Court Opinion

ID: 9731246
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 15:40:19.110333+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:16.517049
License: Public Domain

MOTZ, Judge, concurring.
I agree with the analysis and conclusions contained in the well reasoned majority opinion, including the holding that State v. Sayre, 314 Md. 559, 552 A.2d 553 (1989), prevents us from upholding the sentence ordered by the court below. I write separately only to suggest that this case may present an excellent opportunity for the Court of Appeals to reconsider its holding in Sayre. It is, to me, unconscionable that the sentencing judge’s inadvertent mistake, corrected within ten minutes, should prevent Brandy Simpkins’ murderer from receiving the punishment that he so clearly deserves.
The Sayre majority’s rigid interpretation of Maryland Rule 4-345(b), as pointed out by Judge Rodowsky, in dissent, makes sense when “some appreciable period of time from the imposition of the sentence” has passed. Id. at 570, 552 A.2d 553 (Rodowsky, J. dissenting). Imposition of this bright line rule, however, is harsher than necessary or appropriate when there has been no lapse of an appreciable period of time and it is clear that the sentencing judge simply seeks to correct an obvious mistake in sentencing.1
*627In Green v. United States, 363 A.2d 979 (D.C.1976), the District of Columbia Court of Appeals permitted a trial court to revise a sentence it had incorrectly rendered an hour earlier. Acknowledging the “well settled” principle that under the Fifth Amendment prohibition against double jeopardy a sentence cannot be increased after a defendant has begun serving it, id. at 980 (citing United States v. Evans, 459 F.2d 1134 (D.C.Cir.1972)), the court nevertheless refused to hold that a defendant who was housed temporarily in a courthouse cell had begun serving his sentence. See also Thomas v. United States, 388 A.2d 1231 (D.C.1978) (court permitted to increase mistaken sentence seven hours after it was delivered, where defendant was confined for seven hours in courthouse holding cell and had not been “delivered” for execution of his sentence). Moreover, since the Supreme Court in United States v. DiFrancesco, 449 U.S. 117, 101 S.Ct. 426, 66 L.Ed.2d 328 (1980), revoked that “well-settled” rule against increases in sentences after a defendant begins serving time, courts have been afforded even more flexibility in correcting their sentencing errors. See, e.g., United States v. Jefferson, 714 F.2d 689, 707 (7th Cir.1983) (“it is not inconsistent with the Double Jeopardy Clause for a defendant to be resentenced upon remand according to the original intentions of the trial judge, even if this entails enhancement of one or more of the original sentence.”)
I recognize, as Judge Rodowsky did, that the Sayre holding was found to be required by Rule 4-345, not by double jeopardy principles. Nevertheless, I do not see how justice is served by a strict and uncompromising interpretation of Rule 4-345, which goes far beyond the confines of constitutional requirements, when the very purpose of that rule is to further the principles espoused by the Fifth Amendment.

. Although the mistake in sentencing here is not the "slip-of-the-tongue" variety found in Sayre, it is, it seems to me, just as obvious. Here, Mr. Simpkins and Ms. Geisler were tried, convicted and then sentenced together. Of the two, Ms. Geisler, even though erratic, irresponsible, and cavalier in her treatment of Brandy, at least showed more concern than Mr. Simpkins, the child’s father. Accordingly, it seems inconceivable that the judge intended to sentence Ms. Geisler to twenty years imprisonment and at the very same time, in almost virtually the same breath, sentence Mr. Simpkins to only five years imprisonment.