Court Opinion

ID: 9729154
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 14:27:55.3754+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:55.738777
License: Public Domain

MURPHY, Chief Judge,
concurring in the judgment.
Upon a fourth conviction of a “crime of violence”, as that term is defined in § 643B(a) of Art. 27, the court must, under subsection (b), impose a life sentence without the possibility of parole in every case where the defendant previously “served three separate terms of confinement in a correctional institution as a result of three separate convic*617tions of any crime of violence.” I agree with the Court, on the facts of this particular case, that Montone’s sentence must be vacated because he had served only two separate periods of actual confinement prior to being convicted a fourth time of a qualifying crime under the statute. I, therefore, concur in the judgment in this case.
I do not, however, share the majority’s view that § 643B(b) was intended to afford habitual criminals an opportunity, between periods of actual confinement, for reformation and rehabilitation before a life sentence without parole may be imposed under the statute. The purpose of § 643B, as we recently said in Hawkins v. State, 302 Md. 143, 148, 486 A.2d 179 (1985), “is to protect the public from assaults upon people and injury to property and to deter repeat offenders from perpetrating other criminal acts of violence under the threat of an extended period of confinement.” In view of these twin objectives of public protection and crime deterrence, I do not believe that the legislature intended — irrespective of the number of separate crimes of violence perpetrated by an offender — that one continuous term of imprisonment under consecutive sentences for separate qualifying offenses would count as but one separate term of imprisonment under the statute. As I see it, the legislative purpose permits the imposing of a life sentence without parole upon a fourth conviction of a crime of violence where the qualifying convictions were coupled with a period of actual confinement separately imposed. Thus, where a sentence is consecutive to an earlier served sentence of imprisonment for a crime of violence, it is separate within the contemplation of the statute, even though the total period of imprisonment under separate and consecutive sentences is continuous. See Robert Thomas Creighton v. State, 70 Md.App. 124, 520 A.2d 382 (1987).
Judge ORTH has authorized me to state that he concurs with the views expressed herein.