Court Opinion

ID: 9714734
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 05:44:36.095891+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:28.284686
License: Public Domain

MURPHY, Chief Judge.
By indictment filed on August 1, 1977, the Grand Jury for Anne Arundel County charged that Richard Miles Chaney, on December 6, 1971, in said county
“did wilfully and deliberately, with premeditation kill and slay Elizabeth Ann Metzler, contrary to the form of the Act of Assembly in such case made and provided and against the peace, government and dignity of the State (Common Law and Art. 27, Sec. 407-410).”
*24The statutes referred to in the indictment classify various kinds of common law murder as murder in the first degree.
Chaney made no objection before or during his trial to the legal sufficiency or form of the indictment. He was convicted by a jury of first degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. The Court of Special Appeals affirmed the conviction in Chaney v. State, 42 Md.App. 563, 402 A.2d 86 (1979), cert. denied, 286 Md. 745 (1979). .
In a second post conviction petition, Chaney claimed that his conviction should be vacated because the indictment failed to charge a crime. The petition was denied, but on application for leave to appeal, the Court of Special Appeals, in an unreported opinion, agreed with Chaney and vacated the conviction. Relying upon Brown v. State, 44 Md.App. 71, 410 A.2d 17 (1979), the intermediate appellate court concluded that because the indictment did not aver that the offense was “murder,” and that it was committed with “malice aforethought,” it failed to charge a cognizable crime. It held that the trial court did not possess jurisdiction to try the offense and because the defect in the indictment was jurisdictional, the issue could be raised at any time. We granted certiorari to consider the important issue presented in the case.
Brown involved a charging document containing language which, as here, asserted that the accused willfully, deliberately and with premeditation did “kill and slay” the named victim on a specified date in Anne Arundel County. In that case, the Court of Special Appeals said that an indictment for murder, to be legally sufficient to charge that offense, must comply with recognized common law standards or be in conformity with the statutory formula approved by the legislature.1 As to the former, the court *25concluded that the indictment did not comply with common law standards because it omitted the specific terms “murder” and “malice aforethought.” 44 Md.App. at 76, 410 A.2d 17. As to the latter, the court noted that substantial compliance with the statutory short form indictment was sufficient; it held, however, that there was no such compliance because missing from the indictment was an essential element of the offense, i.e., malice — the intentional doing of a wrongful act to another without legal excuse or justification. Id. at 78, 410 A.2d 17. The court rejected the argument that the averments in the indictment that the killing was willful, deliberate and premeditated constituted the equivalent of “malice.” Such words, the court said, connote only the same general idea of an intention to kill and, as the indictment did not allege malice, it did not negate a legal excuse for the slaying. The court described this shortcoming as being “mortal,” with the result that the indictment did not charge murder but only an act of homicide which, of itself, was not punishable as a crime. Id. at 78-79, 410 A.2d 17.
Subsequent to Brown, we decided Williams v. State, 302 Md. 787, 490 A.2d 1277 (1985). There, we recognized that a court is without power to render a verdict or impose a sentence under an indictment which does not charge a cognizable offense within its jurisdiction proscribed by common law or by statute. We said that a claim that an indictment fails to charge or characterize a crime is jurisdictional and may be raised at any time. But in determining, for jurisdictional purposes, whether an indictment sufficiently charges and characterizes a crime, we made clear in Williams that merely because the charging document does not allege, expressly or by implication, every essential element of an offense does not necessarily mean that no *26cognizable crime within the court’s subject-matter jurisdiction has been charged. We said that while the customary-method of identifying a particular crime charged in an indictment has been to aver its essential elements, that method is not exclusive “and the use of other words that sufficiently characterize the crime will satisfy the jurisdictional requirement.” 302 Md. at 793, 490 A.2d 1277.
Murder is a common law offense in Maryland and is within the jurisdiction of the circuit courts of the State. Campbell v. State, 293 Md. 438, 444 A.2d 1034 (1982); Gladden v. State, 273 Md. 383, 330 A.2d 176 (1974). Malice is, of course, an essential ingredient of murder; its presence, either directly or inferentially, must be established to sustain a conviction for the offense. Stansbury v. State, 218 Md. 255, 146 A.2d 17 (1958); Chisley v. State, 202 Md. 87, 95 A.2d 577 (1953).
The indictment in this case does not contain all the language set forth in § 616 of Art. 27 for charging murder; the words “felonious,” “malice aforethought,” and “murder” are missing. The indictment charged only that Chaney “did wilfully and deliberately, with premeditation kill and slay” the named victim in violation of the common law and contrary to specified statutes punishing various forms of first degree murder. Implicit in this language is that the killing was unlawful. Although defective under § 616, we think these averments were sufficient, for jurisdictional purposes, to invest the circuit court with power to proceed to trial on the then unchallenged indictment — as it reasonably apprised Chaney, consistent with the notice requirements of Article 21 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights, that he was charged with unlawful homicide and specifically, by its reference to §§ 407-410 of Art. 27, with first degree murder.
The test for determining whether the circuit court possessed jurisdiction over the offense charged in this case is not, therefore, whether the recital in the indictment that the killing was willful, deliberate and premeditated consti*27tuted the substantial equivalence of an allegation of malice and murder. Rather, in ascertaining the existence of jurisdiction in the circuit court, we consider the indictment in its entirety. That there may have been defects in the indictment which might have subjected it to dismissal upon timely pretrial motion does not affect the court’s jurisdiction over the offense charged. Under Maryland Rule 4-252(a), formerly Rule 736a, a claimed defect in an indictment, if not jurisdictional must be seasonably raised before the trial court or it is waived.2 Williams, supra, 302 Md. at 792, 490 A.2d 1277; Hall v. State, 302 Md. 806, 809, 490 A.2d 1287 (1985). As the indictment in this case was not jurisdictionally defective, and as it was not timely challenged by motion prior to trial as required by our rules, we think the Court of Special Appeals erred in vacating the conviction.
JUDGMENT REVERSED, WITH COSTS.

. The statute, now codified as Maryland Code (1957, 1982 Repl.Vol.) Art. 27, § 616, provides:
"In any indictment for murder or manslaughter, or for being an accessory thereto, it shall not be necessary to set forth the manner or means of death. It shall be sufficient to use a formula substantially to *25the following effect: ‘That A.B., on the ..... day of.....nineteen hundred and....., at the county aforesaid, feloniously (wilfully and of deliberately premeditated malice aforethought) did kill (and murder) C.D. against the peace, government and dignity of the State.’ ”

. The rule requires that a motion alleging a “defect” in the charging document "other than its failure to show jurisdiction in the court or its failure to charge an offense” must be filed within a designated time period prior to trial or the defect is waived.