Court Opinion

ID: 9765772
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 04:18:51.05798+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:15.570879
License: Public Domain

BATTAGLIA, Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent.
Because I would affirm the Court of Special Appeals’ rationale to equate Deville’s confinement in home detention1 to *233confinement in a correctional institution for purposes of applying the enhanced penalty statute under Section 286(d), I respectfully dissent. Although the majority concedes that being placed in home detention is “confined,” it declines to adopt the position that service of a sentence in home detention constitutes confinement in a correctional institution under Section 286(d).
There is no question, however, that the Judgment and Commitment Order in the present case states that Deville was sentenced to the Anne Arundel County Department of Detention Facilities to serve a period of eighteen months in home incarceration under the House Arrest Alternatives Sentencing Program (HAASP). As such, Deville was sentenced to confinement in a correctional institution with service of that confinement in home detention, and thus, qualifies for the enhanced penalty.
Maryland’s enhanced penalty statute for repeat drug offenders, Md. Code (1957, 1996 Repl. Vol.) Art. 27, § 286(d),2 provides in relevant part:
(d)(1) A person who is convicted under subsection (b)(1) or subsection (b)(2) of this Section or of conspiracy to violate subSection (b)(1) or subsection (b)(2) of this Section shall be sentenced to imprisonment for the term allowed by law, but, in any event, not less than 25 years if the person previously:
(i) Has served at least 1 term of confinement of at least 180 days in a correctional institution as a result of a conviction of a previous violation of this Section or § 286A of this article ...
(emphasis added).
Our goal is to “identify and effectuate the legislative intent underlying the statute(s) at issue.” Derry v. State, 358 Md. 325, 335, 748 A.2d 478, 483 (2000). The best source of legislative intent is the statute’s plain language. Beyer v. *234Morgan State Univ., 369 Md. 335, 349, 800 A.2d 707, 715 (2002). When the language is clear and unambiguous, our inquiry ordinarily ends there. Id. Where the language is ambiguous, however, we must look beyond the plain language of the statute to ascertain the legislative intent, taking into consideration the “purpose, aim, or policy of the enacting body.” In re Mark M., 365 Md. 687, 711, 782 A.2d 332, 346 (2001). We have stated that,
[wjhen we pursue the context of statutory language, we are not limited to the words of the statute as they are printed.... We may and often must consider other “external manifestations” or “persuasive evidence,” including ... other material that fairly bears on the fundamental issue of legislative purpose or goal, which becomes the context within which we read the particular language before us in a given case.
Williams v. Mayor and City Council of Baltimore, 359 Md. 101, 116, 753 A.2d 41, 49 (2000) (quoting Kaczorowski v. Mayor of Baltimore, 309 Md. 505, 514-15, 525 A.2d 628, 632-33 (1987)). Thus, the provisions must be read in “a commonsensical perspective to avoid a farfetched interpretation.” Graves v. State, 364 Md. 329, 346, 772 A.2d 1225, 1235 (2001).
In this case, the General Assembly did not define what “confinement ... in a correctional institution” means, nor what constitutes a correctional institution under Section 286(d). The majority holds that home detention does not equate to confinement in a correctional institution; rather, a defendant’s sentence must have been served in a “jail, detention center, or prison” to qualify for the enhanced penalty under the statute. See maj. op. p. 224.
The majority suggests that because home detention was not created in Maryland until 1990, after Section 286(d) was enacted in 1988, the General Assembly must not have contemplated service of a sentence in a home after being ordered confined in a correctional institution, when it focused on the place of confinement within the statute. See maj. op. pp. 229-30. The first structured home detention program in the *235United States, however, was created in 1983, seven years before the home detention program was created in Maryland, and five years before the enactment of Section 286(d). See Fred L. Rush, Jr., Deinstitutional Incapacitation: Home Detention in Pre-trial and Post-Conviction Contexts, 13 N. Ky. L. Rev. 375, 376, n. 4 (1987). By 1985, at least forty-two states had already implemented or were planning home detention programs. See Paul J. Hofer and Barbara S. Meierhoefer, Report, Home Confinement: An Evolving Sanction in the Federal Criminal Justice System 8 (1987). Interestingly, one of our neighbor states Delaware, enacted its home arrest program in 1987. See 66 Del. Laws, c. 29, § 3 (1987). It is just as likely, therefore, that the General Assembly was aware of the existence of such programs, although the majority assumes that the General Assembly could not have contemplated home detention programs when it enacted Section 286(d). Contrary to the majority’s contention, then, the context in which the legislation was passed may not be supportive of its interpretation of the General Assembly’s intent.
