REPORTED
IN THE COURT OF SPECIAL APPEALS
OF MARYLAND
No. 601
September Term, 2010
_________________________
OTIS RICH
v.
STATE OF MARYLAND
Berger, Nazarian, Alves, Krystal Q. (Specially Assigned),
JJ.
Opinion by Nazarian, J. _________________________
Filed: August 30, 2016 Otis Rich pled guilty in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City to possession with
intent to distribute a controlled substance in 1993, possession with intent to distribute and
conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance in 2001, and second-degree assault in 2002.
In April 2009, he pled guilty in the United States District Court for the District of Maryland
to conspiracy to distribute cocaine, and was given an enhanced sentence as a career
offender. Shortly thereafter, he filed three separate petitions for writ of error coram nobis
in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City, challenging the validity of his 1993, 2001, and
2002 guilty pleas on the basis that his pleas were not voluntary and that counsel had
rendered ineffective assistance. The circuit court denied his petitions in three separate
orders entered in 2010, and Mr. Rich appealed.
We stayed this case pending the Court of Appeals’s decision in State v. Smith, 443
Md. 572 (2015). With the benefit of Smith, a case fundamentally similar to this one, we
hold that Mr. Rich did not waive his right to seek coram nobis relief, and we address the
merits. On the merits, we affirm the court’s decisions with respect to the 1993 and 2002
petitions, but vacate the court’s decision as to his 2001 plea to conspiracy to distribute
marijuana because we are unable to see in the transcript of that plea hearing where Mr.
Rich was advised about the nature of the conspiracy charge, and we remand for further
proceedings.
I. BACKGROUND
In January 2009, Mr. Rich pled guilty in the United States District Court for the
District of Maryland to a charge of conspiracy to distribute cocaine in violation of 21
U.S.C. § 846. As a result of his previous convictions in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City, he was given an enhanced sentence of 188 months as a “Career Offender.”1 In April
2009, Mr. Rich filed three separate petitions for writ of error coram nobis, each challenging
the validity of a guilty plea he entered in a previous prosecution in the Circuit Court for
Baltimore City.
First, in 1993, Mr. Rich pled guilty to possession with intent to distribute a
controlled substance. He was sentenced to a term of five years’ imprisonment with five
1 United States Sentencing Guidelines (“USSG”) § 4B1.1 defines a “career offender” as follows:
(a) A defendant is a career offender if (1) the defendant was at least eighteen years old at the time the defendant committed the instant offense of conviction; (2) the instant offense of conviction is a felony that is either a crime of violence or a controlled substance offense; and (3) the defendant has at least two prior felony convictions of either a crime of violence or a controlled substance offense.
The Guidelines go on to define a “crime of violence” as:
[A]ny offense under federal or state law, punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year, that: “(1) has an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person of another, or (2) is burglary of a dwelling, arson, or extortion, involves the use of explosives, or otherwise involves conduct that presents a serious potential risk of physical injury to another.
USSG § 4B1.2(a). Part (b) of that section defines a “controlled substance offense” as:
[A]n offense under federal or state law, punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year, that prohibits the manufacture, import, export, distribution, or dispensing of a controlled substance (or a counterfeit substance) or the possession of a controlled substance (or a counterfeit substance) with intent to manufacture, import, export, distribute, or dispense. 2 years suspended, and placed on probation for a year and six months. No transcripts of this
plea hearing are in the record, so we do not know the facts and circumstances surrounding
it.2 We do know, however, that before Mr. Rich’s term of probation ended, the circuit court
determined that Mr. Rich had violated probation, and in 1995 he was sentenced to serve
three years and six months. It appears as well that Mr. Rich filed a motion for modification
of his sentence on January 4, 1994, but did not seek leave to appeal the guilty plea. He
since has completed his sentence.
