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PARRIS N. GLENDENING, Governor
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Ch. 26
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superseding law that commits all persons convicted of crimes to "the jurisdiction of
the Division of Correction", notwithstanding any law requiring the imprisonment to
be served at a specific State correctional facility. See CS § 9-103(a). The only
remaining substantive effect of a reference to imprisonment "in the penitentiary"
applies to "penitentiary misdemeanors", which: (1) are not subject to the 1-year
limitation period for other misdemeanors; and (2) are subject to the right of in banc
review under Md. Constitution, Art. IV, § 22. Section 5-106(b) of the Courts Article
specifically addresses these two characteristics of penitentiary misdemeanors.
The former law used the terms "crime" and "offense" interchangeably to mean a
felony or a misdemeanor under the laws of the State, with no consistent rationale for
choosing one or the other. In order to provide uniform language in this revision and
for consistency with the Criminal Procedure Article, the Criminal Law Article Review
Committee chose to use the term "crime" to mean a particular act prohibited as a
felony or misdemeanor, and the term "violation" to refer to a particular instance of a
crime. In a few instances, the term "offense" is retained because of common usage,
such as the term "sexual offense", which is revised in Title 3, Subtitle 3 of this article.
The common-law distinction in pleading between charging a principal of a crime
and an accessory before the fact to the crime has been abolished for most purposes by
statute, in response to the holding of the Court of Appeals in State v. Sowell, 353 Md.
713 (1999). See CP § 4-204, enacted by Ch. 339, Acts of 2000. Accordingly, since most
of the former references to an "accessory" in the material revised in this article
referred only to accessories before the fact, and not to accessories after the fact, in
those instances the references to an "accessory" are deleted. See, e.g., § 3-503(a)(1) of
this article; cf. § 8-408(c)(3) of this article.
Several provisions are repealed as unconstitutional in accordance with federal
and State case law. Former Art. 27, § 20, which prohibited blasphemy, violated the
Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses of the First Amendment of the United
States Constitution. State v. West, 9 Md. App. 270 (1970). Former Art. 27, §§ 152 and
153, which prohibited employing or allowing "female sitters", violated Article 46 of the
Maryland Declaration of Rights. Turner v. State, 299 Md. 565 (1984). Former Art. 27,
§§ 558, 559, and 560, which prohibited "common thieves", a criminal sanction on the
basis of status or reputation, would have constituted "a cruel or unusual punishment
in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment" to the United States Constitution.
Robinson v. California, 370 U.S. 660 (1962). See Letter of Advice from Attorney
General J. Joseph Curran, Jr. to Judge Alan M. Wilner, pp. 1-2 (October 17, 2000).
The Committee considered several provisions involving minor penalties to be
more suitable for revision in other articles relating to the same substantive law, or in
the case of provisions applicable to one county or a few counties, in the Public Local
Laws.
Former Art. 27, § 21, as it established speed limits on Seneca Creek in
Montgomery County and on specified portions of the Monocacy River, respectively, is
revised in NR §§ 8-725.5 and 8-725.6, respectively.
Former Art. 27, § 21, as it prohibited reckless boating, is revised in NR §
8-738.1.
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- 1011 -
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