Booker v. State
| Citation | 170 A.2d 203,225 Md. 183 |
| Decision Date | 01 May 1961 |
| Docket Number | No. 256,256 |
| Parties | Leon BOOKER v. STATE of Maryland. |
| Court | Court of Appeals of Maryland |
Charles J. Josey, Baltimore, for appellant.
Lawrence F. Rodowsky, Asst. Atty. Gen. (Thomas B. Finan, Atty. Gen., Saul A. Harris, State's Atty., and Lucy Ann Garvey, Asst. State's Atty., Baltimore, on the brief), for appellee.
Before HENDERSON, HAMMOND, PRESCOTT, HORNEY and MARBURY JJ.
The defendant-appellant (Leon Booker) was tried and convicted on separate indictments by the Criminal Court of Baltimore, sitting without a jury, of two armed robberies. This appeal is from the judgments imposed. The principal contention in each case is that there was insufficient evidence to sustain a conviction because there was no definitive identification of the defendant as the robber.
In the case involving the robbery of the Gay Bar, the operator testified that he was robbed by two men and positively identified the appellant as the man who had held the weapon during the hold-up. And, the barmaid, though unable to positively identify him, testified that the appellant looked like the robber. We have repeatedly held--since the weight of the evidence and the credibility of the witness are matters for the trial court to determine--that identification by a single eyewitness, if believed, is sufficient to support a conviction. Booth v. State, 1961, 225 Md. 71, 169 A.2d 388; Brown v. State, 1960, 222 Md. 312, 160 A.2d 95. The argument that the identification was not corroborated is without merit. Unlike the testimony of an accomplice, the testimony of a victim requires no corroboration. Cf. Walls v. State, 1959, 220 Md. 115, 150 A.2d 926. Since the conviction in the Gay Bar case was supported by substantial evidence, we are unable to say that the verdict of the trial court was 'clearly erroneous,' and we must affirm. Maryland Rule 741 c.
In the case concerning the holdup of the People's Grocery, the proprietor testified with varying degrees of certainty when questioned as to whether or not the appellant was one of the two men who had robbed her, but near the end of her testimony, in response to a question by the court, she stated unequivocally that 'this [the appellant] is the man who did hold me up.' And, in addition to the eyewitness identification, the State produced certain numbered blank money orders and proved that they had been stolen in the holdup. One state witness testified that she had received four of the money orders from the appellant, that she had been told by him that they were stolen and that he had requested her to cash them for him and share in the proceeds thus obtained. She did so and had been tried and convicted of passing the money orders involved before she testified in ...
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Richardson v. State of Maryland, Civ. A. No. 20868.
...572, 17 A.2d 839 (1962) (burglary); Lewis v. State, 225 Md. 474, 475-76, 171 A.2d 244 (1961) (burglary and larceny); Booker v. State, 225 Md. 183, 186, 170 A.2d 203 (1961) (armed robbery); Glaros v. State, 223 Md. 272, 280, 164 A.2d 461 (1960) (larceny); Butz v. State, 221 Md. 68, 77-78, 15......
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Molter v. State
...Presumptions Still Operational,” pp. 88–89 n. 31. As a logically indistinguishable variation on the familiar theme, Booker v. State, 225 Md. 183, 186, 170 A.2d 203 (1961), was a decision approving the sufficiency of the inference to prove that the possessor of the recently stolen goods was ......
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