Bell v. State, 223
| Decision Date | 11 May 1959 |
| Docket Number | No. 223,223 |
| Citation | 150 A.2d 908,220 Md. 75 |
| Parties | Jerome B. BELL v. STATE of Maryland. |
| Court | Maryland Court of Appeals |
Jacob Matz, Baltimore, for appellant.
James H. Norris, Jr., Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen. (C. Ferdinand Sybert, Atty. Gen., J. Harold Grady, State's Atty., Baltimore, Julius A. Romano and George H. Rosedom, Asst. State's Attys., Baltimore, on the brief), for appellee.
Before BRUNE, C. J., and HENDERSON, HAMMOND, PRESCOTT and HORNEY, JJ.
Jerome B. Bell (the defendant) has appealed from the judgments entered against him in the Criminal Court of Baltimore after his conviction on two separate indictments involving the theft of an automobile and one of the license plates from another.
Under one indictment the defendant was charged--together with a female co-defendant who did not appeal--with the larceny, receiving and unauthorized use of a 1955 Dodge sedan of the value of $1,200, belonging to Frederick W. Burkmar (the owner). Under the other indictment, he alone was charged with the larceny and receiving of a license plate--BA-21-58--of the value of $1, issued to Clinton Rice Allen.
The defendant pleaded not guilty and elected a court trial. At the close of the evidence offered by the State, the court granted the defendant's motion for a directed verdict of not guilty of the larceny of the automobile. At the close of all the evidence, the court entered a general verdict of guilty of receiving and unauthorized use of the automobile and a general verdict of guilty of larceny and receiving of the license plate. The court sentenced the defendant to confinement in the Penitentiary for three years under the first indictment and for one year under the second indictment. The defendant did not object to the entry of the general verdicts of guilty on the separate counts under either indictment not did he interpose motions in arrest of the respective judgments entered thereon.
In this Court, the defendant has raised only the question of the sufficiency of the evidence to convict him under either indictment.
The record shows that the 1955 green and white Dodge sedan owned by her husband had been left by Doris R. Burkmar (wife of the owner) with a person she assumed was an attendant on a parking lot at Redwood and Greene Streets at about 1:30 p. m. on September 23, 1958. When she returned an hour later it was gone. The automobile, which had been towed to the city police lot after the arrest of the defendant, was recovered by the wife of the owner the next day, but it had been considerably damaged in the meantime.
At about 10 p. m. in the evening of the day of the theft, two alert police officers, although they did not know the license plate number, observed an automobile answering the description of the stolen vehicle in the vicinity of Myrtle Avenue and Lexington Street. The defendant was riding in the front seat with the co-defendant, who was operating the automobile. When apprehended neither of the defendants had an identification card, a registration card for the automobile nor an operator's license. The license plate [BA-21-58] which had also been reported stolen, was found by the police officers in the rear seat of the stolen automobile. Both defendants claimed they did not know that the stolen plate was in the automobile. The defendant told one of the officers that he had borrowed the automobile from a man whose first name was Ernest in order to pick up the co-defendant. He was unable to give the last name of the lender or his address. He knew him only when he saw him at the Club Lafayette.
The defendant, who does not contest the sufficiency of the proof of the other essential elements constituting the crime of receiving stolen property, contends, however, that the State failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the automobile of Frederick W. Burkmar, reported as stolen, was the same in which the defendant was riding when he was apprehended by the police. Since it is also essential that there be proof that the automobile found in the possession of the defendant was stolen from its owner, the question is whether there was evidence of ownership or evidence from which ownership could be inferred.
The evidence was thin--a condition for which there was no apparent excuse other than oversight or neglect since there should have been no difficulty in producing direct evidence of ownership--but we think there was enough for the trial court to draw an inference, which it obviously did, that the automobile had been stolen. The motor vehicle reported as stolen was a 1955 green and white Dodge sedan. The automobile in which the defendant was apprehended was of the same 'vintage,' color and make, and was later identified by the wife of the owner on the police lot to which it had been towed. Moreover, neither the defendant nor the co-defendant could produce a registration card showing ownership by a person other than the owner named in the indictment. We think the evidence was sufficient to support conviction. Rule 741 c.
The identity of stolen property may be established 'by circumstantial evidence where such evidence is sufficient to exclude every other reasonable hypothesis save that of the guilt of the accused.' Worley v. State, 1955, 91 Ga.App. 663, 86 S.E.2d 702, 703. See also Wiggins v. State, 1949, 80 Ga.App. 213 55 S.E.2d 821; 52 C.J.S. Larceny § 132 a. In Smith v. State, 1956, 163 Tex.Cr.R. 265, 290 S.W.2d 530, in which the facts were somewhat similar to those in the present case, a 1946 Ford left at the owner's place of business on a Saturday was missing on Monday and was recovered by the owner from the police in another city several days later. A police officer had arrested the defendant while driving a Ford fitting the description of the stolen automobile which he turned over to the police department. No one identified the color, body type, motor number or license number, but it was held that the vehicle had been sufficiently identified.
Since the defendant did not dispute his conviction of unauthorized use, no question as to that offense is before us.
The trial court entered a general verdict of guilty of the larceny and receiving...
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