State v. Morton

• Decision Date: 03 March 1983
• Docket Number: No. 71,71
• Citation: 456 A.2d 909,295 Md. 487
• Parties: STATE of Maryland v. Tyrone A. MORTON et al.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

Page 487

295 Md. 487

456 A.2d 909

STATE of Maryland v. Tyrone A. MORTON et al.

No. 71.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

March 3, 1983.

Philip M. Andrews, Asst. Atty. Gen., Baltimore (Stephen H. Sachs, Atty. Gen. and Stephen B. Caplis, Asst. Atty. Gen., Baltimore, on brief), for appellant.

John L. Kopolow, Asst. Public Defender, Baltimore (Alan H. Murrell, Public Defender, Baltimore, on brief), for appellees.

Argued before MURPHY, C.J., and SMITH, ELDRIDGE, COLE, DAVIDSON, RODOWSKY and COUCH, JJ.

MURPHY, Chief Judge.

The question in this case is whether indictments charging the crime of "escape" under Maryland Code (1957, 1982 Repl.Vol.), Article 27, § 139(a) were properly dismissed for failure to contain a sufficient description of the particular acts alleged to have been committed by the accused individuals.

Section 139(a) provides, in relevant part:

"If any offender or person legally detained and confined in the penitentiary or jail, or house of correction, or reformatory, or station house, or any other place of confinement, in this State, escapes he shall be guilty of a felony...."

Morton and nineteen other inmates of the Brockbridge Correctional Facility (the institution) were indicted under this statute for the crime of escape. Each indictment stated that the accused, "late of [Baltimore] City, who was then and there under sentence to the Department of Correction, in said City," on a specified date,

"at the city aforesaid, unlawfully and wilfully did escape from such lawful detention and confinement, contrary to the form of the Act of Assembly, in such case made and provided, and against the peace, government and dignity of the State. (Art. 27, Sec. 139)"

It is undisputed that the inmates, during a part of their confinement, were permitted to leave the institution pursuant to a "work release" program established by the Department of Correction under authority vested in it by § 700A of Art. 27. Under the provisions of this statute, the inmates were authorized to leave the institution to work, to seek employment, or to attend school as part of a work release program. As a prerequisite to their participation in the program, the inmates were required by § 700A(b) to abide by the rules and conditions of the work release plan adopted for each of them by the Department. On the dates of their alleged escapes, the inmates were away from the institution, ostensibly under authority of the work release program. Each inmate allegedly violated the rules of the work release plan established for him or otherwise engaged in impermissible conduct, although each returned to actual confinement at the institution on the day of his alleged escape.

The inmates moved to dismiss the indictments on the ground that they

"d[id] not set forth a sufficient description of the particular act or acts alleged to have been committed by the Defendants as to enable them to properly defend themselves against the accusation or to prevent subsequent prosecution based on the same act."

The Criminal Court of Baltimore (Bell, J.) dismissed the indictments. It noted the argument of the inmates

"that given the factual circumstances of this case, particularly the fact that there is no allegation that they were outside the custody of the keepers and that the proof in this case would revolve around the violation of some rule of a work release program or deviation from acceptable conduct, the particulars of the acts must be alleged in the indictment in order to constitute the indictment a sufficient charging document."

The trial court concluded that the indictments were defective for failure to allege the particulars constituting the escapes. ¹ In an unreported per curiam opinion, the Court of Special Appeals affirmed the trial court's dismissal of the indictments. The intermediate appellate court found the indictments insufficient because they failed to inform the inmates "of the particular act or specific conduct" upon which the charge of escape was based. We granted certiorari to decide the important question presented in this case.

As our cases make clear, one of the primary purposes of an indictment in Maryland is to fulfill the constitutional requirement contained in Art. 21 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights that each person charged with a crime must be informed of the accusation against him. ² An additional requirement is that the charge must be sufficiently explicit to prevent the accused from again being charged with the same offense. See, e.g., Jackson v. State, 231 Md. 591, 191 A.2d 432 (1963); Lank v. State, 219 Md. 433, 149 A.2d 367 (1959); State v. Carter, 200 Md. 255, 89 A.2d 586 (1952); State v. Petrushansky, 183 Md. 67, 36 A.2d 533 (1944). Otherwise stated in the leading case of State v. Lassotovitch 162 Md. 147, 156, 159 A. 362 (1932), every charge or accusation must include at least two elements, i.e.:

"First, the characterization of the crime; and, second, such description of the particular act alleged to have been committed by the accused as will enable him to properly defend against the accusation. In statutory crimes, where the statute includes the elements necessary to constitute a crime, the first of these requirements is gratified by characterizing the offense in the words of the statute; the second requires such definite and specific allegations as reasonably to put the accused on notice of the particular act charged, to enable him to prepare a defense and plead the judgment in any subsequent attempted prosecution."

These principles, in more modern dress, were reiterated most recently in State v. Canova, 278 Md. 483, 365 A.2d 988 (1976), and Ayre v. State, 291 Md. 155, 433 A.2d 1150 (1981). In Ayre, Judge Digges, for the Court, said that the purposes served by Art. 21 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights included:

"(i) to put the accused on notice of what he is called upon to defend by characterizing and describing the crime and conduct; (ii) to protect the accused from a future prosecution for the same offense; (iii) to enable the defendant to prepare for his trial; (iv) to provide a basis for the court to consider the legal sufficiency of the charging document; and (v) to inform the court of the specific crime charged so that, if required, sentence may be pronounced in accordance with the right of the case.... [I]n order to place an accused on adequate notice, two different types of information ought to be provided by the charging document. First, it is essential that it characterize the crime, and second, it should furnish the defendant such a description of the particular act alleged to have been committed as to inform him of the specific conduct with which he is charged.... As to the former of these dual requisites, where a statutory offense is alleged, it has generally been held in Maryland that, at least where the terms of the statute include the elements of the criminal conduct, the crime may be sufficiently characterized in the words of the statute.... [I]n reference to the informative aspect of a charging document, failure of the accusation to contain information sufficient to advise the accused of the particular conduct alleged to have been committed renders the allegation subject to attack, and this requirement exists quite independent of the necessity to include all the essential elements of the crime." 291 Md. at 163-64, 433 A.2d 1150 (citations omitted).

It is, of course, well recognized that a Bill of Particulars forms no part of the indictment; consequently, a defective indictment is not made sufficient by the provision of a Bill of Particulars. Lassotovitch, supra, 162 Md. at 158, 159 A. 362; Delcher v. State, 161 Md. 475, 158 A. 37 (1932). See also Maryland Rule 730. ³

The State alleges that the indictments sufficiently charge the crime of escape. It contends that the indictments track the language of § 139(a) and, therefore, adequately characterize the statutory crime of escape. The State also maintains that the indictments describe the acts with sufficient particularity by setting forth the date and place of departure and the custodian from whom the inmates escaped. It argues that the lower courts, in concluding that the indictments failed to...