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3791
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MARVIN MANDEL, Governor
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term," He believe that this is an accurate statement of
the legislative intent in 1975 and that in incorporating
the same language in Senate Bill 106 the General Assembly
intends the same result to follow. In our opinion the
language employed adequately reflects that intent.
This concludes our discussion of the specific
questions which you have posed, and we turn not to
several additional features of the bill which we feel
require comment.
The Administration Bill included provisions
requiring pretrial notification of the person charged
with murder that the State intends to seek the death
penalty. That Bill further required that in such
circumstances the accused must be advised of the
aggravating circumstances with which he was "charged" and
provided that no evidence of aggravating circumstances
other that those charged could be introduced against him
during the sentencing portion of the proceeding. Since
Senate Bill 106 repeals the current provisions of Art.
27, §616(b) calling for a special form of capital
indictment giving notice to the defendant in the charging
instrument and returns §616 to its pre—1975 form calling
for only a single general form of indictment where murder
or manslaughter is charged, the charging instrument is
not required to specifically place the defendant on
notice with regard to sentencing. Section 413(b) of
Senate Bill 106 provides that any relevant evidence with
probative value related to any of the aggravating or
mitigating circumstances enumerated in the statute may be
introduced during the sentencing proceeding so long as it
has not been obtained in violation of the defendant's
constitutional rights. By the very terms of the statute
the State is not restricted to proof only of such
aggravating circumstances of which the defendant may have
had notice prior to the trial.
While we remain of the view that basic
considerations of fairness and justice should lead to the
adoption of notification procedures such as those
contained in the Administration Bill, we do not believe
that the absence of such specific notification
requirements in the statute amounts to a short-coming of
constitutional dimension. The basic purpose of an
indictment is to advise the defendant of the crime with
which he is charged and the charging instructment need
not, under any concept of constitutional due process, be
required to advise the defendant of the scope of the
permissible sentence that may be imposed for such a
crime. Hamling v. United States. 418 U.S. 87 (1974);
Davis v. State, 39 Md. 355 (1974); and Baker v. State, 6
Md. App. 148 (1969). Nor do we perceive any clear
constitutional infirmity in a system which allows the
State to adduce proof at the sentencing proceeding of
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