Second, on October 23, 2001, Mr. Rich pled guilty to possession with intent to
distribute marijuana and conspiracy to distribute marijuana. The statement of facts placed
on the record at the plea hearing indicated that a reliable source tipped off police that three
men were selling marijuana on the steps of a row house in the 800 block of Collington
Avenue, and storing marijuana in a vacant home on the same street. Based on this tip,
police at the scene observed three men, later identified as Kenneth Cook, Calvin Armistead,
and Mr. Rich, selling marijuana:
During the course of their observations, the officers observed approximately eight times where persons would hand United States currency to both Mr. Cook and Mr. Rich. The money would be collected on every occasion, and on every occasion, Mr. Cook and Mr. Rich would respond northbound from their location to a house which was later found to be 825 North Collington Avenue, a vacant house. Both were observed to reach into the front window of the house and respond back to the location of the person who would surrender currency to them. Mr. Cook and Mr. Rich were observed to hand unknown
2 Mr. Rich requested the transcript of his 1993 guilty plea proceeding more than fifteen years after it took place, and it was no longer available from Baltimore City Court Reporter’s Office. 3 objects to these persons, who would accept the objects and walk out of the area.
* * *
Officer John, along with Officer Norline, responded to the vacant house at 825 North Collington Avenue. Upon looking in the front window, on the floor approximately one foot beneath the window was a large, open plastic bag that contained 43 small ziplock bags that contained a plant-like substance, suspected marijuana. Next to that bag was a large ziplock bag containing five smaller sandwich baggies each containing approximately one ounce of suspected marijuana, for a total of five ounces. Next to that bag was a blue Gap bag that contained a brown paper bag that contained 67 small ziplock baggies of suspected marijuana.
On the possession count, Mr. Rich was sentenced to three years, all suspended, and
placed on three years of supervised probation. On the conspiracy count, he was sentenced
concurrently to three years, all suspended, and three years of supervised probation. Again,
Mr. Rich did not move for leave to appeal the conviction, and he has completed this
sentence.
Third, on April 19, 2002, Mr. Rich pled guilty to second-degree assault and was
sentenced to ten months of incarceration. The circumstances surrounding this charge, as
placed on the record during the plea hearing, indicate that:
. . . On November 2nd, 2001, at 2100 Guilford Avenue, which is Parole and Probation, officers attempted to serve a parole retake warrant on the defendant standing to the left of defense counsel. The defendant became hostile, pushed and punched both Officer Teal and Sergeant Freeman, causing cuts and bruises. The defendant then escaped from the officers and jumped out a window. The defendant was arrested at a later date . . . .
4 Mr. Rich was sentenced to ten months’ imprisonment, which he served without seeking
leave to appeal.
In his April 2009 coram nobis petitions, Mr. Rich argued that he was entitled to
relief because trial counsel had rendered ineffective assistance at all three plea hearings.
He contends that his counsel failed to ensure that his guilty pleas were knowing and
voluntary, failed to ensure that the court engaged in a full plea colloquy, and failed to seek
leave to appeal or ask for a modification of sentence following all three convictions, even
though Mr. Rich says he asked counsel to do so. As for the “significant collateral
consequence” required to qualify for coram nobis relief, Mr. Rich argued that he received
an enhanced federal sentence in 2009 as a result of the three guilty pleas. Without holding
a hearing on the matter, the circuit court denied all three petitions, and Mr. Rich filed a
timely appeal.
The case was originally docketed in our September 2010 term. On October 27,
2014, though, we issued a stay pending the Court of Appeals’s decision in Graves v. State,
which presented the question of whether the failure to seek appeal in a criminal case may
be construed as a waiver of the right to file a petition for coram nobis relief. 215 Md. App.
339, 343 (2013), cert. granted, 437 Md. 637 (2014). In December 2014, the Court of
Appeals dismissed Graves as moot, but the stay in Mr. Rich’s case remained in place
because, in the interim, the Court granted certiorari in State v. Smith to address the same
issue. 439 Md. 327 (2014). After the Court decided Smith in July 2015, we lifted the stay
and scheduled the case for argument in March 2016.