Furthermore, the principles articulated in Dedo v. State, 343 Md. 2, 680 A.2d 464 (1996), as the Court of Special Appeals recognized, when applied to the instant case yield the conclusion that service of confinement in home detention equates to actual confinement in a correctional facility. In Dedo, we interpreted Section 638C(a) of Article 27,3 and held that the defendant’s commitment to the custody of a county detention center’s warden with service of the sentence in home detention was “custody” within the meaning of the statute permitting credit against the defendant’s sentence for time served in home detention. Id. at 13, 680 A.2d at 470. We explained *236that the conditions of the defendant’s confinement while under home detention placed substantial restrictions on the defendant’s liberty interests, including being eligible for prosecution under the escape statutes. Id. We noted:
Where a defendant is punishable for the crime of escape for an unauthorized departure from the place of confinement, the custody requirement of Art. 27, § 638C(a) is met. A defendant is not in “custody” for purposes of Art. 27, § 6380(a) if the conditions of the defendant’s confinement do not impose substantial restrictions on the defendant’s freedom of association, activity and movement such that unauthorized absence from the place of confinement would be chargeable as the criminal offense of escape under Art. 27, § 139.
Id. at 11, 680 A.2d at 469. Moreover, we held that the defendant’s home qualified as an institution because he was committed to the custody of the Warden of the Wicomico County Detention Center, and therefore, Dedo was in the custody of a public institution. Id. at 13, 680 A.2d at 470. Nevertheless, in this case, the majority limits the Dedo interpretation of confinement in home detention because Dedo was “based on the construction of different words of a different statute, having a different purpose,” and should not be applied to the case subjudice. See maj. op. p. 231.
In Dedo, however, we recognized that when a person is in custody he is in confinement while serving a sentence in home detention. See Dedo, 343 Md. at 11, 680 A.2d at 469. We found persuasive, the fact that the Attorney General, in a 1991 opinion letter, concluded that “an individual confined in home detention was incarcerated ‘in a local detention center,’ in the sense that the prisoner’s home detention can be said to be an extension of the local detention center.” Id. at 13-14, 680 A.2d at 470. Nevertheless, a mere eight years later, the majority no longer finds this opinion letter persuasive in any way to interpret Section 286(d).
In short, I agree with the intermediate appellate court in this case that, “the conditions placed upon a defendant who *237serves his sentence in home detention are sufficiently restrictive as to constitute confinement within the penal system, applies to [Deville’s] situation as well.” Deville v. State, No. 2286, slip op. at 12, 153 Md.App. 718 (Md.App. Nov. 10, 2003). Deville was sentenced to confinement in the Anne Arundel County Detention Center with service of that sentence in home detention; that sentence is sufficient to qualify for enhanced punishment under Section 286(d). The majority’s refusal to recognize that service of an order of confinement in home detention equates to confinement in a correctional institution undercuts the ability of trial judges to consider alternate venues for the service of sentences and undermines the structure of our penal system. Therefore, I respectfully dissent.

. In Bailey v. State, 355 Md. 287, 734 A.2d 684 (1999), we adopted the United States Sentencing Guidelines' definition of home detention to mean "a program of confinement and supervision that restricts the defendant to his place of residence continuously, except for authorized absences, enforced by appropriate means of surveillance by the probation office.” Id. at 295, 734 A.2d at 688. As the majority noted, programs such as home detention serve to reduce prison overcrowding in Maryland and throughout the country. See maj. op. p. 221, n. 1; see also Bailey, 355 Md. at 295, 734 A.2d at 688.

. Section 286 was recodified without substantive change as Md.Code (2002, 2003 Supp.) § 5-608 of the Criminal Law Article, effective Oct. 1, 2002.

. Maryland Code, Art. 27 § 638C(a) (1957, 1992 Repl. Vol.) states in relevant part:
(a) < Credit for time spent in custody before conviction or acquittals — Any person who is convicted and sentenced shall receive credit against the term of a definite or life sentence of credit against the minimum and maximum terms of an indeterminate sentence for all time spent in the custody of any state, county or city jail correctional institution, hospital, mental hospital or other agency....