Opinion ID: 1957366
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Sufficiency of Indictment for Sentence as Third Offender.

Text: The indictment, as we have noted, coupled the 1948 offense and the current offense in one pair of counts and the 1950 offense and the current offense (offense C) in another pair. The question is whether A plus C and B plus C do or do not sufficiently inform the defendant that he is charged with having been convicted previously of A plus B and with having committed current offense C, so that, if he is found guilty of C, he is liable to punishment as a third offender. The difficulty arises from the nature of statutes, such as Sec. 369 of Article 27 of the 1951 Code (Sec. 300 of the same Article of the 1957 Code), which impose more severe penalties for second or subsequent offenses. The earlier offenses, as we have seen, are historical facts which must be established in order to sustain a penalty for a second or subsequent offense, but the defendant's guilt or innocence of the prior offenses is not an issue in the current prosecution. Usually the only questions with regard to the prior offenses are the existence of the convictions and the identity of the defendant as the person previously convicted. The guilt of the accused as to the current offense must be established, as in any criminal case, but to have been convicted previously of some offense is not itself an offense, nor is it an element of the current offense. Maguire v. State, supra ; McDonald v. Massachusetts, 180 U.S. 311, 45 L.Ed. 542, 21 S.Ct. 389. In the latter case, Mr. Justice Gray in affirming the constitutionality of the increased sentence said (at pp. 312-313): The punishment is for the new crime only, but is the heavier if he is an habitual criminal.    The allegation of previous convictions is not a distinct charge of crimes, but is necessary to bring the case within the statute, and goes to the punishment only. The principal ground upon which the indictment is attacked as not sufficient to sustain a penalty for a third offense is that in no one count are prior offenses A and B and current offense C joined in one-two-three order. If A and B were elements of offense C, this objection would be of compelling force, for there is no doubt that each count of an indictment must embody a distinct and complete accusation of a single crime. Simmons v. State, 165 Md. 155, 167 A. 60; Imbraguglia v. State, 184 Md. 174, 178, 179, 40 A.2d 329; Anno. 114 A.L.R. 1406, 1407; 27 Am. Jur., Indictments and Informations, § 129; 42 C.J.S., Indictments and Informations, §§ 152, 153, 154. The rule is well established that one count may incorporate by reference matter set out in another count ( P., W. & B.R.R. Co. v. State, 20 Md. 157, 163; Cohen v. State, 173 Md. 216, 220, 195 A. 532, 196 A. 819; Imbraguglia v. State, supra ); but there is here no incorporation by reference in one count of matter set forth in another. Watson v. People, 134 Ill. 374, 25 N.E. 567, is urged in support of this argument. There the indictment was in four counts, the fourth of which may be disregarded because it was a mere duplication of the second. The first count charged burglary, the second also charged burglary, but without force in the entry, and the third charged the same burglary and alleged a prior conviction. When the case was tried, the penalty was to be fixed by the jury in accordance with statutory provisions under which a first offense was punishable by imprisonment for not less than one nor more than twenty years, and a second offense was punishable by imprisonment for a fixed term of twenty years. The trial court instructed the jury that if it found that the defendant committed the crime charged in the first count and if it further believed from the evidence that he had been found guilty of the previous offense, then the jury should find the defendant guilty and fix the penalty at twenty years' confinement. This instruction was held erroneous, since the allegation of a prior conviction formed no part of the first count either by direct allegation or by incorporation by reference. The Watson case was cited with approval in People v. Madden, 384 Ill. 313, 51 N.E.2d 527, but was found not applicable. The opinion in the Watson case does not go into any critical analysis of the reason for insisting that the count of the indictment upon which the sentence was based must contain an allegation of the prior offense. It simply applies the general rule of criminal pleading that each count must be complete in itself and bars importing into one count what is alleged in another, when the first count itself makes no attempt to effect any such incorporation by reference. It does not discuss the difference between the allegation of an historical fact as the foundation for more severe punishment and the allegation of a fact essential to the establishment of the crime with which the defendant is currently charged. This problem was considered in People v. Sickles, supra, 156 N.Y. 541, 51 N.E. 288, where (at p. 290 of 51 N.E.) the majority opinion drew a distinction between an element of the second offense and an ingredient of the criminality of the defendant. There the main controversy seems to have been whether or not it prejudiced the defendant unduly to have the prior offense put before the jury in passing upon his guilt or innocence as to the current offense. Judge Bartlett dissented on the ground that it did so prejudice him. That