5 II. DISCUSSION
Unlike the circuit court, we have the benefit of significant legislative and judicial
developments in the governing law that post-date the orders at issue. So although we are,
of course, reviewing the circuit court’s denial of Mr. Rich’s three petitions for coram nobis
relief,3 it is important for us to recognize the evolution, indeed the broadening, of coram
nobis relief in the intervening six-and-a-half years, at least for certain categories of
petitioners. Coram nobis remains an “extraordinary remedy” that allows a convicted
defendant to “show that a criminal conviction was invalid under circumstances where no
other remedy is presently available and where there were sound reasons for the failure to
seek relief earlier.” State v. Smith, 443 Md. 572, 597 (2015) (quoting Skok v. State, 361
Md. 52, 72-73 (2000)). This relief is available to aid defendants who, facing a relatively
light sanction, “forego an appeal even if errors of a constitutional or fundamental nature
may have occurred” and “[t]hen, when the defendant later learns of a substantial collateral
consequence of the conviction, it may be too late to appeal, and, if the defendant is not
incarcerated or on parole or probation . . .,” find it is too late to seek post-conviction relief.
Skok, 361 Md. at 77 (citing United States v. Morgan, 346 U.S. 502 (1954)). Skok
recognized enhanced sentencing as one such collateral consequence. Id.
3 Mr. Rich framed the questions as follows in his brief:
1. Did Appellant knowingly and voluntarily enter guilty plea[s]?
2. Did Appellant receive ineffective assistance of counsel during guilty plea proceedings? 6 Mr. Rich claims (and the circuit court assumed as to all three guilty pleas) that he
suffered collateral consequences in the form of an enhanced federal sentence. That all said,
he is eligible for coram nobis relief only if: (1) he is challenging his convictions based on
constitutional, jurisdictional, or fundamental grounds, whether factual or legal; (2) he can
rebut the presumption of regularity that attaches to each criminal case; (3) he faces
significant collateral consequences from the convictions; (4) the alleged error has not been
waived or finally litigated in a prior proceeding, absent intervening changes in the
applicable law; and (5) he is not entitled to another statutory or common law remedy. Jones
v. State, 445 Md. 324, 338 (2015).
The State’s brief, filed before the case was stayed and thus before Smith, argues
primarily that Mr. Rich waived his coram nobis claims and, if not, that they are barred by
the equitable doctrine of laches. Those arguments were stronger before Smith, but in light
of Smith, we disagree that the claims are barred. From there, we reach the merits, and we
find that Mr. Rich has met most of his threshold burdens as to one of his guilty pleas, and
one needs further exploration.
A. Mr. Rich Has Not Waived His Coram Nobis Claims.
The State argues first that Mr. Rich was not entitled to coram nobis relief because
he waived any challenge to his guilty pleas by not seeking leave to appeal them or filing a
petition for post-conviction relief. The Court of Appeals’s most recent treatment of waiver
in this context, however, compels us to reject these contentions.
In Skok v. State, the leading case on waiver at the time of the circuit court rulings
and the parties’ briefs, the Court of Appeals held that “the same body of law concerning
7 waiver and final litigation of an issue, which is applicable under the Maryland Post
Conviction Procedure Act . . . shall be applicable in a coram nobis proceeding.” 361 Md.
at 79. But the General Assembly changed the law effective October 1, 2012, Md. Code
(2001, 2008 Repl. Vol., 2015 Supp.), and § 8-401 of the Criminal Procedure Article (“CP”)
now provides that “the failure to seek an appeal in a criminal case may not be construed as
a waiver of the right to file a petition for writ of error coram nobis.” (emphasis added).
Then, in Smith, the Court of Appeals held that § 8-401 applied retroactively to all coram
nobis cases pending in court on the day the statute became effective. 443 Md. at 591. This
timing works for Mr. Rich: he filed his coram nobis petitions in April 2009, the circuit
court issued orders denying all three in February 2010, his appeal from those orders was
timely, and, because of the stay, they remained pending on October 1, 2012. Therefore,
his claims are not waived despite his failure to appeal from the judgments entered as a
result of his guilty pleas.
