As stated in their plea agreements, in vestigators in tercepted calls between Williams and co-conspirators and Roundheart and other members of the conspiracy discussing the distribution of drugs. Bentalou Street , Baltimore , where Williams met with co-conspirators.
Based on the in tercepted conversations, in vestigators believe Williams purchased the bar with drug trafficking proceeds. In vestigators also identified seven other properties in Baltimore that Williams either owned or leased. In vestigators recovered multiple bags of suspected cocaine and heroin, as well as 76 grams of fentanyl from his two vehicles as well. Of the 25 defendants in dicted in this case, 23— in cluding Williams and Roundheart—have pleaded guilty or been found guilty at trial.
Baltimore News. Vaping Marijuana By Teens Doubles In Last Seven Years, With Potentially Harmful Consequences, Study Says Marijuana vaping by school-aged youth doubled between and , a new study found, with reported use within the last 30 days rising seven-fold during the same time period. The court convicted Ingram of distribution of cocaine, and, on August 24, , the court sentenced Ingram to twenty years, the first ten of which are to be served without parole. After being sentenced on August 24, , Ingram did not file any appeal.
Nor did he pursue any other postconviction relief until February 9, , when he filed the motion to correct an illegal sentence. In his motion and supporting memorandum, Ingram argued that his second prosecution was barred by the double jeopardy principles set forth in the Court of Appeals' opinion in Anderson, supra, Md.
The underlying facts of the Anderson case are indeed similar to the facts presented by Ingram. Unlike Ingram, Anderson filed an immediate interlocutory appeal of the denial of his motion to dismiss based on double jeopardy grounds.
See Bunting v. Relying on Hawkins v. State, 77 Md. Consequently, the Court of Appeals ruled that the second prosecution was barred on double jeopardy grounds. The Court of Appeals explained in Anderson, supra, Md. To answer the question of whether the subsequent prosecution or multiple punishment is for the same offense requires consideration of whether the charges are the same either in fact or in law.
The Court explained in Anderson, supra, Md. The question of sameness in law is analyzed using the "required evidence" test set forth in Blockburger v. United States, U. The Court of Appeals described the Blockburger test in Thomas v. Woodson, Md. See Brown v. Ohio, U. At the outset, the Court noted that, "absent a clear statutory direction to the contrary, the uninterrupted possession of an item of contraband is ordinarily regarded as one continuing offense under Maryland law.
The Court hypothesized, however, that the offense of possession might, under some circumstances, not be a single continuing act, if, for instance, the possession was interrupted for some period of time or if it could be shown that the defendant possessed discretely "two or more quantities of a contraband drug that are kept in different places. See Potts v. The Court resolved the question of whether Anderson was being prosecuted for clearly discrete acts of possession by reviewing the charging documents.
The charging document "did not specify a time and did not specify how much heroin Anderson possessed. Because of the generality of the factual allegations in the Statement of Charges, the Court concluded that, under that charging document, "Anderson could have been convicted based on whatever he had in his possession that day at that place, including the drugs sold to detectives Barnes and Butler or, indeed, to anyone else.
That being the case, the Court concluded that the subsequent prosecution for distribution on October 1, , placed Anderson in double jeopardy. Accordingly, the later filed indictments for distribution should have been dismissed. When we review the two successive indictments under which Ingram was prosecuted, we conclude that his successive prosecutions were, like Anderson's, for crimes that constitute the same offense for double jeopardy purposes.
Accordingly, barring any negotiated agreement to the contrary that the transcripts might disclose, it appears that Ingram's motion to dismiss the second indictment should have been granted, and, had he pursued a timely appeal of his second conviction, that conviction should have been reversed based upon double jeopardy arguments similar to those asserted in Anderson. We do not have sufficient facts in the record to determine whether Ingram was denied effective assistance of counsel in failing to adequately articulate the double jeopardy arguments and in failing to pursue a direct appeal on that basis.
See Strickland v. Washington, U. See Crim. The claim of ineffective assistance of counsel, however, is generally best asserted by way of a postconviction petition.
See, e. Ingram, however, sought to attack his conviction pursuant to a motion to correct an illegal sentence under Rule a. If Ingram's motion had raised a claim that some illegality inhered in the sentence itself, his failure to pursue a timely direct appeal would not foreclose his right to file a motion pursuant to Rule a. In Chaney v. We recognize that some cases of the Court of Appeals have referred to the scope of Rule a in broader terms than the most recent cases.
In Evans v. Kanaras, Md. In a case such as Ingram's, one could argue that he should have never been prosecuted a second time, let alone convicted a second time, and therefore, "no sentence should have been imposed" for the second conviction. Although we acknowledge the facial appeal of that argument, we conclude that such a broad reading of Rule a would permit any defendant who felt unjustly convicted to attack his conviction repeatedly by filing motions alleging that his sentence is necessarily "illegal" because there was a defect in the proceedings that led to the underlying conviction.
Even if the claims of illegality that could permissibly be asserted under a Rule a motion were limited to alleged constitutional defects in the proceedings that led to the conviction, such challenges could range far beyond any illegality that inheres in the sentence itself.