question was determined by this Court in the Maguire and Goeller cases, above cited, in accordance with the view adopted by the majority of the New York Court of Appeals in the Sickles case. It is one of the principal bones of contention in the McCoy case decided contemporaneously with this case. In this State the Maguire case squarely holds  and there has been no departure from this holding  that an averment of prior conviction does not charge an offense. (47 Md. at 497.) This Court adopted the language of Lord Campbell in Reg. v. Clark, 20 E.L. & Eq. 582, that it is only the averment of a fact which may affect the punishment. The jury do not find the person guilty of the previous offense; they only find that he was previously convicted of it, as an historical fact. Judge Alvey said also at page 496:    that if the party be proceeded against for a second or third offense under the statute and the sentence be different or more severe in such case,    the fact thus relied on must be averred in the indictment; for the settled rule is, that the indictment must contain an averment of every fact essential to justify the punishment inflicted. Cases in other jurisdictions agree with the Maguire case in holding that the prior offense is not an element of the current offense. See Barr v. State, 187 N.E. 259 (Ind.); Wright v. People, 181 P.2d 447 (Colo.); Elliott v. Commonwealth, 161 S.W.2d 633 (Ky.); People v. Mellor, 5 N.W.2d 455 (Mich.); State v. Domanski, 115 P.2d 729 (Wash.); McCarren v. U.S., 8 F.2d 113 (7th Cir., 1925). Other cases adopting this view and supporting a result contrary to that of Watson v. People, 134 Ill. 374, 25 N.E. 567, above cited at length, are Smiddy v. Commonwealth, 152 S.W.2d 949 (Ky.), in which one count alleged first degree murder and another alleged prior convictions which might have served to increase the punishment if the defendant had been found guilty of a lesser degree of homicide than first degree murder; Rawlings v. Commonwealth, 230 S.W. 529 (Ky.), in which it was held not erroneous, though apparently unnecessary, to allege the current offense in one count and a prior offense in another; Jones v. State, 22 N.W.2d 710 (Neb.); State v. Rigsby, 20 S.E.2d 906 (W. Va.); Becker v. U.S., 36 F.2d 472 (3rd Cir., 1929), cert. den., 281 U.S. 731, 74 L.Ed. 1147, 50 S.Ct. 246; Goodman v. Kunkle, 72 F.2d 334 (7th Cir., 1934). See also Ex parte Kuwitzky, 282 N.W. 396 (Neb.), a habeas corpus case holding that although an habitual criminal might have been given a longer sentence as such under the first count charging a current offense, where the information contained a second count alleging prior offenses, he could not be validly sentenced on a plea of guilty to the second count which charged no offense. The statement of the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Goodman v. Kunkle, supra , seems particularly apt. The court was passing upon an appeal in a habeas corpus case where the defendant had been sentenced under an Indiana statute to life imprisonment as a third offender. The court said (at p. 336): Habitual criminality is a state, not a crime. The so-called `count 3' [reciting prior convictions] is not, in fact, a separate `count' in the sense in which that term is customarily employed. Habitual criminal statutes, such as that of Indiana, do not create or define a new or independent crime, but they prescribe circumstances wherein one found guilty of a specific crime may be more severely penalized because of his previous criminalities as they are alleged and found. In Jones v. State, supra , the Supreme Court of Nebraska said (22 N.W.2d, at 712):    not form or place in the information but substance is the thing which is of controlling importance in setting forms the aggravation of a charged offense which forms the basis for the penalties prescribed by the statute defining habitual criminal. It is proper to set out the aggravation either in the count charging the crime or in a separate count in the information. Becker v. U.S., supra , presented the question whether the sentence imposed upon the defendant as a second offender was lawful under the form of indictment there used. The indictment contained six counts or so-called counts. Each of the first five charged a current offense; the sixth alleged a prior conviction. The jury found the defendant guilty on two of the current offense counts and found that he had been previously convicted, as alleged in the sixth count. He was sentenced as a second offender. The Circuit Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit said in part (pp. 472-473): We follow the defendant on the elementary principles of law that a count    is regarded in law as containing a complete statement of the cause of action or a complete charge of crime; that where an indictment contains several counts each count is treated as a separate charge as completely as though the several charges appeared in separate indictments, Watson v. People, 134 Ill. 374, 25 N.E. 567; State v. Briggs, 94 Kan. 92, 145 P. 866; that an essential element of a crime cannot be omitted, nor can the omission be supplied by intendment, implication, or recital   ; and that infirmity in one count cannot be cured or its averments aided by another count   . Then, after quoting with approval from Singer v. U.S., 278 F. 415, 420 (3rd Cir., 1922), the rule that where a prior conviction is charged in the indictment, the prior conviction and the identity of the accused as