State v. Jefferson

• Citation: 574 A.2d 918,319 Md. 674
• Decision Date: 01 September 1989
• Docket Number: No. 130,130
• Parties: STATE of Maryland v. Anthony Jerome JEFFERSON. ,
• Court: Court of Appeals of Maryland

Page 674

319 Md. 674

574 A.2d 918

STATE of Maryland v. Anthony Jerome JEFFERSON.

No. 130, Sept. Term, 1989.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

June 12, 1990.

Jillyn K. Schulze, Asst. Atty. Gen. (J. Joseph Curran, Jr., Atty. Gen., on brief), Baltimore, for petitioner.

David C. Gardner, Assigned Public Defender (Alan H. Murrell, Public Defender, on brief), Rockville, for respondent.

Argued before MURPHY, C.J., and ELDRIDGE, COLE, RODOWSKY, McAULIFFE, ADKINS and CHASANOW, JJ.

MURPHY, Chief Judge.

Anthony Jerome Jefferson was charged in the District Court of Maryland, in Montgomery County, with theft of goods over $300. He was then confined to Lorton Penitentiary in Virginia for another offense. On November 23, 1987, an arrest warrant was issued for Jefferson on the theft charge. It was lodged as a detainer for Jefferson's continued detention and served upon him at Lorton on April 19, 1988.

Pursuant to the Interstate Agreement on Detainers (IAD), which consists of nine Articles and supplemental provisions, codified as Maryland Code (1957, 1987 Repl.Vol.), Article 27, §§ 616A-616R, Jefferson was transferred from Lorton to Montgomery County for trial before the District Court. On May 19, 1988, Jefferson was convicted of theft and sentenced to a term of imprisonment. On the same day, he appealed to the Circuit Court for Montgomery County under Code (1989 Repl.Vol.), § 12-401 of the Courts and Judicial Proceedings Article. This section authorizes "the defendant in a criminal case [to] appeal from a final judgment entered in the District Court." Section 12-401(d) specifies, with one exception, that the "appeal shall be tried de novo." Pending the de novo proceeding, which was scheduled for July 13, 1988, Jefferson was returned to Lorton.

Prior to his appeal de novo before the circuit court, Jefferson moved to dismiss the theft charges; he relied upon provisions contained in Article IV of the IAD. Codified within § 616E, this part of the Interstate Agreement, in subsection (a), authorizes officials of a jurisdiction, in which an "untried indictment, information or complaint" is pending, to have a prisoner against whom a detainer has been lodged, and who is serving a term of imprisonment in another state, transferred temporarily to their custody for trial. Subsection (c) provides that trial in such cases shall be commenced within 120 days of the arrival of the prisoner in the receiving state. Section 616E(e)--the so-called "anti-shuffling" provision of the Act--provides that "[i]f trial is not had on any indictment, information or complaint contemplated hereby" prior to the prisoner's being returned to the original place of imprisonment, the court shall dismiss the charging document "with prejudice."

In support of his motion to dismiss, Jefferson argued that a de novo appeal is not in actuality a second proceeding, but a continuation of the District Court trial. He maintained that the two proceedings should be considered as one for purposes of applying the "anti-shuffling" provisions of § 616E(e), so that if the de novo appeal is not "had," prior to his return to prison, the charges must be dismissed. Jefferson noted that the purposes of the IAD include the expeditious resolution of outstanding detainers and the prevention of "shuffling" of prisoners between jurisdictions. He said that both of these problems continue to exist with de novo appeals since the appeal requires a retrial of the same charges, a recalling of witnesses, and the presence of the defendant. He thus urged that § 616E be interpreted to include de novo appeals as part of the "trial" that must be "had" before he may be returned to imprisonment in the sending state.

After reviewing the provisions and purposes of the IAD, the circuit court (Mitchell, J) agreed with Jefferson. It said that the IAD "mandates that a prisoner, transported for the purpose of resolving an outstanding criminal charge in another jurisdiction, be transported only once for a given jurisdiction and returned only after final disposition of the charges in the transferred state." The court held that the IAD was designed "to ensure that a jurisdiction requesting to obtain temporary custody of another jurisdiction's prisoner completes its business with the prisoner before returning him to the custodial jurisdiction." It said that a de novo appeal under the Maryland statute functions as if the case had not been heard before and as if no decision had been previously rendered in the District Court. Acting on the belief that the District Court judgment was nullified by the filing of the de novo appeal, the court concluded that the appeal in effect "returned the case to a pending status" and therefore Jefferson's return to Lorton, prior to the completion of the de novo appeal, required dismissal of the charges under § 616E(e).