We disagree as well that Mr. Rich waived his coram nobis claims by failing to
withdraw his guilty plea or seek post-conviction relief. Although the Maryland Post
Conviction Procedure Act would seem to support the State’s contention,4 it is enough under
4 When a petitioner could have made an allegation of error [in an application for leave to appeal a guilty plea or in a habeas corpus petition] but did not make an allegation of error, there is a rebuttable presumption that the petitioner intelligently and knowingly failed to make the allegation.
CP § 7-106(b)(2) (emphasis added). 8 Smith that the record is silent as to whether Mr. Rich actually knew post-conviction relief
was available, and thus was able to decline intelligently to pursue it:
We would eviscerate the beneficent purpose of [CP § 8-401] if we were to hold that a person, suddenly faced with the serious collateral consequence of removal from this country, and with sound reasons for the failure to seek relief earlier, is foreclosed even from seeking the extraordinary relief afforded by the common law remedy of coram nobis simply by having failed to pursue an earlier-available avenue of relief, the opportunity for which closed before the reason for seeking such relief became manifest.
443 Md. at 609 (internal citations omitted).
B. Mr. Rich’s Claims Are Not Barred By Laches.
The State argues next that Mr. Rich’s claims are barred by the equitable doctrine of
laches. Laches is both an affirmative defense and an equitable defense, State Center, LLC
v. Lexington Charles Ltd. P’ship, 438 Md. 451, 480 (2014), so the State bears the burden
of proving “by a preponderance of the evidence that: (1) there was an unreasonable or
impermissible delay in asserting a particular claim, and (2) that the delay prejudiced the
State.” Jones v. State, 445 Md. 324, 339 (2015) (internal quotations and citations omitted).
We find that the State has not met its burden here.
In order to demonstrate prejudice, the State must demonstrate that the delay in
bringing the claim placed it in a less favorable position to defend against the claim and to
re-prosecute the defendant. Id. at 357. In Jones, the State was able to meet its burden by
eliciting testimony from a police officer during the hearing on a coram nobis petition
challenging a defendant’s prior drug conviction. Id. at 360. The officer was the only
eyewitness, and had prepared the defendant’s statement of charges and offense report
9 thirteen years earlier. But at the time of the hearing, the officer had no independent
recollection of the defendant, nor could he locate the petitioner’s case file. Id. The Court
held that the prejudice to the State resulting from the delay was enough for the doctrine of
laches to bar the petition.
In Mr. Rich’s case, no coram nobis hearing was ever held, and because the State
never pled or attempted to prove a laches defense in the circuit court, the court made no
findings regarding any prejudice resulting from the delay in filing his petitions for relief.
In its brief to this Court, the State assumes that the police officers and other witnesses
would be unable to recall the circumstances surrounding Mr. Rich’s drug-related offenses
stretching back sixteen years. That may be true, but the record contains no evidence on
which we could ground such a finding or the next-step conclusions that Mr. Rich’s delay
in seeking coram nobis relief prejudiced the State’s ability to defend against the coram
nobis petition or re-prosecute Mr. Rich. To adopt the State’s position on this record would,
in essence, be to hold that the passage of time, without more, satisfies these prejudice
requirements, a leap we decline to take.