the same person in each prosecution must be established at the trial, the court said at p. 473: The essential fact of former conviction was pleaded in the indictment in this case and proved at the trial. It was pleaded not in the count under which later the defendant was convicted and sentenced but in a paragraph  the concluding paragraph of the indictment  which the draftsman called the `Sixth Count.' This paragraph, however named, was not a count at all. It narrated no crime; it charged no offense. Upon it no verdict of guilty could possibly have been rendered and no sentence could have been imposed on a finding of its allegations alone. It averred as a fact previous conviction of the defendant of two offenses like those pleaded in four preceding counts, and there it stopped. It meant nothing standing alone; it meant much when read in connection with the counts that preceded it. Being in effect a footnote to the first four counts, we think its averment ( inter alia ) of prior conviction of unlawful possession of liquor was a direct reference to and became directly connected with the fourth count charging the same offense. It had no other possible meaning. Not being a count in any sense and therefore not being used in aid of another count, we see no reason why it should not be taken for just what it is, an addendum to or a part of the other counts inserted to apprise the defendant that several of the offenses there charged against him were second offenses carrying greater penalties and to call upon the government to show the prior conviction in proof of the aggravating element of the offenses. To the extent that the Watson case and State v. Briggs, supra , cited along with the Watson case in the Becker case, on the one hand, and the Becker case (and others reaching the same conclusion as Becker ), on the other, are inconsistent, we find the reasoning of the Becker case more persuasive on the question now before us and we prefer to follow it. The Maguire case, 47 Md. 485, the Goeller case, 119 Md. 61, 85 A. 954, and Hall v. State, 121 Md. 577, 89 A. 111, all cited above, establish the rule that an indictment, in order to serve as the foundation for the imposition of increased penalties prescribed for a second or subsequent offense, must allege the prior offense or offenses, but none of those cases specifies how the information must be set out. Maguire upheld the practice of submitting the issue of a prior conviction to the jury along with the evidence of guilt on the current offense charged, but it did not reach the question of whether the prior conviction or convictions and the current offense must be alleged in a single count, nor did any other Maryland case, so far as we are informed. Goeller emphasizes the constitutional right of the defendant under Article 21 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights to be informed of the accusation against him and holds that in order to meet this requirement the indictment must set forth the prior offenses by reason of which the penalties against the accused might be made more severe. The court held invalid that portion of a liquor statute which authorized the judge to ascertain the fact of a prior conviction from the dockets of the court, in connection with evidence, without the jury passing upon the issue of the prior conviction as well as upon the guilt of the defendant on a current offense. That insofar as the constitutionality of the statute was concerned, the Goeller decision was limited to that one phase of it is made clear by the subsequent cases of Kenny v. State, supra (121 Md. 120, 87 A. 1109) and by the Hall case. In the latter an indictment under the same statute involved in the Goeller case, which alleged a prior offense and charged a current offense, was upheld. An indictment in the same form as in this case was before this Court in Peachie v. State, 203 Md. 239, 100 A.2d 1. There no attack was made on the indictment, and the judgment and sentence, which was for a third offense, were affirmed without comment on the form of indictment. The question now before us is not whether the indictment is in the best possible form, but whether it is legally sufficient to apprise the defendant of all of the necessary facts upon which the increased penalties applicable to a third narcotic offense may be invoked against him. The precise form in which that information is given does not seem to us of much importance so long as all the necessary information is set forth in the indictment in clear and understandable terms. ( Jones v. State, supra, 22 N.W.2d 710 (Neb.)). Historical convictions A and B and current offense C are all set out in the indictment. The jury's verdict of guilty establishes the defendant's guilt as to the current offense; and we think that under the instructions given it also includes a finding of the prior convictions, and his stipulation through his trial counsel in open court also establishes the historical facts of his two former convictions. The General Assembly has made clear its intention that third or subsequent offenses in narcotic cases should be subject to more severe punishment than first or second offenses. See Chapter 466 of the Acts of 1951, which enacted the penalty section of the Narcotic Law in its present form for the stated purpose of increasing penalties. Despite the possible ineptness of the form of indictment, we find no constitutional bar to making the legislative will effective in this case.