Upon the State's petition, we granted certiorari, pursuant to § 12-305 of the Courts Article, to consider whether, in the circumstances, § 616E(e) of the IAD was violated when Jefferson was returned to Lorton after the District Court trial but before his circuit court de novo appeal. ¹

I.

The IAD is a compact among the states, the United States, and the District of Columbia. Enacted in Maryland in 1965, it recites in Article I (§ 616B) that the "party states find that charges outstanding against a prisoner, detainers based on untried indictments, informations or complaints, and difficulties in securing speedy trial of persons already incarcerated in other jurisdictions, produce uncertainties which obstruct programs of prisoner treatment and rehabilitation." The section further states that "it is the policy of the party states and the purpose of this agreement to encourage the expeditious and orderly disposition of such charges and determination of the proper status of any and all detainers based on untried indictments, informations, or complaints." ²

As we recognized in Clipper v. State, 295 Md. 303, 305-06, 455 A.2d 973 (1983), the IAD "prescribes the methods and procedures by which one jurisdiction may obtain temporary custody of an inmate imprisoned in another jurisdiction for purposes of trial on detainers based on untried indictments, informations or complaints pending in the requesting jurisdiction." (Emphasis in original.) "The two basic goals sought to be achieved by the IAD are: (1) to encourage the expeditious disposition of charges; and (2) to provide cooperative procedures among member jurisdictions to facilitate such disposition." Id. at 307, 455 A.2d 973.

The IAD was enacted in part to avoid a "practice of filing detainers based on untried criminal charges that had little basis." Carchman v. Nash, 473 U.S. 716, 729, 105 S.Ct. 3401, 3408, 87 L.Ed.2d 516 (1985). Before the IAD, the majority of these detainers were withdrawn shortly before the prisoner was released. Id. at 729-30, 105 S.Ct. at 3408-09; H.R.Rep. No. 91-1018, at 3 (1970); S.Rep. No. 91-1356, at 3 (1970). "Undoubtedly, detainers [were] sometimes used by prosecutors to exact punishment without having to try a charge which they [believed] would not result in a conviction." Carchman, 473 U.S. at 729-30 n. 6, 105 S.Ct. at 3408 n. 6.

As Carchman recognized, unsubstantiated detainers based on untried charges have a detrimental effect on the prisoner's treatment. Id. at 730, 105 S.Ct. at 3409. It explained:

" '[T]he inmate is (1) deprived of an opportunity to obtain a sentence to run concurrently with the sentence being served at the time the detainer is filed; (2) classified as a maximum or close custody risk; (3) ineligible for initial assignments to less than maximum security prisons (i.e., honor farms or forestry camp work); (4) ineligible for trustee status; (5) not allowed to live in preferred living quarters such as dormitories; (6) ineligible for study-release programs or work-release programs; (7) ineligible to be transferred to preferred medium or minimum custody institutions within the correctional system, which includes the removal of any possibility of transfer to an institution more appropriate for youthful offenders; (8) not entitled to preferred prison jobs which carry higher wages and entitle [him] to additional good time credits against [his] sentence; (9) inhibited by the denial of possibility of parole or any commutation of his sentence; (10) caused anxiety and thus hindered in the overall rehabilitation process since he cannot take maximum advantage of his institutional opportunities.' "

Id. at n. 8 (quoting Cooper v. Lockhart, 489 F.2d 308, 314, n. 10 (8th Cir.1973)). Because there was no uniform method to resolve detainers before the IAD, the detainers were potentially quite damaging for extended periods of time to the prisoner's rehabilitation at his place of imprisonment. United States v. Mauro, 436 U.S. 340, 358-59, 98 S.Ct. 1834, 1846-47, 56 L.Ed.2d 329 (1978).

This is the background which gave rise to inclusion of the "anti-shuffling" provision in Article IV of the IAD (§ 616E(e)). The provision has been interpreted as intending to "limit the interjurisdictional transfer of prisoners by requiring [the accusing jurisdiction] ... [to] wrap up its business with [the prisoner], so to speak, before returning him to the custodial [jurisdiction]." Boyd v. State, 51 Md.App. 197, 203, 441 A.2d 1133, aff'd, 294 Md. 103, 447 A.2d 871 (1982) (adopting the reasons given in the opinion of the Court of Special Appeals). Boyd explained that the anti-shuffling provision assists in implementing the IAD's purpose of "minimiz[ing] any disruption to the prison regimen and the prisoner's participation in it." Id. ³

II.

The State urges that the nature of the de novo appeal, combined with the purposes of the IAD, allows the return of a prisoner after his District Court trial but before his de novo appeal. It claims that the circuit court appeal de novo acts as a second proceeding and not as a continuation of the District Court trial. Thus, it asserts that the District...