Boddie v. State

• Decision Date: 21 April 1969
• Docket Number: No. 225,225
• Citation: 252 A.2d 290,6 Md.App. 523
• Parties: Charles L. BODDIE, William Boddie and Marion C. Brooks v. STATE of Maryland.
• Court: Court of Special Appeals of Maryland

Page 523

6 Md.App. 523

252 A.2d 290

Charles L. BODDIE, William Boddie and Marion C. Brooks v. STATE of Maryland.

No. 225.

Court of Special Appeals of Maryland.

April 21, 1969.

James R. Miller, and John MacDonald King, Silver Spring, for Charles L. Boddie.

Edward A. Palamara, Rockville, for Marion C. Brooks.

Victor L. Crawford, Rockville, for William Boddie.

John J. Garrity, Asst. Atty. Gen., Baltimore, with whom were Francis B. Burch, Atty. Gen., Baltimore, William A. Linthicum, Jr., State's Atty., Theodore A. Miller, Asst. State's Atty., for Montgomery County, Rockville, on the brief, for appellee.

Before MURPHY, CJ., and ANDERSON, MORTON, ORTH and THOMPSON, JJ.

MURPHY, Chief Judge.

Appellants Charles L. Boddie, William Boddie and Marion C. Brooks were found guilty by a jury in the Circuit Court for Montgomery County of conspiracy to rob with a dangerous and deadly weapon. Charles Boddie was sentenced to a term of three years and William Boddie and Brooks were each sentenced to a term of five years, the sentences to be served under the jurisdiction of the Department of Correction. Appellants jointly contend on this appeal (a) that the indictment was fatally defective, (b) that the trial court did not have jurisdiction over the cause, (c) that they were subjected to an illegal search and seizure and evidence taken as a result thereof was improperly introduced at the trial over their objection, and (d) that the evidence was insufficient to support their convictions.

I

Appellants were jointly charged with having, on March 28, 1967, 'unlawfully conspired together with a dangerous and deadly weapon, to wit, a gun, to rob and violently steal from David Norrell * * *.' Appellants urge that a criminal conspiracy is an agreement between two or more persons to do an unlawful act or to do a lawful act by unlawful means; that one of the essential elements of conspiracy is an agreement between persons; but that the indictment alleges only that the appellants reached an agreement with a gun, rather than with each other.

We see no merit in this contention. While an indictment must be adequately framed to inform the accused of the charge against him so that he may properly prepare his defense and protect himself against a subsequent prosecution for the same offense, Seidman v. State, 230 Md. 305, 187 A.2d 109; Lynch v. State, 2 Md.App. 546, 236 A.2d 45; we think a reading of the indictment as a whole makes it entirely plain that appellants were charged with having conspired together to commit robbery with a deadly weapon, viz., by means of a gun. So considered, we hold that the indictment alleged a conspiracy and the object of it and, accordingly, appellants' motion to dismiss the indictment was properly denied by the lower court.

II

Appellants contend that the State failed to prove that the alleged crime occurred in Maryland.

A conspiracy may be prosecuted where the illegal agreement arose or where an overt act in furtherance of the agreement occurred, Lievers v. State, 3 Md.App. 597, 241 A.2d 147, with the qualification that the offense is punishable in Maryland only when committed within the territorial limits of the State. See Goodman v. State, 237 Md. 64, 205 A.2d 53; Bowen v. State, 206 Md. 368, 111 A.2d 844.

In undertaking to prove that appellants conspired to rob David Norrell, evidence was adduced showing that Norrell was the night clerk or night manager at the In-Town Motor Hotel when, on March 28, 1967 at approximately 4:36 a.m., appellants drove up to the motel, left their car parked in a nearby alley, jumped over a fence, and unsuccessfully attempted to enter the front door of the motel, after which they hurriedly re-entered their car and attempted to elude a net of police officers who, with guns blazing, endeavored to arrest them.

