Stewart v. State

• Decision Date: 25 June 1975
• Docket Number: No. 111,111
• Parties: Brenda STEWART v. STATE of Maryland.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

Page 258

275 Md. 258

340 A.2d 290

Brenda STEWART v. STATE of Maryland.

No. 111.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

June 25, 1975.

Arthur D. Condon, Assigned Public Defender, Annapolis, for appellant.

Arrie W. Davis, Asst. Atty. Gen. (Francis B. Burch, Atty. Gen. and Charence W. Sharp, Asst. Atty. Gen., Baltimore, on the brief), for appellee.

Argued Jan. 13, 1975 before SINGLEY, SMITH, DIGGES, LEVINE, ELDRIDGE and O'DONNELL, JJ.

Reargued May 13, 1975 before MURPHY, C. J., and SINGLEY, SMITH, DIGGES, LEVINE, ELDRIDGE and O'DONNELL, JJ.

O'DONNELL, Judge.

This cases involves the question of where venue may lie for the trial of the crime of escape under Maryland Code (1957, 1971 Repl.Vol. (1974 Cum.Supp.)) Art. 27, § 139.

The evidence presented by the prosecution tended to show the following: On October 9, 1969, the petitioner Brenda Stewart was committed to the custody of the Maryland Correctional Institution for Women, located in Anne Arundel County, to serve two sentences imposed by the Criminal Court of Baltimore-one, a three-year term on a charge of burglary and the other a one-year consecutive term. On February 16 of that year, in company with two other inmates, she was transported in the custody of two correctional officers to University Hospital in Baltimore City for medical treatment. While there, waiting to see a nurse, she received permission from the correctional officer in whose custody she was, to 'go to the bathroom.' After an interval of several minutes the petitioner did not return; when the nurse called out her name, the correctional officer searched the bathroom only to discover that the petitioner was nowhere to be found. At large for more than three years, she was returned to the Institution for Women on May 14, 1973.

Subsequently a criminal information was filed in the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County charging Brenda Stewart with the crime of escape in violation of Art. 27, § 139. Prior to her trial, and before entering a plea, the petitioner's attorney objected to venue in Anne Arundel County and argued that since she had escaped while actually at the University Hospital, the proceedings should have been instituted in Baltimore City. In connection with her motion challenging 'venue' it was stipulated that 'the actual place from which she left the jurisdiction of the proper authorities would be in Baltimore City.' Nonetheless, the prosecution argued that the petitioner was legally confined at the Maryland Correctional Institution for Women, located in Anne Arundel County, and proper venue was in that court. The trial judge (Heise, J.) denied the motion based on improper venue.

Following a non-jury trial, during which her counsel reiterated his objection to the prosecution being laid in Anne Arundel County, Brenda Stewart was found guilty and sentenced to a term of eighteen months consecutive to the sentence she was serving when she escaped, in accordance with the mandate of Art. 27, § 139, as amended by Ch. 121 of the Acts of 1972.

The Court of Special Appeals affirmed the petitioner's conviction, holding that under the provisions of Art. 27, § 139, and the facts of this case, 'venue lies both in Baltimore City, where the departure actually occurred, and in Anne Arundel County, where the crime constructively took place.' Stewart v. State, 21 Md.App. 346, 348, 319 A.2d 621, 622 (1974). Since this Court had not previously dealt directly with the venue question presented, and because of the recurring nature of the issue, in the light of the number of trials which take place upon the charge of escape, we granted certiorari.

The first paragraph of Art. 27, § 139 creating the offense, as it read at the time of the petitioner's departure from University Hospital, provided as follows:

'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 or confinement, in this State, shall escape he shall be guilty of a felony and on conviction thereof by the Criminal Court of Baltimore City or by the circuit court of the county in which the escape takes place, be sentenced to confinement in the penitentiary, jail or house of correction for such additional period, not exceeding ten years, as the court may adjudge. However, for escapes from the Maryland Correctional Institution-Hagerstown or the Maryland Correctional Training Center-Hagerstown which have not involved an assault, the sentence shall not exceed confinement for three years. ' (Emphasis supplied.)

