Criminal Law


FL-MAJ-7x4.5-BW-glova.pdf 11/27/2010 1:09:08 PM


Maryland 90 Day Report, 2006 Session, Part E, reveals that the House Bill 353 was passed in order to protect against people of authority having sexual contact with an individual under 18 years old and also is a student at the defendant’s school. Tis was codified into the fourth degree sexual offense statute. Two years earlier, Maryland 90 Day Report, 2006 Session,


Part E also shows that the legislature was concerned with repeat offenders of sexual offenses. Te Maryland legislators passed House Bill 1094 which increased the one year maximum sentence for fourth degree sexual offense to a three year maximum sentence for repeat offenders.


History of the Codification of Assault Te offense that is now assault in the second degree has


a more recent connection to the common law tradition and may be why our legislature seems reluctant to codify it as other crimes are similarly codified. An attempt at codification dates back to 1853 when the


Maryland legislature created, statutorily, another, aggravated form of assault that described the specific intent for its commission that must accompany the assault. Te General Assembly provided that “any person [who] ... shall unlawfully and maliciously stab, cut or wound ... or shall assault or assault


38 Trial Reporter / Summer 2011


and beat any person, with intent to maim, disfigure or disable such person” shall be guilty of a felony. 1853 Md. Laws, Chap. 99 § 1 (codified at Md. Code (1888), Art. 27 § 189). See also Hammond v. State, 322 Md. 451, 453, 588 A.2d 345 (1991). Tis statute, amended over the years, was the predecessor of Md. Code (1957, 1992 Repl.Vol.), Art. 27 § 386. With the advent of this and subsequent aggravated assault statutes, assault took on yet another meaning. As the court explained in Ford v. State, 330 Md. 682 (1993), “[i]n some contexts, the word ‘assault’ has still a third meaning. When part of a statutorily defined crime, assault can also encompass a completed battery. Te crimes of assault with intent to murder or assault with intent to maim, for example, may include, but do not require, actual battery.” See Christian v. State, 405 Md. 306, 315-316 (Md. 2008),citing Ford at 699.


Assault was finally re-codified in 1996 under Article 27,


§§ 12, 12A and 12A-1. However, another clue exists as to why the statutory maximum for second degree assault remains so high. Assault was originally codified as to “unlawfully and maliciously stab, cut or wound ... or shall assault or assault and beat any person, with intent to maim, disfigure or disable such person.” Tis definition is far more severe and includes the “intent to maim, disfigure or disable”. However, with second


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