Hinton v. State
| Decision Date | 12 May 1977 |
| Docket Number | No. 658,658 |
| Citation | 36 Md.App. 52,373 A.2d 39 |
| Parties | Jerome H. HINTON v. STATE of Maryland. |
| Court | Court of Special Appeals of Maryland |
H. Gregory Skidmore, Assigned Public Defender, with whom was A. Gwynn Bowie, Jr., Assigned Public Defender, on the brief, for appellant.
Leroy Handwerger, Asst. Atty. Gen., with whom were Francis B. Burch, Atty. Gen., Warren B. Duckett, Jr., State's Atty. for Anne Arundel County and Ronald M. Naditch, Asst. State's Atty. for Anne Arundel County, on the brief, for appellee.
Argued before MORTON, POWERS and MASON, JJ.
Appellant, Jerome H. Hinton, was convicted in a bench trial in the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County on two counts of assault, the charges being contained in two separate multi-count indictments. He was sentenced to concurrent ten year terms. In this appeal the single issue is presented:
'Did the lower court err when it ruled that Appellant's conviction of receiving stolen property in the Criminal Court of Baltimore City did not bar subsequent prosecution and convictions of assault alleged to have occurred when the same property was stolen during the course of an armed robbery?'
Prior to trial, appellant filed a motion to dismiss all counts in each indictment (which ranged from armed robbery and related charges to assault and battery and assault) on the ground that he had previously been convicted in the Criminal Court of Baltimore of receiving stolen property, namely, a Colt .357 magnum revolver which was the same weapon he was alleged to have taken in the course of the robbery of Santoni's Liquor Store in Anne Arundel County, which robbery formed the basis of the charges on which he was about to go to trial. The trial judge granted appellant's motion to dismiss as to all counts in each indictment except those charging assault and battery and assault.
The trial then proceeded on the basis of an agreed statement of facts which counsel for appellant has summarized as follows:
'At approximately 3:30 P.M. on July 2, 1975, two black males, each armed with a pistol, entered Santoni's Liquor Store in Anne Arundel County and announced a holdup. Three individuals were in the store at the time: Thomas Vaise, who was working the counter, and Richard Linkenhoker and Donald Glenn, who were in the rear of the store. During the course of the robbery, two other persons entered the premises. All five were required by the robbers to place their hands behind their heads.
While one of the robbers searched the victims, the other, allegedly Appellant, jumped the counter and removed cash from the register and two handguns (including a .357 magnum Colt revolver) from a shelf underneath the counter. The robbers then left the store.
Later the same day, Appellant was arrested in Baltimore City while allegedly attempting to commit an armed robber at Cookie's Liquors. He was armed during this alleged attempted robbery with a magnum revolver, later identified as one of the handguns taken during the Santoni Liquor Store robbery and belonging to Mr. Linkenhoker. Appellant was identified from a lineup folder by Mr. Linkenhoker (and would be at trial) as being the individual who had jumped the counter and removed the cash and handguns as well as one of the individuals who had held Mr. Glenn and him at gun point during the course of the robbery.
Following recitation of the statement of facts, Appellant moved for a judgment of acquittal and submitted. The motion was granted as to the two counts of assault and battery, but Appellant was found guilty of the two counts of assault and was sentenced to ten years.
In addition to the above, it is important to reiterate that Appellant had been convicted on November 6, 1975, following a plea of guilty in the Criminal Court of Baltimore City, Part 1, under Indictment No. 57521707 of receiving the stolen Colt .357 magnum revolver which was, and the State so conceded, one of the handguns taken from Mr. Linkenhoker during the course of the Santoni Liquor Store robbery.' (References to transcript pages omitted.)
At the conclusion of reading the statement of facts, the trial judge granted appellant's motion for judgment of acquittal on charges of assault and battery; denied the motion on the charges of assault; and entered a finding of guilty on each count of assault.
The principle on double jeopardy is firmly fixed in American jurisprudence, but it is often difficult to delineate its proper application to a particular case. The Fifth Amendment to our Federal Constitution mandates that no person 'be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb' for the same offense. The United States Supreme Court in Benton v. Maryland, 395 U.S. 784, 89 S.Ct. 2056, 23 L.Ed.2d 707 (1969), made it clear that the fifth amendment guarantee against double jeopardy is binding upon the states through the fourteenth amendment. That Court in Ashe v. Swenson, 397 U.S. 436, 90 S.Ct. 1189, 25 L.Ed.2d 469 (1970), held in no uncertain terms that the doctrine of collateral estoppel 'is embodied in the Fifth Amendment guarantee against double jeopardy.' Id. at 445, 90 S.Ct. at 1195.
The single issue in this appeal is whether the case in the factual posture it reaches us properly compels an invocation of the doctrine of collateral estoppel. We think it does.
As Mr. Justice Stewart, who wrote for the Court in Ashe v. Swenson, supra at 443, 90 S.Ct. at 1194, stated:
"Collateral estoppel' is an awkward phrase, but it stands for an extremely important principle in our adversary system of justice. It means simply that when an issue of ultimate fact has once been determined by a valid and final judgment, that issue cannot again be litigated between the same parties in any future lawsuit. Although first developed in civil litigation, collateral estoppel has been an established rule of federal criminal law (and now state criminal law) at lest since this Court's decision more than 50 years ago in United States v. Oppenheimer, 242 U.S. 85, 37 S.Ct. 68, 61 L.Ed. 161.'
Counsel for appellant properly points out in his brief that the collateral estoppel doctrine is...
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Powers v. State
...State v. Coblentz, 169 Md. 159, 164-66, 180 A. 266, 268-69 (1935); Bell v. State, 57 Md. 108, 118-19 (1881). See Hinton v. State, 36 Md.App. 52, 57-58, 373 A.2d 39, 42 (1977). Thereafter, in three cases, the Supreme Court considered whether the doctrine of collateral estoppel applies under ......
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Beard v. State
...761 (1960); Fletcher v. State, 231 Md. 190, 189 A.2d 641 (1963); Osborne v. State, 4 Md.App. 57, 241 A.2d 171 (1968); Hinton v. State, 36 Md.App. 52, 373 A.2d 39 (1977). This is not because of any doctrine of merger, but quite the opposite. The two crimes are deemed to be The reason for thi......
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Klein v. State
...collateral estoppel, bars the State's prosecution for bribery, this Court's interpretation of the latter doctrine in Hinton v. State, 36 Md.App. 52, 373 A.2d 39 (1977), as involving "issues" and not "offenses," id. at 56, 373 A.2d 39, applies with equal force to the instant case. The "issue......
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Bailey v. State
...Bailey argues that his New Jersey conviction as a receiver established that he was not the robber. In support he cites Hinton v. State, 36 Md.App. 52, 373 A.2d 39 (1977) (prior Maryland conviction for receiving bars subsequent Maryland prosecution for assault during the course of an armed r......