Monroe v. Director, Patuxent Institution

227 F. Supp. 295, 1964 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 7190
CourtDistrict Court, D. Maryland
DecidedMarch 11, 1964
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 227 F. Supp. 295 (Monroe v. Director, Patuxent Institution) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Maryland primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Monroe v. Director, Patuxent Institution, 227 F. Supp. 295, 1964 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 7190 (D. Md. 1964).

Opinion

WINTER, District Judge.

Petitioner seeks the issuance of a writ of habeas corpus, contesting the validity of his confinement in Patuxent Institution as a defective delinquent.

Petitioner has made two previous applications to this Court, and numerous applications to courts of the State of Maryland. The statement of the Court of Appeals of Maryland in his latest state application, Monroe v. Director of Patuxent Institution, 230 Md. 650, 187 A.2d 873 (1963), sets forth much of the history of petitioner’s efforts to obtain an adjudication on the merits of the points that he raises. He was sentenced, on January 15, 1959, to a term of twelve years by the Circuit Court for Baltimore County upon conviction of armed robbery. His sentence was to run from November 1, 1958, the date of his trial. That Court also ordered that he be referred to Patuxent Institution.

On May 8, 1959 he filed a petition seeking relief under the Post Conviction Procedure Act. When relief was denied, he applied for leave to appeal to the Court of Appeals of Maryland, and that application was also denied, Monroe v. Director of Patuxent Institution, 223 Md. 660, 162 A.2d 766 (1960). Another application for leave to appeal was also denied by the Maryland Court of Appeals, Monroe v. Director of Patuxent Institution, 225 Md. 632, 170 A.2d 300 (1961). Meanwhile, he was, on July 27, 1960, adjudicated to be a defective delinquent and committed to the Patuxent Institution.

On August 3, 1962 petitioner, pro se, filed a petition for “re-hearing as a defective delinquent” in the Circuit Court for Baltimore County. He requested the appointment of counsel, the request was granted, and, on October 31, 1962, at a hearing before the Court, at which petitioner was present, his petition was dismissed. A subsequent application for leave to appeal, Monroe v. Director of Patuxent Institution, 230 Md. 650, 187 A.2d 873 (1963) — the first case cited above — was denied, on the ground that a 1961 amendment to the Annotated Code of Maryland, Article 3IB, § 10 (Chapter 629 of the Acts of the General Assembly of Maryland of 1961), rendered petitioner ineligible to initiate a judicial rede-termination of whether he was a defective delinquent, and that this amendment was not an illegal ex post facto law in its application to petitioner.

In this Court petitioner, through his Court-appointed counsel, presses two contentions. The first is that the defective delinquency statute, Annotated Code of Maryland, Article 31B, violates the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution, in that it fails to provide for notice of the charge of being an habitual criminal prior to the adjudication of defective delinquency. The second is that the 1961 amendments to Article 3 IB are unconstitutional as applied to petitioner because they are prohibited as ex post facto laws. Respondent introduces two other contentions, the first, that there has been a failure on the part of petitioner to exhaust his available state remedies, and the second, that the term of petitioner’s original commitment not having expired, petitioner, even if his contentions are found meritorious, is not entitled to relief in this proceeding.

[297]*297These contentions will be considered seriatim, and additional facts, insofar as they relate to these contentions, stated.

A — Exhaustion of Available State Remedies :

If there are remedies under state law presently available to petitioner which have not yet been employed to obtain an adjudication of the contentions pressed in this Court, there can be little question but that this Court lacks jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C.A. §§ 2241 et seq., Fay v. Noia, 372 U.S. 391, 83 S.Ct. 822, 9 L.Ed.2d 837 (1963); Midgett v. Warden, Maryland State Penitentiary, 329 F.2d 185 (4 Cir. 1964); Rudolph v. Warden, Maryland Penitentiary, 217 F.Supp. 579 (D.C.Md.1963); Otten v. State of Maryland, Director of Patuxent Institution, 216 F.Supp. 289 (D.C.Md. 1963).

Respondent points out that nowhere has petitioner raised his due process contention in the various proceedings in the state courts previously described, but respondent admits that petitioner’s ex post facto argument was raised and rejected in his application for leave to appeal to the Court of Appeals of Maryland from the adverse ruling in the proceedings for a redetermination of defective delinquency in the Circuit Court for Baltimore County. As to the latter contention, respondent suggests that petitioner (a) may still have the right to proceed under the Maryland Post Conviction Procedure Act, Annotated Code of Maryland, Article 27, §§ 645A et seq., (b) has the right to seek the issuance of a writ of habeas corpus from a state judge (but not the right to appeal the denial of the issuance of a writ to the Maryland Court of Appeals) and (c), possibly, has the right to seek the issuance of a writ of mandamus to require a redetermination of whether he is a defective delinquent under the provisions of the Annotated Code of Maryland, Article 31B, § 10, as it existed prior to the 1961 amendment. Respondent is candid, however, in stating that, in the light of the language of the Court of Appeals in Monroe v. Director of Patux-ent Institution, 230 Md. 650, 187 A.2d 873 (1963), these rights, or possible rights, have little practical effect because the Court of Appeals of Maryland has adjudicated petitioner’s ex post facto argument against him.

The Court can take judicial notice that whatever rights petitioner may have to litigate his due process arguments they, too, are empty rights, because the Court of Appeals has repeatedly upheld the validity of the defective delinquency statute against objections based on due process grounds, as has this Court (Faulkner v. State, D.C.Md., Civil No. 14609, decided April 26, 1963), and it is unlikely that those decisions would be overruled by the Maryland Court of Appeals at this date.

28 U.S.C.A. § 2254, after requiring that an applicant for a writ of habeas corpus establish that he has exhausted the remedies available in the courts of the state, provides two alternatives to such a showing — “that there is either an absence of available State corrective process or the existence of circumstances rendering such process ineffective to protect the rights of the prisoner.” This Court concludes that, under the facts set forth, it has jurisdiction to determine petitioner’s contentions on their merits.

B — Availability of Relief by Federal Habeas Corpus:

Respondent’s argument is that petitioner was committed for a term of twelve years, dating from November 1, 1958, that this term will not expire until October 31, 1970, and that the validity of the trial resulting in this commitment has not been questioned and that, accordingly, the writ of habeas corpus is not yet available to question the propriety of petitioner’s detention at Patuxent Institution as a defective delinquent.

In a recent case, Simon v. State, D.C. Md., decided by Judge R. Dorsey Wat,kins, 227 F.Supp. 588, a petitioner sought to attack only the validity of the Maryland Defective Delinquents Act, [298]*298where petitioner’s tentative release date on his original criminal sentence was May 5, 1965.

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Related

Davis v. Director, Patuxent Institution
351 A.2d 905 (Court of Special Appeals of Maryland, 1976)
Bush v. Director, Patuxent Institution
324 A.2d 162 (Court of Special Appeals of Maryland, 1974)
McDonald v. Boslow
363 F. Supp. 493 (D. Maryland, 1973)

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Bluebook (online)
227 F. Supp. 295, 1964 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 7190, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/monroe-v-director-patuxent-institution-mdd-1964.