Historically, the progenitor of § 139 was enacted as § 32 of Ch. 138 of the Acts of 1809, entitled 'An Act Concerning Crimes and Punishments.' The offense was limited to those 'sentenced to undergoing confinement in the penitentiary.' Venue over the offense was vested in the Court of Oyer and Terminer and Gaol Delivery for Baltimore County. By the Acts of 1837, Ch. 320, § 18, limitation of the crime of escape to 'any offender sentenced to undergoing confinement in the Penitentiary' was retained, the statute, however, providing as amended that one so adjudged guilty might be subjected to 'such additional confinement and hard labor' as the Baltimore City Court shall adjudge and direct. ¹ Following the construction of the House of Correction and the Reformatory the statute was materially changed and reenacted by Ch. 374 of the Acts of 1927 which, for the first time, made the offense of 'escape' applicable not only to those confined in the Penitentiary, but to those detained and confined in the 'Jail, or House of Correction, or Reformatory, or Station House, or any other place of confinement.' It was upon this broadening of the scope of the offense that the provision was then inserted that 'on conviction thereof by the Criminal Court of Baltimore or by the Circuit Court of the County in which the escape takes place,' the offender shall 'be sentenced to confinement for not more than ten years in the Penitentiary, or Jail, or House of Correction as the Court may adjudge.' By Ch. 157 of the Acts of 1963, the Legislature limited the punishment on escapes from the Reformatory for Males. For a review of the history of the statute see Fabian v. State, 3 Md.App. 270, 276-78, 239 A.2d 100, 105-06 (1968). See also Beasley v. State, 17 Md.App. 7, 299 A.2d 482, cert. denied, 268 Md. 745 (1973).

Thus, after a recitation of various 'place of confinement,' the statute-in the very same sentence-provides that the offense he tried either in the City of Baltimore or in the circuit court of the county 'in which the escape takes place.' This use of the phrase, within the same sentence, designating 'places of confinement,' as we construe it, provides that venue rests geographically in that area where the 'place of confinement' is located. This view is strengthened by the language of the last sentence included in the paragraph placing a limitation upon the punishment for escape from the two correctional institutions located at Hagerstown, Maryland Correctional Institution and Maryland Correctional Training Center, 'descendants' of the former Reformatory for Males.

Since a statute should be construed according to the ordinary and natural import of the language used, unless a different meaning is clearly indicated by its context, without resorting to subtle or forced interpretations for the purpose of extending or limiting its operation, the use of the clause 'on conviction thereof by the Criminal Court of Baltimore City or by the circuit court of the county in which the escape takes place' makes use of relative and qualifying language which must be applied to the phrases immediately preceding it-designating places of confinement-and thus cannot be construed as limiting venue to the place where the prisoner physically happens to have been when he eloped. See 82 C.J.S. Statutes § 334 (1953). Compare Webb v. Mayor & City Council, 179 Md. 407, 19 A.2d 704 (1941).

In connection with fixing venue at the 'place of confinement,' it is interesting to observe that under the provisions of Art. 27, § 725, as it read at the time of the petitioner's departure, it was provided that escapes by prisoners working upon the roads (under the provisions of §§ 719 to 726) were misdemeanors punishable by confinement for an additional term not to exceed one-half of the entire term for which the prisoner had been sentenced prior to escape, or in the discretion of the court, subjecting him to any penalties which may be by law provided for prisoners escaping 'from the institution to which he had previously been committed.' Although that statute was repealed by Ch. 121, § 1 of the Acts of 1972, as to the penalty therein provided, and escapees were thus brought within the preview of Art. 27, § 139, the language formerly used in § 725 lends congruity by the Legislature to the interpretation that venue certainly coincides with the 'place of confinement.' Similarly, Art. 27, § 700A(c), provides that if any prisoner, released from actual confinement to a 'work release' plan shall willfully fail to return to the place of confinement at the time specified in such plan he shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and be subject to the penalties of Art. 27, § 139. Those, too, who have been granted 'compassionate leave' under the provisions of Art. 27, § 700B(f), are considered to violate the provisions of § 139 upon their failure to comply with the terms of their authorization for leave. It would thus seem to be within the legislative scheme of things to fix the gravamen of the offense under these statutes to the failure of the prisoner to return to his 'place of confinement,' while temporarily outside the confines of the institution to which he has been committed when working upon the roads, or in a 'work release' plan, or upon a grant of 'compassionate leave.' The same logic would seem to apply to one who, like the petitioner here, was temporarily absent from the Maryland Correctional Institution...