C. Mr. Rich Is Entitled To A Remand With Regard To His 2001 Guilty Plea.
On the merits of his coram nobis petition, Mr. Rich bore the burden to bring a valid
constitutional challenge to each proceeding, to rebut the presumption of regularity that
attaches to criminal cases, and to demonstrate that he faces significant collateral
consequences from his convictions. Jones, 445 Md. at 338. Mr. Rich brings two
interrelated constitutional challenges to each of his 1993, 2001, and 2002 pleas: first, that
10 the pleas themselves were involuntary, and second, that trial counsel rendered ineffective
assistance by allowing him to enter involuntary guilty pleas and by failing to ensure that
the court engaged in a full plea colloquy at each hearing.5
A guilty plea is not voluntary unless it “constitute[s] an intelligent admission that
[the defendant] committed the offense,” and the defendant received “real notice of the true
nature of the charge against him, the first and most universally recognized requirement of
due process.” Henderson v. Morgan, 426 U.S. 637, 645 (1976); see also State v. Daughtry,
419 Md. 35, 48 (2011). For that reason, Rule 4-242(c) directs a court not to accept a guilty
plea until the defendant has been examined on the record and the court determines that the
defendant understands both the nature of the charge and the consequences of the plea, and
that a factual basis for the plea exists. Whether the plea passes muster under Rule 4-242(c)
must be decided on a case-by-case basis, taking into account “the complexity of the charge,
the personal characteristics of the accused, and the factual basis proffered to support the
5 We can dispose quickly of Mr. Rich’s additional constitutional challenge that counsel had rendered ineffective assistance by failing to perfect an appeal or file a motion for modification of sentence after each of his three convictions. In its orders denying Mr. Rich’s requests for coram nobis relief, the court pointed out that counsel had filed a motion for modification of sentence after Mr. Rich’s 1993 conviction. It also noted that Mr. Rich did not provide any evidence that he’d asked counsel to file a motion to modify his sentence after the 2001 and 2002 convictions, or an application for leave to appeal after all three convictions. He likewise fails to provide any evidence of these allegations on appeal, and we will not find that his counsel rendered ineffective assistance on a silent record. See Matthews v. State, 161 Md. App. 248, 249 (2005) (concluding that a defendant is entitled to file a belated appeal or a belated motion for modification of sentence if he can show the court that he asked his attorney to take these actions but his attorney failed to do so).
11 court’s acceptance of the plea.” Daughtry, 419 Md. at 72 (quoting State v. Priet, 289 Md.
267, 277 (1981)).
“Our jurisprudence, in determining the validity of a guilty plea, has focused always
on whether the defendant, based on the totality of the circumstances, entered the plea
knowingly and voluntarily.” Id. at 69. And although the complex nature of some crimes
may require an explanation of each element of each charge, no specific litany is uniformly
required. Id. at 72 n.19. In some cases, the nature of the crime may be readily apparent
from the crime itself; in others, the factual basis proffered to support the plea may describe
the offense in sufficient detail to pass muster under Rule 4-242(c). Id. at 72-73. The
personal characteristics of the accused also play a role in the analysis, since a defendant
with “diminished mental capacity is less likely to be able to understand the nature of the
charges against him than one with normal mental faculties.” Id. at 73.
In Daughtry, the Court of Appeals vacated a defendant’s guilty plea, holding that it
was deficient under Rule 4-242(c) when the only portion of the plea colloquy dedicated to
ascertaining whether the plea was knowing and voluntary was the trial judge’s question,
“Have you talked over your plea with your lawyer?” (the defendant responded
affirmatively). Id. at 70. Under the totality of the circumstances, it was not clear whether
the defendant understood the nature of the charges to which he pled guilty in addition to
the terms of the plea itself, id. at 70, so the Court held that “where the record reflects
nothing more than the fact that a defendant is represented by counsel (as in the present
case) and that the defendant discussed generically the plea with his or her attorney, such a
plea colloquy is deficient under Rule 4-242(c), and the plea must be vacated.” Id. at 71.
12 Smith clarified that when a defendant brings a coram nobis petition attacking the
constitutionality of a guilty plea in trial court, the ultimate issue for the appellate court is
whether the defendant understood the nature of the charges, regardless of what the trial
court could determine from the record before it. 443 Md. at 653. And to that end, testimony
from counsel indicating that he or she advised the defendant of the nature of the charges is
admissible in order to determine whether the defendant plead guilty voluntarily, and with
an understanding of the nature of the charge. Id. at 654.
