In my Maryland Criminal Practice class this evening, the professor mentioned an unreported opinion of the MD Court of Special Appeals that was issued on Tuesday, May 24th.
Parenthetically, this is an incredibly interesting and seemingly practical class that is taught by Judge Dana Levitz, a former State’s Attorney and head of the trial division for Baltimore County and former Md. Circuit Court judge who is now the judge who deals with the initial incoming prayers for jury cases from the Baltimore County District Courts. I plan on devoting an entire post to Judge Levitz and his philosophy regarding his current position.
The opinion, Clark, Darrell Maurice Jr. v. State, Docket 1393/08, was issued by Judge Davis. To (very briefly) summarize, a first-degree burglary conviction which carried with it a 20 year prison sentence was vacated as a result of a slight, but incredibly important, defect in Baltimore County’s form first-degree burglary charge language.
The form language uses a short-form citation to establish the elements of the crime, which I just learnt is perfectly acceptable. However, instead of citing the statute within the charge, the citation is recorded after the required concluding phrase of “against the peace, government, and dignity of the State.”
The defense attorney moved to dismiss the charging document as defective on this ground in pretrial but the trial court refused, asking how that could make any difference.
The Court of Special Appeals begged to differ.
Speculation as to how this will affect claims of ineffective assistance of counsel and whether this would or would not be counted as being charged in terms of double jeopardy were bandied about in class, but the most important thing Judge Levitz wanted us to get out of the case is how ripe with possibility charging documents are for defense attorneys.
Like I said, this seems like a practical class.