Baker v. State

HARRELL, Judge.

We consider here whether the Circuit Court for Harford County erred in denying a Motion to Correct an Illegal Sentence, without holding an evidentiary hearing, where the defendant relied principally on an empirical, government-sponsored study of Maryland’s implementation between 1978 and 1999 of its death penalty statute, released publicly in early 2003 and published formally in 2004, to support an allegation of constitutional error in the 1992 imposition on him of the sentence of death. We hold that the Circuit Court neither erred as a matter of law nor abused its discretion;…