In addition, the Sixth Amendment and Article 21 of the Maryland Declaration of
Rights entitle a defendant to effective assistance of counsel. Taylor v. State, 428 Md. 386,
399 (2012). Under the test announced by the Supreme Court in Strickland v. Washington,
a defendant who claims that he has received ineffective assistance must show first that
counsel’s performance was deficient, and second that the defective performance prejudiced
the defense. 466 U.S. 668, 687 (1984). In other words, the defendant has the burden of
proving that counsel made errors so serious as to deny the assistance guaranteed by the
Sixth Amendment. Taylor, 428 Md. at 399. “In regard to the first, ‘performance’ prong
of Strickland, the defendant must demonstrate that counsel’s alleged acts or omissions,
based on ‘the facts of the particular case, viewed as of the time of counsel’s conduct,’ fell
‘outside the wide range of professionally competent assistance.’” See id. (quoting
Strickland, 466 U.S. at 690).
Whether Mr. Rich’s counsel rendered ineffective assistance is a mixed question of
law and fact, and we will not disturb the circuit court’s factual findings unless they are
clearly erroneous. We will, however, exercise our own independent judgment as to the
13 reasonableness of counsel’s conduct and any prejudice that resulted. State v. Prado, No.
100, Sept. Term 2015, slip op. at 15-16 (filed July 11, 2016). On this point, Mr. Rich
argues that counsel failed to ensure that there was an adequate on-the-record explanation
of the nature of the charges he faced, and that as a result, his guilty pleas were not voluntary,
knowing, or intelligently made.
We evaluate each of Mr. Rich’s plea agreements against this legal backdrop.
Ultimately, and as we explain, Mr. Rich doesn’t state a valid constitutional challenge as to
his 1993 and 2002 guilty pleas and his coram nobis petitions for those pleas must fail. His
2001 guilty plea is a different story, at least in part.
1. The 1993 and 2002 pleas were knowing and voluntary.
The absence of a hearing transcript for the 1993 plea proceedings prevents Mr. Rich
from meeting his burden to prove that his plea was deficient. A presumption of regularity
attaches to criminal proceedings, which means that we “presume[] that the trial court
proceedings were correct and the burden rests on the challenger to show otherwise.” Harris
v. State, 406 Md. 115, 122 (2008) (quoting Morgan, 346 U.S. at 512). Without a transcript,
we cannot evaluate Mr. Rich’s claims, and we decline to assume from the transcripts of his
2001 and 2002 guilty pleas that his 1993 plea fell short. In the absence of any evidence to
the contrary, the presumption of regularity stands unrebutted, and compels us to conclude
that the 1993 guilty plea was intelligently and voluntarily entered, and that his counsel’s
performance did not rise to the level of ineffective assistance. Jones, 445 Md. at 338; Jones
v. State, 114 Md. App. 471, 479 (1997).
14 In 2002, Mr. Rich pled guilty to a charge of second-degree assault against a police
officer. The plea hearing featured the following colloquy:
THE COURT: So you’re 27 years old. How far did you go in school?
MR. RICH: I got my diploma.
THE COURT: So you can read and write the English language without any difficulty?
MR. RICH: Yes.
THE COURT: Are you today under the influence of any drugs, alcohol, or anything that affects your ability to understand what you’re doing?
MR. RICH: No, sir.
THE COURT: Have you ever been treated by a psychiatrist or a psychologist for any type of mental disorder related to your not understanding what was going on around you?
THE COURT: . . . the only other question would be on the voluntariness of your plea. Now, I ask you, aside from plea negotiations in this case, has anyone offered you anything, forced you in any way to plead guilty in this way?
MR. RICH: No.
THE COURT: Then, I am satisfied that you understand what you’re doing here today and that you are tendering a free and voluntary plea.
We are satisfied that this plea colloquy complies with Rule 4-242, and that Mr.
Rich’s guilty plea was entered knowingly and voluntarily. The court’s inquiry into his
15 mental state and level of education—what Daughtry termed “the personal characteristics
of the accused”—demonstrates that Mr. Rich understood what was going on around him
and was capable of grasping the nature of the charges. 419 Md. at 72. And although Mr.
