Opinion ID: 2298009
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 11

Heading: Question Seven: Legal Status of the Death Penalty in Maryland

Text: In his Motion to Correct an Illegal Sentence, under Maryland Rule 4-345, Grandison argued that this Court's ruling in Evans v. State, 396 Md. 256, 914 A.2d 25 (2006), establishes that the implementation of a death sentence as a penalty for first degree murder is not [a] possibility[.] As stated in his brief before this Court, Grandison also avers that it would violate constitutional prohibitions against ` ex post facto laws' for any warrant of execution to be issued, in the future[.] The Circuit Court denied Grandison's motion on the grounds that the death penalty has not been eliminated in Maryland and, as Grandison observes, without addressing the ex post facto argument. Our analysis in Evans v. State is squarely on point: Maryland Rule 4-345(a) permits a court to correct an illegal sentence at any time. If the sentence is not illegal, the court's revisory power over it, with exceptions not pertinent here, is limited to a showing of fraud, mistake, or irregularity in the sentence. There has been no contention by Evans, and there is no basis in the record for such a contention, that the 1992 death sentence imposed on him was the product of fraud, mistake, or irregularity. In order to be entitled to relief under Rule 4-345(a), therefore, Evans must show that the death sentence he is challenging is illegal. In two of Evans's prior appeals[,] we confirmed earlier rulings and made clear that [a] motion to correct an illegal sentence ordinarily can be granted only where there is some illegality in the sentence itself or where no sentence should have been imposed. In the more recent of those cases, we flatly held that there was nothing intrinsically illegal in Evans's sentence; he was properly found to be a principal in the first degree in two first degree murders for which the death penalty could lawfully be imposed, and the court properly found that the aggravating factors proved outweighed any mitigating factors and that death was the appropriate sentence. Nothing has been presented in these appeals that would cause us to reconsider, much less overrule, that holding. (Citations omitted.) Evans, 396 Md. at 271-72, 914 A.2d at 34. In Evans, this Court enjoined the Circuit Court for Baltimore City from carrying out the death penalty against Vernon Evans because the regulations governing administration of the lethal injections had been adopted using procedures violating the Administrative Procedure Act. The injunction would remain in effect until new regulations were properly promulgated. [17] Id. at 350, 914 A.2d at 81. The legality, in administrative law terms, of the method used for adoption of the procedures for administering a lethal injection, however, is distinct from the question of whether the death penalty sentence is itself illegal. Our opinion in Evans did not render unconstitutional the death penalty in Maryland; rather, it reaffirmed the importance of procedural integrity in carrying out such a penalty. In Evans, we rejected the constitutional challenge to the death penalty. Evans contended that systemic racial bias rendered the death penalty invalid in Maryland under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, as well as Articles 16, 24, and 25 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights. See id. at 294-327, 914 A.2d at 46-67. We denied this challenge. See id. at 327, 914 A.2d at 67. This part of Evans is consistent with our earlier holdings that the death penalty is not unconstitutional in Maryland. See Tichnell v. State, 287 Md. 695, 729, 415 A.2d 830, 848 (1980) (In short, we hold that, on its face, the Maryland statutory scheme for imposition of the death penalty satisfies the requirements of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the federal constitution, and Art. 25 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights.); Johnson v. State, 292 Md. 405, 436, 439 A.2d 542, 559-60, (1982) (rejecting the argument that the death penalty is per se cruel and unusual punishment as measured against the standards of the Maryland Constitution). Grandison asks us to hold that his death sentence is unconstitutional because of our ruling in Evans, contending that any new regulation enabling the State to execute him would be ex post facto since it would be carried out by a method unavailable at the time he was sentenced, given that the regulations then in place were invalid. This Court, however, implicitly rejected such a line of reasoning in Evans when we remanded Evans' case to the circuit court, with instructions to enjoin enforcement of lethal injection checklist included as part of division of correction execution operations manual until such time as the contents of that checklist, in their current or any amended form, are adopted as regulations in accordance with the requirements of the Administrative Procedure Act or the General Assembly exempts the checklist from the requirements of that Act[.] Id. at 350, 914 A.2d at 81. Our mandate to the circuit court allowed for the executions to proceed once the procedural dictates were properly followed. Because we held Evans's execution could eventually proceed once the Administrative Procedure Act violation was remedied, logically, so could Grandison's because they stand in the same position. Grandison, much like Evanswho was the man hired by Grandison to carry out the murderswas properly found to be a principal in first degree murders, for which the death penalty could have lawfully been imposed. Because no illegality inhered in the death penalty itself, we also declared that Evans' claims were not cognizable in a motion under Rule 4-345(a) to correct an illegal sentence. Evans, 396 Md. at 276, 914 A.2d at 37. For the same reason, Grandison's claims are not cognizable under the same Rule. In Evans, we did recognize a limited exception to the aforementioned rule when, in a capital sentencing proceeding, an alleged error of constitutional dimension may have contributed to the death sentence, at least where the allegation of error is partly based upon a decision of the United States Supreme Court or of this Court rendered after the defendant's capital sentencing proceeding. To the extent that there is such an exception, it is a very narrow one. The subsequent decision relied upon must constitute a new judicial interpretation of a constitutional provision. (Citations, quotation marks, and footnotes omitted.) Evans, 396 Md. at 272-73, 914 A.2d at 34-35. Grandison cites no case from this Court or the U.S. Supreme Court, adjudged since Evans, that would cause us to revisit our holding there. It is plain that no illegality inhered in the death sentence when first handed down to Grandison, and no Constitutional change has occurred since our decision in the Evans case. As the Circuit Court held, the penalty, legal when administered, is not now illegal as a matter of constitutional law. [18] Because a motion to correct an illegal sentence is not proper on this claim, we need not reach Grandison's ex post facto arguments. Thus, we affirm the Circuit Court's denial of Grandison's motion on this Question.