Donald Shaw of the Montgomery County Police Department, assigned to the Silver Spring Station, testified at the trial that in the late evening hours of March 27, 1967, a motel located two blocks from the In-Town Motor Hotel had been held up by three Negro males; that there recently had been a number of such motel holdups; that at 4:15 a.m. on March 28, 1967, the night manager of the In-Town motel had reported to police that three Negro males, acting suspiciously, had attempted to enter the motel but had left in their car when he phoned the police; that as a result of this information, he (Officer Shaw) was parked in his police cruiser near the intersection of 13th Street and Eastern Avenue for the purpose of maintaining surveillance on the In-Town motel; that at 4:36 a.m. he observed a motor vehicle containing three Negro males back into an alley 'alongside and in the rear of the motel'; that this vehicle was similar to that which Norrell described to the police as having been driven by the three men who earlier that night had attempted to enter the motel; that the building line on the north side of Eastern Avenue constituted the dividing line between Montgomery County and the District of Columbia 'for police purposes'; and that when the three men, later identified as the appellants, parked their vehicle in the alley and went up to the motel, they were beyond the building line and in Montgomery County 'as I know Montgomery County and as I know the line to be.' While Officer Shaw thereafter testified flatly that the In-Town motel was located in its entirety in Montgomery County, on cross-examination he stated that he did not know 'exactly' and could not state 'as a fact' where the boundary line between Montgomery County and the District of Columbia was actually located.

David Norrell testified that he 'worked for the In-Town Motor Motel in Silver Spring' which he assumed to be in Montgomery County.

The testimony that the motel was located in Silver Spring would clearly permit the trial judge to take judicial notice of the fact that that city is located in Maryland. See Iozzi v. State, 224 Md. 42, 166 A.2d 257; Dean v. State, 205 Md. 274, 107 A.2d 88, 48 A.L.R.2d 1096. Moreover, we think it clear that the testimony of Officer Shaw and Norrell was legally sufficient to permit the conclusion that the appellants were in the State of Maryland when they parked their vehicle in the alley and attempted to enter the motel. If then the evidence was legally sufficient to show the existence of a conspiracy to rob Norrell, we think, at the least, an overt act in furtherance thereof occurred within this State.

III

Appellant contend that their arrests without a warrant were unlawful and that the warrantless search of their vehicle was likewise illegal. The contention is based on two grounds, (1) that the arresting officer did not have probable cause to believe that appellants had committed or were committing a felony at the time he arrested them, and (2) that the arrests occurred in the District of Columbia and were illegal for failure of the Maryland officers who made the arrests to comply with the provisions of the Uniform Act on Fresh Pursuit of the District of Columbia, Annotated Code, Title 23, Sections 501-504.

The evidence at trial established that appellants were arrested in their vehicle in the roadbed of Eastern Avenue at a point just inside the territorial boundary of the District of Columbia. The evidence also indicated that appellants' vehicle was searched by the Montgomery County police officers immediately after their arrest and that a fully loaded .22 caliber revolver was found under the driver's seat, an open six inch knife was found under the front passenger's seat, and two pair of 'unusual' scissors were found in the rear seat of the car.

At the time it ruled that appellants had been lawfully arrested and that the items seized from the vehicle were properly admissible in evidence before the jury, the trial court had before it-in addition to the testimony of Officer Shaw hereinbefore set forth-further testimony from Shaw to the effect that appellants backed their car into the alley so that its front faced the mouth of the alley; that the appellants then jumped over a fence separating the motel property from the public way, and that William Boddie went to the front door of the motel while the other two appellants stood on either side of the door; that after unsuccessfully attempting to gain entry through the motel door, the three men left the premises and as the police officers, who had been conducting surveillance of the motel, began to close in on the appellants to block their agress from the alley, the appellants ran to their vehicle, entered, and with tires screeching, attempted to drive away. Shaw testified that he positioned himself in front of appellants' vehicle as it was moving toward him; that a police car, its red lights on, had also then been positioned at the mouth of the alley that William Boddie was driving appellants' vehicle and had a gun in his hand; that he (Shaw) began firing his revolver at appellants' vehicle as it came toward him; that the vehicle nevertheless came straight at him, causing him to jump back against the wall, appellants' vehicle missing him by about two or three feet; that one of the bullets which he fired at appellants' vehicle struck the driver of the car, causing him to lose control of the car, which then crashed into a parked automobile, and came to rest a short distance away on Eastern Avenue, where appellants were then arrested, William Boddie being taken to the hospital and the other appellants being forthwith taken to the Silver Spring Station.

The legality of appellants' arrests must be determined by applying the law of the District of Columbia, the jurisdiction in which they were made. See Miller v. United States, 357 U.S. 301, 78 S.Ct. 1190, 2 L.Ed.2d 1332; Berigan v. State, 2 Md.App. 666, 236 A.2d 743. Under the Uniform Act on Fresh Pursuit of the District of Columbia, a Maryland peace officer is authorized to enter the District while in fresh pursuit to effect an arrest where there is reasonable...