Rich is right to point out that the court did not spell out the elements of the assault charge,
this failure doesn’t undermine the validity of this guilty plea. Assault is not a complex
crime, and Mr. Rich was capable of understanding the nature of the charge from the
statement of facts, in which the prosecutor explained that Mr. Rich was being charged
because he had punched and pushed two police officers. See id. (finding that the “factual
basis to support the court’s acceptance of the plea may describe the offenses charged in
sufficient detail to pass muster under the Rule.” (internal citations omitted)).
Nor does this Court’s decision in State v. Hicks, 139 Md. App. 1 (2001), compel us
to find the 2002 plea colloquy deficient. There, we held that evidence that the defendant
was not advised on the burden of proof, the standard of proof, or the presumption of
innocence was sufficient to support the circuit court’s finding that the defendant’s guilty
plea was not knowing or voluntary. Id. at 11. In Mr. Rich’s hearing, by contrast, the court
informed him that by pleading guilty he would forego a trial at which the State would be
required to prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Viewed in its entirety, the 2002 plea
colloquy satisfies us that Mr. Rich understood the charges against him and that he was
giving up his right to force the State to prove him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. See
Daughtry, 419 Md. at 69 (the court must decide from the defendant’s perspective whether
he understood the charges). For the same reason, we disagree that Mr. Rich’s counsel was
16 ineffective, and because he has failed to bring a valid constitutional challenge to either
conviction, his coram nobis claims for both of these pleas fail.
2. Mr. Rich’s 2001 guilty plea to conspiracy to distribute marijuana was not knowing and voluntary.
In 2001, Mr. Rich pled guilty to two counts, possession with intent to distribute
marijuana, and conspiracy to distribute marijuana. But the portion of the plea proceedings
relevant to determining whether Mr. Rich’s plea was knowing and voluntary discussed
only the possession with intent to distribute charge:
[CO-DEFENDANT’S COUNSEL]: The fourth ground has a couple parts. One is whether or not you understand the charge. Mr. Thomas and Mr. Rich, you’re both pleading guilty to possession kind of offenses and possession can be either actual possession, meaning it’s on a part of you—in your pockets, holding it in your hand like a pen—or constructive possession, meaning that’s in the vicinity of where you are, and you are exercising dominion, meaning ownership, and control over it, meaning that if somebody tried to take it, you could stop them, such as my briefcase over on one of the chairs. I’m not touching it in any way, but I’m in constructive possession of that.
Possessing it with the intent to distribute it means you’re having the intent to transfer that possession from you to somebody else. That could be giving it away, it could be selling it, as long as the possession transfers. There doesn’t have to be any money involved. A gift is a transfer of possession. So that’s the possessing it with the intent to give it to somebody else, as opposed to us[ing] it all for yourself.
Mr. Rich, you understand you’re charged with marijuana and that’s another one of those substances that the Legislature says you can’t have?
17 [CO-DEFENDANT’S COUNSEL]: Is there anything about the charge of possessing it with the intent to distribute that you don’t understand?
[CO-DEFENDANT’S COUNSEL]: Okay. The other part of this fourth ground is whether or not you’re doing this of your own free will and volition. Now, the Court is allowed to tell you ahead of time what sentence you’re going to get, but no one can make any other promises.
Mr. Rich, has anyone promised you anything except the sentence?
[CO-DEFENDANT’S COUNSEL]: Has anyone threatened you or coerced you in any way?
[CO-DEFENDANT’S COUNSEL]: In other words, you’re doing this of your own free will and volition? This is what you want to do?
The court then found on the record that Mr. Rich entered a knowing and voluntary guilty
plea to both counts.
Mr. Rich contends that this plea colloquy is deficient because the court did not
establish on the record the elements of the second count, conspiracy to distribute marijuana.
On this point, the circuit court found that it wasn’t necessary to disclose the specific
elements of each charge on the record, and that the statement of facts offered by the
18 prosecutor, describing Mr. Rich working together with Mr. Thomas and Mr. Armistead to
sell marijuana, was sufficient to communicate the nature of a conspiracy charge.
