Cases | Sumrall v. State of Md. Cent. Collection Unit, 819 A.2d 1149 (Md. Ct. Spec. App. 2003) | 2018
The defendant pled guilty to two counts of assault with intent to murder and was sentenced to the custody of the Commissioner of Corrections and required to pay $110,854.67 in restitution to his victims upon his release from confinement. After the defendant’s parole was revoked, he stopped making restitution payments. The Division of Parole and Probation then referred the remaining balance of $97,343.39 to the Central Collection Unit (CCU), which added a 17 percent collection fee to the restitution amount. The defendant filed a complaint for declaratory judgment asking for relief from restitution which was denied. The defendant appealed, arguing that Article 27 of Maryland’s Declaration of Rights prohibited a court from ordering a defendant to pay restitution as part of his sentence, and that the circuit court erred when it found that the restitution balance had properly been transferred to the CCU for collection. The intermediate court held that, while Article 27 prohibited forfeiture of a defendant’s property on the ground that he or she is incapacitated from owning property because of his or her conviction, that provision does not make it unconstitutional for a court to issue an order compelling a defendant to pay restitution to his or her victims. The court then held that, because the order of restitution was part of the original sentence, the defendant’s restitution obligation was not wiped out by his parole revocation. Lastly, the court held that since restitution payments are not the equivalent of any of the specified exceptions found in § 3-302(b), the Department was authorized to refer the outstanding balance of restitution to the CCU. The judgment was affirmed.