396                               Laws of Maryland                      [Ch. 130

CHAPTER 130
(House Bill 192)

AN ACT to repeal and re-enact, with amendments, Sections 132 and
134 of Article 26 of the Annotated Code of Maryland (1966
Replacement Volume), title "Courts," subtitle "Review of Crim-
inal Sentences," to prohibit a sentencing judge from sitting on the
panel reviewing a criminal sentence and providing that the panel
shall render its decision within thirty days from the filing of the
application for review.

Section 1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Maryland,
That Sections 132 and 134 of Article 26 of the Annotated Code of
Maryland (1966 Replacement Volume), title "Courts," subtitle
"Review of Criminal Sentences," be and they are hereby repealed
and re-enacted with amendments to read as follows:

132.

Unless no different sentence could have been imposed or unless the
sentence was imposed by more than one trial judge, every person
convicted of a crime after July 1, 1966, by any trial court of this State
and sentenced to serve, with or without suspension, a total of more
than two (2) years imprisonment in any penal or correctional
institution in this State, or sentenced to death, shall be entitled to
have the sentence reviewed by a panel of three (3) or more trial
judges of the judicial circuit in which the sentencing court is
located; provided, however, that no person shall have the right to
have any sentence reviewed more than once pursuant to this section.
[Whether or not he is a trial judge of the judicial circuit in which
the sentencing court is located,] Notwithstanding any rule of the
Court of Appeals to the contrary, the judge who sentenced the con-
victed person shall not be one of the members of the panel [, when-
ever he is determined to be available by the chief judge of the
judicial circuit in which the sentencing court is located, unless this
requirement is eliminated or amended by an appropriate rule of the
Court of Appeals] , BUT IF HE SO DESIRES HE MAY SIT WITH
THE PANEL IN AN ADVISORY CAPACITY ONLY.

134.

The panel shall have the right to require the Department of Parole
and Probation to investigate, report, and make recommendations
with regard to any such application for review. The panel shall
consider each application for review and shall have the power, with
or without holding a hearing, to order a different sentence to be
imposed or served, including, by way of illustration and not by way
of limitation, an increased or decreased sentence, or a suspended sen-
tence to be served in whole or in part, or a sentence to be suspended
with or without probation, upon such terms and conditions as the
panel may deem just and which could lawfully have been imposed
by the sentencing court at the time of the imposition of the sentence
under review, or the panel may decide that the sentence under review
should stand unchanged; except that the panel, without holding a
hearing, shall not increase any sentence, or order any suspended
sentence or any suspended part of a sentence to be served, or order
the reduction of a death sentence to a sentence for life or term of