Opinion ID: 1957366
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Lack of Specific Jury Findings of Past Convictions.

Text: In cases such as this in which a more severe punishment may be, or is required to be, imposed for a current offense because of one or more prior convictions, it is, of course, a prerequisite to the imposition of the more severe penalty that the prior conviction or convictions be established. Maguire v. State, 47 Md. 485; Goeller v. State, 119 Md. 61, 85 A. 954; Kenny v. State, 121 Md. 120, 87 A. 1109; Hall v. State, 121 Md. 577, 89 A. 111; Robertson v. Warden, 212 Md. 646, 129 A.2d 90. See also Mazer v. State, 212 Md. 60, 127 A.2d 630. The Narcotic Drug Act, under which the appellant was prosecuted, defines various offenses, among them (Code (1951), Art. 27, Sec. 346, now Code (1957), Art. 27, Sec. 277) having possession or control of a narcotic drug. Section 369 of Art. 27 of the 1951 Code (now Sec. 300 in the 1957 Ed.) prescribes penalties for violation of the Act. Its first sentence provides that anyone who violates any provision of the Act shall be fined not more than $1,000 and be imprisoned for not less than two nor more than five years. This section then provides that for a second offense, the offender shall be fined not more than $2,000 and be imprisoned not less than five nor more than ten years, and that for a third or subsequent offense, the offender shall be fined not more than $3,000 and be imprisoned not less than ten nor more than twenty years. (This Section contains other provisions not here material, including those under which a prior conviction under the laws of the United States or of any other State relating to narcotic drugs may serve as the basis for increased punishments for second, third or subsequent offenses.) It is the settled law of this State that an indictment charging a defendant as a second or third offender must allege the prior offenses. See the Maguire, Goeller, Kenny, Hall and Robertson cases, supra. [1] It also settled by these cases that the defendant's plea of not guilty puts in issue the fact of the prior conviction as well as the question of whether or not he is guilty of the current offense. [2] There must be a determination of the guilt or innocence of the accused with regard to the current offense; and if he is found guilty of that offense, there must ordinarily be a specific finding by the jury on the historical fact of the previous conviction. In this State, under the rule of the Maguire case and of the cases following it, if there is a general verdict of guilty on a count or indictment charging a current offense and alleging one or more prior offenses, the defendant can be sentenced only as for a first offense. The law in most of the States is otherwise, though there is said to have been some tendency in comparatively recent years towards the minority view. See Annotations, 58 A.L.R. 20; 116 A.L.R. 209, 234; 139 A.L.R. 673, 696. The rule of the Maguire case seems at variance with the usual rule in criminal cases that a general verdict of guilty is equivalent to a finding of guilt under each and every count. Cf. Berger v. State, 179 Md. 410, 415, 20 A.2d 146. The question here presented is whether or not the accused's admission by stipulation in open court during his trial for the current offense that he had been convicted of each of the prior offenses which were alleged in the indictment is sufficient to warrant his being sentenced as a second or third offender upon his being found guilty by the jury of the current offense charged against him. We think that it is. We entertain no doubt that the accused could have insisted that the historical facts of the prior convictions alleged and his identity as the person previously convicted be determined by the jury. There is a considerable divergence of views and of practice in different jurisdictions as to how and at what stage of proceedings prior offenses should be charged and proven. Under the Goeller, Kenny and Hall cases, in this State determination of the historical facts as to prior convictions cannot be made the separate province of the judge when the jury passes on the current offense. Of course, if a defendant so elected, he might be tried by the court without a jury, in which event both matters would be determined by the court on the evidence presented. Whether or not any different rule should be applied to the form of the verdict in the event of a trial by the court without a jury instead of a trial by jury, is a question not presented in this case. In some jurisdictions  notably England and California  the question of prior convictions may not be submitted to the jury at all while it is considering the current offense, or may not be so submitted if the defendant admits to the court (as he may do out of the presence of the jury) the fact of the prior conviction and his identity as the person convicted. See 1 Wigmore, Evidence (3rd Ed.), § 196; Graham v. West Virginia, 224 U.S. 616, 56 L.Ed. 917, 32 S.Ct. 583. The Graham case illustrates a still different practice under a state statute which permitted a prisoner sentenced to be confined in the penitentiary to be brought before a court of the county where the penitentiary was situated for the imposition of a heavier sentence if he