Such an expansive application of the rule would be inconsistent with the position the Court of Appeals has taken with respect to preservation of constitutional claims of error generally.
In Taylor, supra, Md. State, 56 Md. We are convinced that Rule a is not intended to reach every contention that the defendant was wrongly convicted.
The Court of Appeals agreed that the erroneous entry of those sentences could be corrected pursuant to Rule a , stating, id. A court cannot punish a defendant for a crime for which he or she has been acquitted. Another case in which the Court of Appeals cited Rule a as authority for it to review on direct appeal a sentence that was alleged to be illegal because no sentence should have been imposed is Moosavi v.
Unlike the respective defendants in Ridgeway and Moosavi, Ingram was never acquitted of the crime of distribution of cocaine, and Ingram was not convicted under a clearly inapplicable statute. In the words of the motion court that denied Ingram's motion, Ingram "concede[d] that he sold an undercover police officer a bag of cocaine that he had on his person. This is certainly the distribution of cocaine.
We acknowledge that the double jeopardy prohibition against multiple sentences for a single offense might be properly asserted pursuant to Rule a under the circumstances presented in Randall Book Corporation v. The corporate defendant in that case was a bookstore that had been convicted of separate counts of displaying sexually explicit magazines, based upon the display of different magazines.
The State argued that the defendant was improperly seeking to use Rule a to raise issues that should have been raised on direct appeal. But the Court of Appeals concluded that the bookstore's claims of illegality were sufficiently related to the sentences to be considered upon a Rule a motion. In so ruling, however, the Court of Appeals stated that it considered "instructive" a comment made by the Supreme Court in Hill v. That rule provided, in language identical to Maryland Rule a : "The court may correct an illegal sentence at any time.
With that background, the Randall Book Court concluded that the bookstore properly asserted a double jeopardy claim pursuant to a Rule a motion because the defendant was attacking the imposition of multiple sentences. The Court of Appeals stated, Md.
The Court noted that Randall Book had been subjected to only a single prosecution, and the double jeopardy issue the defendant raised in its Rule a motion focused on whether the court had impermissibly imposed multiple sentences for a single unit of the offense. If Randall Book had succeeded in the claim it made in its motion, the circuit court could have corrected the sentence by modifying the sentence it had imposed.
In contrast, Ingram's claim of a double jeopardy problem relates only indirectly to the sentence. Hill, supra , U. Ingram's claim, in essence, is that the court committed an error prior to the imposition of his current sentence, while the claim of error in Randall Book was that the sentencing court committed an error at the time it imposed Randall Book's sentences.
Whereas Randall Book's claim of illegality was directly related to sentencing, Ingram's claim is not. State v. The illegality. Nor do we read State v.
Griffiths, Md. Although the Court of Appeals made reference to Rule a in Griffiths as authority for its ultimate disposition of the appeal, it is clear that the double jeopardy claim had been raised by Griffiths in the circuit court at the time of his second prosecution, as well as on direct appeal to this Court, and then by way of a petition for certiorari in the Court of Appeals.
After the Court of Appeals determined on direct appeal that Griffiths's claim of double jeopardy was meritorious, the Court cited Rule a as authority for the circuit court to vacate the sentence imposed for the prior conviction on the lesser offense that was not even before the Court, having never been challenged. Given the fact that no Rule a motion was ever filed in the Griffiths case, we do not view the Griffiths Court's reference to Rule a , under the peculiar circumstances of that case, as authority for the proposition that any double jeopardy claim of successive prosecutions may be raised at any time by way of a motion to correct an illegal sentence.
The distinction we draw between double jeopardy issues which inhere in the sentence and those issues that arise prior to sentencing is consistent with the Court of Appeals's description of the scope of Rule a in Chaney, supra, Md. The Court there said, id. Ingram's claim that his sentence was illegal because he should not have been prosecuted a second time does not fall within the Chaney definition of an "illegal" sentence as being a sentence "in which the illegality inheres in the sentence itself.
As the Court of Appeals stated in Pollard, supra, Md. The lack of circuit court transcripts, however, leaves open the possibility that Ingram may have knowingly and intelligently waived or bargained away his double jeopardy rights at either of the trial proceedings. United States v. Broce, U.
State, 43 Md. See also Broce, supra , U. Transcripts of the trial court proceedings would conclusively resolve any such uncertainties about the circumstances that led to Ingram's two convictions arising from the events of June 11, The Court there stated, id.
Oken v. But cf. Baker v. Under the original Rule 35, an illegal sentence could be corrected at any time. This was in accord with prior law. After the amendments to the rule, the district court no longer has authority to correct a sentence because it is illegal or was illegally imposed. Such challenges now must be made on direct appeal, or by motion under [28 U. Your Notes edit none.
Cited By 7 This case has been cited by other opinions: Moore v. State Malarkey v. State Britton v. State Parker v. Authorities 32 This opinion cites: Anderson v. State, A. Please support our work with a donation. Court of Special Appeals of Maryland.
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