White v. State

• Decision Date: 02 February 1973
• Docket Number: No. 308,308
• Citation: 17 Md.App. 58,299 A.2d 873
• Parties: Larry WHITE, Jr. v. STATE of Maryland.
• Court: Court of Special Appeals of Maryland

Page 58

17 Md.App. 58

299 A.2d 873

Larry WHITE, Jr. v. STATE of Maryland.

No. 308.

Court of Special Appeals of Maryland.

Feb. 2, 1973.

Certiorari Denied April 10, 1973.

Karl H. Goodman, Baltimore, for appellant.

James L. Bundy, Asst. Atty. Gen., with whom were Francis B. Burch, Atty. Gen., Harry A. E. Taylor, Asst. Atty. Gen., Milton B. Allen, State's Atty., Baltimore City and Diane Shulte, Asst. State's, Atty., on the brief, for appellee.

Argued Before POWERS, MENCHINE and SCANLAN, JJ.

SCANLAN, Judge.

This is an appeal from two judgments of convictions of murder in the first degree, following a jury trial in the Criminal Court of Baltimore, with Judge David Ross as the trial judge. The appellant was sentenced to two concurrent terms of life imprisonment. On this appeal, the appellant contends: (1) that he did not knowingly and voluntarily withdraw a plea of insanity previously entered; and (2) that he was not afforded effective representation by trial counsel. These contentions are without merit.

I THE PLEA OF INSANITY WAS VOLUNTARILY WITHDRAWN

At the outset of the trial, the clerk of the court below, after summarizing the indictments against the defendant, noted that an insanity plea had been filed on October 7, 1971. He then asked: 'What is the plea this morning?' There followed these statements by appellant's trial counsel and the appellant:

'MR. McALLISTER: The plea would be not guilty and as to the insanity plea, I have discussed it with my client, and based on the report received from the Clifton T. Perkins Hospital, and knowing what the testimony would be, we are withdrawing that plea, but for the record, Mr. White, I will explain to you that you have a right to have trial by the Court or jury, is that correct?

'THE DEFENDANT: Yes, sir.' (emphasis added).

The report from Clifton T. Perkins Hospital to which appellant's trial counsel referred stated, in pertinent part, that:

'Mr. White was presented before a Medical Staff Conference on November 22, 1971 at which time it was the unanimous opinion of the medical staff that he was able to understand the nature and object of the proceedings against him and to assist in his defense. It was also the unanimous opinion of the medical staff that he did not suffer from a mental disorder at the time of the alleged offense such as to cause him to lack substantial capacity to appreciate the criminality of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of law.'

Despite his assent to the withdrawal on the record of his insanity plea by his trial counsel, appellant now argues that the withdrawal was 'a waiver of a constitutional right,' analogous, he claims, to a voluntary plea of guilty. Under such an assumption, he maintains that the withdrawal of his insanity plea was not voluntarily made, in that the 'record is completely silent as to whether or not the defendant knew the nature and consequences of withdrawing his insanity plea, and neither the court nor the defendant's counsel questioned him on the record.'

The dispositive answer to the appellant's attempt to equate a plea of guilty with the withdrawal of a plea of insanity is simply that the two are not the same. First, a plea of insanity is no more than the assertion of an affirmative defense. The defense is not any different in its basic nature than other affirmative defenses, such as self-defense or coercion. At the present time, Maryland Rule 720 provides that an accused 'may plead not guilty, not guilty by reason of insanity as provided by statute, guilty or, with the consent of the court, nolo contendere.' Article 59, § 25 of the Code specifies how and when the defense is to be raised and the procedural consequences which follow, including provision for the pre-trial mental examination of the defendant. However, the fact that the General Assembly has elected to require the defense of insanity to be pleaded specially and has provided the procedures to be observed when it is raised does not convert the defense of insanity into anything more than just that. Like any defense, the question of whether an insanity defense should be raised remains a matter of trial strategy to be determined by counsel after consultation with his client. Were it the law that a plea of insanity could only be withdrawn after searching, detailed, on-the-record interrogation by the trial court, it could be just as plausibly maintained that the same type of judicial inquiry is required before defense counsel might pursue, or curtail, a line of cross-examination, introduce, or object to the introduction of, exhibits, call, or not call, a certain witness, etc. Our system of criminal justice places considerable faith in the integrity of defense counsel. It sometimes may be misplaced. Nevertheless, the law's concern for the rights of an accused stops considerably short of requiring that the trial strategy and tactics adopted by his counsel first receive the approval of the trial judge, whether it be a decision to withdraw a plea of insanity or a decision not to call an alibi witness. ¹

Moreover, acceptance of a plea of guilty entails severe, and usually, irrevocable consequences. A plea of guilty is an admission of conduct and results in a conviction. McCall v. State, 9 Md.App. 191, 193, 263 A.2d 19 (1970). Withdrawing an insanity plea, on the other hand, constitutes no admission of guilt; the State still must prove its case against the defendant beyond a reasonable doubt. In addition, a plea of guilty involves the waiver of basic constitutional rights otherwise guaranteed an accused. These are: '(1) the privilege against compulsory self-incrimination; (2) the right to trial by jury; and (3) the right to confront one's accusers.' Williams v. State, 10 Md.App. 570, 572, 271 A.2d 777, 778 (1970); Boykin v. Alabama, 395 U.S. 238, 89 S.Ct. 1709, 23 L.Ed.2d 274 (1969). By withdrawing an insanity plea, on the other hand, a defendant forfeits no right, substantive or procedural, with the exception of the right to have the jury render a special verdict as to his sanity at the time of the crime.

Under the theory advanced by the appellant, the mere filing of a plea of insanity would serve to rebut the presumption of sanity. Thereafter, it would be difficult for a court to hold that the plea was voluntarily waived or withdrawn until after a hearing at which the sanity of the defendant was established, at least for the purpose of finding that he was competent enough to waive the defense of insanity which he had previously injected into the case. Such a procedure, apart from the delay and complexity which it would generate, might cause the defendant more harm than benefit. For example, it is not difficult to conceive of a situation where a defendant's trial position could be seriously impaired as a result of having been compelled to provide evidence of his sanity as a condition precedent to withdrawing his plea of insanity. Cf. Avey v. State, 9 Md.App. 227, 231, 263 A.2d 609 (1970).

In holding that on the facts of this case the appellant's plea of insanity was voluntarily and knowingly withdrawn, we do not imply that a trial court has no responsibility in such situations. Instances will arise where an obviously incompetent defendant attempts to withdraw an insanity plea which his counsel previously had entered in his behalf. See, e. g., State v. Fernald, 248 A.2d 754, 760-61 (Me.1968), cited by the appellant in his brief. In such a case, it would be the duty of trial counsel and the responsibility of the court to prevent the improvident withdrawal of the insanity plea. The basic question is one of fundamental fairness, i. e., of insuring that a mentally incompetent defendant is not convicted for a crime he committed at a time when he lacked the requisite mental competency. In the case at bar, there is no evidence that the appellant suffered from any mental disorder such as to cause him 'to lack substantial capacity...