were found to be an habitual offender. This was a wholly separate proceeding from the trial which resulted in the current incarceration of the accused. The facts of his most recent conviction and of his prior convictions were alleged in an information and these historical facts and the identity of the defendant as the person convicted were submitted to the jury. The statute was upheld. In the absence of such statutes as those in England and California, it is generally held that a defendant cannot, by an admission before trial of one or more prior offenses, prevent the prosecution from proving such offenses. See Annotation, 91 A.L.R. 1478; People v. Sickles, 156 N.Y. 541, 51 N.E. 288. That case points up a difficulty of possible prejudice to the defendant, similar to that noted in Baltimore Radio Show, Inc. v. State, 193 Md. 300, 327, 67 A.2d 497. The Illinois Habitual Criminal Act (Ill. Rev. Stat., 1937, Ch. 38, § 602) requires (as the Maryland rule requires without a statute) that a prior offense be alleged in the indictment. There are some cases under that Act in which a stipulation with regard to such an offense has been held to warrant the imposition of sentence under that statute, but it is not clear that a finding by the jury of the historical fact was not considered necessary. See People v. Files, 369 Ill. 78, 15 N.E.2d 718; People v. Mikka, 7 Ill.2d 454, 131 N.E.2d 79, cert. den. 350 U.S. 1009, 100 L.Ed. 871, 76 S.Ct. 656. Neither the Maguire case, nor any of the cases in this State which have followed it, has presented the precise question as to the effect of an admission in open court of the historical fact of a prior conviction. People v. Sickles, supra , denied the right of a defendant to plead guilty to a part of an indictment and to preclude the State from proving it. This result was reached at least in part on the construction of certain sections of the New York Code of Criminal Procedure, of which we have no equivalent here. The binding effect of an admission by a stipulation in open court, such as we have here, is generally admitted, and such an admission dispenses with the need for producing evidence in usual form to prove the fact so admitted. See 31 C.J.S., Evidence, § 381; 20 Am. Jur., Evidence, § 557; 2 Wharton, Criminal Evidence (12th Ed.), § 415; Godwin v. State, 74 A. 1101 (Del.). Wharton, op. cit., § 645, applies the general rule specifically to admissions of prior convictions, saying: When the accused confesses the fact of the prior conviction, it is generally held that the state need not prove the fact,   . Some courts have adopted the view that notwithstanding an admission by the accused of a prior conviction, there must still be a finding thereof by the jury. See State v. Cardwell, 60 S.W.2d 28 (Mo.) and Murmutt v. State, 63 S.W. 634 (Tex. Ct. of Crim. App.). In the Cardwell case the penalty was to be fixed by the jury. Cases which follow this view make a distinction between a waiver of proof of a fact and a waiver of a finding by the jury of an admitted fact. Such a distinction would have force in a situation where the accused seasonably sought to withdraw the admission and controvert the fact admitted, but that is not the situation here. The Supreme Court of Iowa has held that the admission in open court of a prior conviction dispenses not only with other proof of such a conviction, but also with the necessity of a jury finding of such conviction. State v. Ganaway, 55 N.W.2d 325 (Ia.); State v. Shepard, 73 N.W.2d 69 (Ia.). In the instant case the defendant made no effort to retract, repudiate or question his admission of his prior convictions. We agree with the views of the Supreme Court of Iowa in the Shepard case that it would be an unwarranted refinement of technicality which would serve no useful purpose, to hold that, in spite of the defendant's stipulation of record admitting two prior convictions, the jury must, nevertheless, pass upon them. The scope of a waiver may be broad, and a waiver may extend to constitutional rights, including those relating to criminal proceedings. Authorities on this subject are legion. It will suffice to refer to Diaz v. United States, 223 U.S. 442, 56 L.Ed. 500, 32 S.Ct. 250, in which it was held that the right of confrontation of witnesses could be and had been validly waived. Quite apart from the questions above discussed, this case may be distinguished from the Maguire case by the oral instructions which were given. The trial judge told the members of the jury that they need not bother about the first and second counts (which dealt only with the current offense). He then pointed out that the third and fourth counts charged possession and control of a narcotic drug and that these counts also charged the convictions under the 1950 indictment, and in like manner he explained the fifth and sixth counts as charging possession and control and as being related to the 1948 indictment. With the jury's attention thus focused on the prior offenses as well as the current offense, and with their having been told to disregard the first two counts charging the current offense alone, it seems that the verdict of guilty on each of the counts submitted to them amounted to a finding of the prior convictions as well as a finding of guilt as to the present offense.