Opinion ID: 2383775
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Dortch's Criminal Conviction

Text: In 1974, the applicant who is now before us was twenty-nine years old, a college graduate and Vietnam veteran who had achieved considerable success and recognition in the business world as a field underwriter for a large insurance company. John Dortch's life changed course when he quit his job at the insurance company to start his own business, J.C.D. Enterprises. Dortch solicited investors in J.C.D. Enterprises from among his former insurance clientele. The business foundered. Unable to obtain the needed infusion of cash to avoid bankruptcy, Dortch came up with a desperate scheme to rob a savings and loan institution. Dortch claims, and the Committee on Admissions found, that he was a legitimate businessman who hatched a bizarre plot to repay his investors with the proceeds of a bank robbery. [1] To carry out this plot, Dortch enlisted at least six confederates from among his business or social acquaintances, one of whom was a young woman who worked inside the targeted financial institution. Dortch planned the robbery meticulously. On September 20, 1974, the agreed-upon date, Dortch and co-conspirator John Bryant drove to the vicinity of the savings and loan. Disguised as construction workers, the pair carried a bricklayer's tool bag containing sawed-off shotguns and other firearms that Dortch had supplied. One of the shotguns had been a Christmas present from Dortch's wife; he had sawed off the barrel himself. Unbeknownst to Dortch and Bryant, the police had been tipped off and were waiting for them. Two plainclothes officers stopped them on the street when they exited their car before they reached the savings and loan. The officers directed Dortch to bring the tool bag to a police cruiser parked nearby. Dortch removed one of the sawed-off shotguns and approached the police cruiser with it. An officer reached for Dortch's weapon and it accidentally discharged. No one was injured (except that Dortch himself received a minor powder burn), but Dortch and Bryant immediately fled in opposite directions. One of the officers fired shots at the fleeing suspects. According to the officers' testimony at the subsequent trial, Dortch turned and fired back. Dortch discarded his construction-worker garb and escaped without further incident. Later that day, however, Dortch learned that his accomplice Bryant had shot and killed 24-year-old Metropolitan Police Officer Gail Cobb, who had confronted Bryant in a parking garage as he was removing his disguise. Cobb was alone with her revolver in her holster when Bryant, who had been standing with his hands against a wall, turned and shot Cobb in the heart. In re Dortch, 344 Md. 376, 687 A.2d 245, 246 (Md.1997). Dortch turned himself in to the police the following morning. He was indicted along with six co-defendants on multiple charges, including first-degree felony murder. The case went to trial in June of 1975. During the presentation of the prosecution's case-in-chief, Dortch decided to accept a plea offer. He pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, attempted armed robbery and conspiracy. On July 30, 1975, the court imposed concurrent sentences of fifteen years to life in prison on the first two charges and five years in prison on the conspiracy charge. The court rejected Dortch's request for probation. Dortch filed two motions to reduce his sentence, both of which were denied. Thereafter, between 1977 and 1984, Dortch filed three successive, unsuccessful motions to withdraw his guilty plea or set aside his sentence. Among other things, Dortch alleged that he was coerced and misled into tendering an involuntary and incompetent guilty plea; that police officers perjured themselves at his trial when they testified that he fired at them as he fled; that his trial counsel was ineffective and had a tacit understanding to assist the prosecution in securing his conviction; and that his sentence was based on misrepresentations and incomplete information. Dortch described himself in his post-conviction filings as the victim of a shadowy criminal network whose members forced him against his will to carry out a bank robbery for their own nefarious purposes. Moreover, Dortch maintained that he had decided not to proceed with the robbery and was returning the bag of firearms to his car when the police stopped him. But for the fact that the police officers overreacted, Dortch argued, Officer Cobb would be alive today.