We disagree. Again, our first task is to determine whether, under the totality of the
circumstances, Mr. Rich understood the nature of the conspiracy charge. The circuit court
was correct when it found that as a general matter, the court is not required to go through
the “specific litany” of explaining each element of the crimes charged. Daughtry, 419 Md.
at 72 n.19. But the record must reflect that Mr. Rich understood the essential nature of the
crime of conspiracy, that is, “the agreement between two or more people to achieve some
unlawful purpose or to employ unlawful means in achieving a lawful purpose.” State v.
Payne, 440 Md. 680, 712 (2014) (quoting State v. Johnson, 367 Md. 418, 424 (2002)).
And unlike the situation in Smith, the circuit court decided Mr. Rich’s coram nobis
petitions without a hearing, so there is no testimony apart from the plea hearing itself from
which we can evaluate Mr. Rich’s understanding of the charges.
This plea colloquy didn’t explain to Mr. Rich the essential nature of a conspiracy,
i.e., an agreement to achieve an unlawful purpose. And we disagree that the essential
nature of the charge was self-evident, or even that it was communicated by the prosecutor’s
factual proffer describing Mr. Rich working with two other men to sell marijuana. Indeed,
the colloquial use of “conspiracy” may evoke a much larger-scale plot than its legal
definition; therefore, we cannot assume that Mr. Rich understood the essential nature of
the conspiracy charge to which he was pleading guilty without any explanation from the
court. See Smith, 443 Md. at 619 (Barbera, C. J., concurring) (counting conspiracy as
among those crimes that are not readily understandable from the label of the crime itself);
19 Daughtry, 419 Md. at 72 (explaining that the complex nature of some crimes demands
some additional explanation beyond simply pronouncing its name).
Accordingly, Mr. Rich has met his burdens to show a constitutional deficiency in
his 2001 guilty plea, and to rebut the presumption of regularity with regard to that guilty
plea. We already have decided that he hasn’t waived his claim for coram nobis relief, and
there does not appear to be any other form of legal or equitable relief available to him. This
leaves, then, the question of whether he faces significant collateral consequences from the
convictions, and the record on this point is muddled. See Jones, 445 Md. at 338 The circuit
court did not address the question—it assumed, without deciding, that its “ruling…will
have a collateral impact [on his] federal sentence,” then addressed the merits. Mr. Rich
alleges that his 2001 plea, together with his 1993 plea, form the basis for his enhanced
federal sentence. 6 See Skok, 361 Md. at 77 (recidivist sentencing can present serious
collateral consequences for defendants with prior convictions). But the State disputes the
collateral impact of these convictions as a factual matter—it contends that Mr. Rich
stipulated to “Career Offender Status” when he entered his federal guilty plea. Whether,
and to what extent, Mr. Rich’s 2001 guilty plea in fact caused his federal sentence to be
enhanced and, if it did, whether that impact qualifies as a collateral consequence justifying
6 It appears that Mr. Rich’s 2002 plea for second-degree assault does not form the basis for an enhanced sentence, because it is not a crime of violence under USSG § 4B1.2(a). See United States v. Royal, 731 F.3d 333, 342 (4th Cir. 2013) (finding that because “Maryland's second-degree assault statute reaches any unlawful touching, whether violent or nonviolent and no matter how slight, ‘convictions under the statute . . . cannot categorically be crimes of violence[,]’” and that a second degree assault conviction “does not constitute a predicate ‘violent felony’ supporting a sentencing enhancement . . . .”). 20 coram nobis relief are questions the circuit court should resolve in the first instance.
Accordingly, we vacate the portion of the judgment denying his coram nobis petition as to
the 2001 plea and remand for further proceedings, see Md. Rule 15-1206, but otherwise
affirm.
JUDGMENT OF THE CIRCUIT COURT FOR BALTIMORE CITY AFFIRMED IN PART, VACATED IN PART, AND REMANDED FOR PROCEEDINGS CONSISTENT WITH THIS OPINION. COSTS TO BE PAID 2/3 BY APPELLANT AND 1/3 BY MAYOR AND CITY COUNCIL OF BALTIMORE.