Court Opinion

ID: 9733515
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 17:09:37.916864+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:42.141910
License: Public Domain

GARRITY, Judge,
concurring.
I concur in the opinion by the majority.
My concurrence is based on jurisdictional grounds rather than the majority’s interpretation of Section 12-302(c)(2) of the Courts Article. That section provides the State with the right to appeal in the event a sentencing judge “failed to impose the sentence specifically mandated by the Code.”
In State v. Hannah, 307 Md. 390, 514 A.2d 16 (1986), the Court of Appeals construed the statute under consideration in the case at bar. In Hannah, the sentencing judges had imposed sentences less than the minimum five years imprisonment mandated by the handgun statute.
As explained by Judge Rodowsky:
In the case before us the State’s right to appeal rises or falls on CJ § 12-302(c)(2). That special right of appeal was created to permit an appeal by the State where, as here, it contends that a trial judge had failed to impose the sentence specifically mandated by the General Assembly. (Emphasis added).
307 Md. at 397, 514 A.2d 16.
The very narrow State’s right to appeal is, regarding sentences, strictly limited to those instances where the trial court fails to abide by a specifically mandated sentence in accordance with the Maryland Code. (Also see State v. Shilling, 75 Md.App. 233 (1988), wherein sentencing judge was devoid of authority to enter probation before judgment in matter of multiple driving while intoxicated convictions within five-year period.)
I agree with the majority, however, that the circuit court lost its authority under jurisdictional grounds to modify the sentence after 90 days from the imposition of sentence. *462Because of such circumstance, as stated by the majority, “the appeal need not be specifically authorized by statute.”