ Subsequently, he was sentenced for that offense to five years imprisonment, without the possibility of parole. When the petitioner was sentenced, he previously had been convicted of second degree assault, the proof of which was supplied by the State, and for violating an ex parte order entered when he and his wife were separated. Second degree assault, the critical conviction, was a crime of violence, see § 441(e),² but not a felony. See § 12A (b).³

The petitioner believed he was illegally sentenced because, he argued, for § 449(e) to apply, not simply a crime of violence was required to be shown, but proof of a felony conviction was a prerequisite as well. This is evident, he submits, from the language of the statute itself:

"A person who was previously convicted of a crime of violence as defined in § 441(e) of this article or convicted of a violation of § 286 or § 286A of this article, and who is in illegal possession of a firearm as defined in § 445(d)(1)(i) and (ii) of this article, is guilty of a felony and upon conviction shall be imprisoned for not less than 5 years, no part of which may be suspended and the person may not be eligible for parole. Each violation shall be considered a separate offense."[⁴] That section, he points out, in delineating its scope, referred to Art. 27, § 445, which identifies the persons whose possession of a firearm is illegal, and, more to the point, expressly specified, as a unit, two of the sub-sections defining illegal possession, (d)(1)(i) and (ii),⁵ as the definition applicable to it. Under that definition, he concludes, "a person is not in illegal possession of a firearm unless the person has previously been convicted of both a `crime of violence' and `[a]ny violation classified as a felony in this State.'" Because his conviction for second degree assault, although a crime of violence, was a misdemeanor, the petitioner maintained that the enhanced penalty of § 449(e) did not apply to him.

Armed with that argument, the petitioner noted an appeal to the Court of Special Appeals. A divided panel of that court, in a reported opinion, rejected the argument. Stanley v. State, 157 Md.App. 363, 851 A.2d 612 (2004). It did so despite its recognition that § 449(e) was an enhanced penalty statute, which, because highly penal, must be construed strictly and to which the rule of lenity applied insofar as doubt might exist regarding the punishment imposed, id. at 678, 851 A.2d at 620 (quoting Melton v. State, 379 Md. 471, 489, 842 A.2d 743, 753 (2004)), and its acknowledgment both that this Court has been clear that "[o]nly if the statutory language is ambiguous will this Court look `beyond the statute's plain language in discerning the legislative intent,'" id. at 377, 851 A.2d at 620, (quoting Melton, 379 Md. at 476-477, 842 A.2d at 746-747), and that "the `plain meaning' of § 449(e) suggests that it applies to persons who have been convicted of both a crime of violence and a felony." Id. at 379, 851 A.2d at 620. Noting, and relying on some of our other, earlier cases emphasizing the non-absoluteness of the "plain meaning" rule, i.e. Derry v. State, 358 Md. 325, 336, 748 A.2d 478, 483-484 (2000) ("[W]e do not view the plain language of a statute in a vacuum. The plain meaning rule of construction is not absolute; rather, the statute must be construed reasonably with reference to the purpose, aim, or policy of the enacting body"); Degren v. State, 352 Md. 400, 418, 722 A.2d 887, 898 (1999) ("`[w]e are not constrained ... by ... "the literal or usual meaning" of the terms at issue.'"); Outmezguine v. State, 335 Md. 20, 41, 641 A.2d 870, 880-881 (1994) ("The plain language can not be viewed in isolation; rather, the entire statutory scheme must be analyzed as a whole."), and State v. Pagano, 341 Md. 129, 134, 669 A.2d 1339, 1341 (1996) for the proposition that statutes are to be read "so that no word, clause, sentence or phrase is rendered surplusage, superfluous, meaningless, or nugatory," the intermediate appellate court concluded, "an examination of the statute in context and in conjunction with the statutory scheme makes clear that [both a conviction of a crime of violence and of a felony] was not the legislative intent." Stanley, 157 Md.App. at 378-79, 851 A.2d at 620. It explained:

"Interpreting the statute as appellant suggests would require us to render a portion of the statute superfluous and would produce an illogical result. Section 449(e) applies to `a person who was previously convicted of a crime of violence as defined in § 441(e)' or of a violation of Article 27 § 286 or § 286A. Article 27 §§ 286 and 286A prohibit various drug crimes. None of the offenses prohibited by those statutes is a `crime of violence as defined in § 441(e).' It would be illogical for the legislature specifically to have listed §§ 286 and 286A in § 449(e) if it intended that the section apply only to persons who have previously been convicted of both a felony and a crime of violence. In addition, § 445(d)(1) does not prohibit possession of any firearm, but of a `regulated firearm.' Reading § 449(e) together with § 445(d)(1) indicates that the phrase, `who is in possession of a firearm as defined in § 445(d)(1)(i) and (ii) of this article,' refers to a person who is in possession of a regulated firearm and that the legislature used the word `and' because the definition of `regulated firearm' is the same in § 445(d)(1)(i) as it is in § 445(d)(1)(ii). As seen above, section 445(d)(1) lists subsections (i) and (ii) in the disjunctive."

Id. at 379, 851 A.2d at 620.

The majority also found support for its position in the legislative history, both pre- and post-enactment, of § 449(e). Significant, in that regard, were the bill analyses for the House and Senate versions of the bill that was to become § 449(e). They both referred to the qualifying convictions applicable to the bill under consideration in the disjunctive: the House version providing, "The bill creates a new felony and a five-year mandatory minimum term of imprisonment for a person who illegally possesses a firearm and has certain qualifying convictions for crimes of violence or certain controlled dangerous substances" and the Senate version declaring, "The bill establishes a felony that provides a 5 year minimum mandatory term of imprisonment for a person who illegally possesses a firearm and who was previously convicted of a crime of violence or certain serious controlled dangerous substances violations." Similarly important to the majority's reasoning is the new statute, the recodified version of § 449(e), i.e. Maryland Code (2003) § 5-133(c) of the Public Safety Article. It points to that statute as "support[ive of] the view that the legislature intended § 449(e) to apply to a person previously convicted of either a felony or a crime of violence," Stanley, 157 Md.App. at 380, 851 A.2d at 621, noting that the revisor's note states that the simpler formulation, which it attributes to the revisers, reflected in § 5-133(c) of the Public Safety Article "is new language derived without substantive change from former Art. 27, §§ 449(e) and 445(d), (e) and, except as it related to the transfer of regulated firearms, (a)." Id. at 380-381, 851 A.2d at 621-622.⁶

As indicated, the Court of Special Appeals was divided. Judge Davis, in dissent, relying on one of our more recent cases for the purpose, Price v. State, 378 Md. 378, 387-88, 835 A.2d 1221, 1226-1227 (2003),⁷ reminded the majority of the importance that this Court places on beginning its quest for legislative intent with the plain language of the enactment at issue and, in fact, that it is "the strongly preferred norm of statutory interpretation." Stanley, 157 Md.App. at 384, 851 A.2d at 623 (Davis, J., dissenting). In that case, as Judge Davis pointed out, we were emphatic as to process: when the statutory text reveals ambiguity, we are required to resolve it utilizing "all the resources and tools of statutory construction at our disposal, but

"before judges may look to other sources for interpretation, first there must exist an ambiguity within the statute, i.e., two or more reasonable alternative interpretations of the statute. See Greco v. State, 347 Md. 423, 429, 701 A.2d 419, 421 (1997). Where the statutory language is free from such ambiguity, courts will neither look beyond the words of the statute itself to determine legislative intent nor add to or delete words from the statute, see Gillespie v. State, 370 Md. 219, 222, 804 A.2d 426, 427 (2002). Only when faced with ambiguity will courts consider both the literal or usual meaning of the words as well as their meaning in light of the objectives and purposes of the enactment. As our predecessors noted, `We cannot assume authority to read into the Act what the Legislature apparently deliberately left out. Judicial construction should only be resorted to when an ambiguity exists.'"

Id. at 383, 851 A.2d at 623, quoting Price, 378 Md. at 387-88, 835 A.2d at 1226. Judge Davis concluded that there was no ambiguity in § 449(e), that it was clear and unambiguous. Therefore, no construction was required. Moreover, relying on Melton, 379 Md. at 488-89, 842 A.2d at 753-754, Judge Davis...