Imbraguglia v. State

• Decision Date: 20 December 1944
• Docket Number: 59.
• Parties: IMBRAGUGLIA v. STATE.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

40 A.2d 329

184 Md. 174

IMBRAGUGLIA v. STATE.

No. 59.

Court of Appeals of Maryland

December 20, 1944

Appeal from Criminal Court of Baltimore City; John T. Tucker, Judge.

Antonio Imbraguglia was convicted of receiving stolen goods, and he appeals.

Reversed.

Isaac Lobe Straus, of Baltimore (Claude A. Hanley, of Townson, on the brief), for appellant.

J Edgar Harvey, Asst. Atty. Gen., and Joseph G. Finnerty, Asst State's Atty., of Baltimore, (Wm. C. Walsh, Atty. Gen J. Bernard Wells, State's Atty., and Anselm Sodaro, Asst State's Atty., of Baltimore, on the brief), for appellee.

Before MARBURY, C.J., and DELAPLAINE, COLLINS, GRASON, MELVIN, BAILEY, and CAPPER, JJ.

MARBURY Chief Judge.

Appellant, together with Joseph Tamburo and John Cerniglia, was indicted by the Grand Jury for Baltimore City for the larceny of a tractor trailer and 253,000 packages of cigarettes, from the Baltimore Transfer Company. The indictment contains three counts; the first being for larceny, the second, for receipt of stolen goods, and the third, for conspiracy. Demurrers were filed by each defendant to the whole indictment, and to each and every count thereof, and were overruled. The appellant and Cerniglia were then tried by jury. At the conclusion of the trial, a nol pros was entered by the State to the conspiracy count of the indictment. The jury found Cerniglia not guilty, and found the appellant not guilty on the first count and guilty on the second count. Tamburo, later, was tried before Court without a jury, and was found not guilty. Appellant was sentenced to six years in the Maryland House of Correction, and directed to pay to Liggett & Myers Tobacco Company, owner of the 506 containers of cigarettes received by Appellant, the sum of $27,816, being the value of 456 of said containers. From the verdict, judgment and sentence in the case, this appeal comes here.

The record contains 52 exceptions to the rulings of the Court on questions of evidence. In addition, the appellant also attacks the judgment and sentence. Before passing upon these exceptions, and the judgment and sentence, we must first consider the ruling on the indictment.

The third count of the indictment was abandoned, as we have shown, and the appellant was found not guilty on the first count, so that the question before us relates solely to the validity of the second count. Cochran v. State, 119 Md. 539, 87 A. 400; Marino v. State, 171 Md. 104, 187 A. 858. The second count is as follows: 'And the Jurors aforesaid, on their oath aforesaid, do further present that the said Joseph Tamburo, Antonio Imbraguglia and John Cerniglia, on the said day, in the said year, at the city aforesaid One tractor truck of great value, One Tractor trailer of great value, One automobile of great value, One vehicle of great value, Two hundred and fifty-three thousand packages of cigarettes, each package of cigarettes of great value, of the goods and chattels, moneys and properties of The Baltimore Transfer Company of Baltimore City, Inc., a corporation, then lately before feloniously stolen, taken and carried away, unlawfully did then and there have and receive, then and there well knowing the said goods and chattels, moneys and properties to have been feloniously stolen, taken and carried away; contrary to the form of the Act of Assembly in such case made and provided, and against the peace, government and dignity of the State.'

This count is objected to because there is not sufficient description of the stolen articles alleged to have been received, nor is there any statement of their value. Neither is there any date set out in this second count, nor is the place where the alleged crime occurred stated, but it refers for this information to the first count, by the use of the words 'on the said day in the said year at the city aforesaid'. It has been heretofore held by this Court that such a reference as to time, set out specifically in a first count which had been held bad on demurrer, is sufficient. Cohen v. State, 173 Md. 216, 195 A. 532, 196 A. 819. There is no good reason why the same ruling should not apply to venue, and there is authority for it. Philadelphia, W. & B. R. R. Co. v. State, 20 Md. 157.

The first count in the indictment also puts a value on the articles alleged therein to have been stolen, but the second count does not state in any way that the articles therein mentioned are the same as those valued in the first count. With the exception of the value, the description of the articles in the first count is the same as that in the second count, and contains no further information with respect to them. That is, it does not state the make of the tractor truck, or of the tractor trailer or of the automobile or of vehicle, and as to the latter, does not state what kind of a vehicle it is. As to the cigarettes, it does not state the kind or give the name of the maker.

To the lay mind all of these things are technicalities which should not interfere with prosecution for a crime.

This point of view is based upon an assumption, which may be true in many cases, that the party charged knows what he is charged with, and therefore he is not harmed if the crime is not very definitely defined. The purpose of requiring an indictment, however, and of requiring that indictment to set out specifically the crime charged, is to protect the innocent man who may be wrongfully charged and who may know nothing whatsoever about the crime. The right which every man legally presumed to be innocent has, to be both indicted and tried by a jury of his peers, came into the English law as a result of the practice of prosecution by command of the King or of some of the lesser officials of the Crown. The prosecutors themselves frequently decided the case. Indictments by jury, as well as trials by jury, are, therefore, primarily for the protection of the accused. They are not intended to afford means by which a party, accused of crime, can escape trial because of inconsequential omissions, but the principle must be maintained that the substantial components of the crime must be set out with such particularity that the party accused knows what it is he is being charged with, so that, if he is tried, the recitals in the charge may be sufficient to protect him from a second trial for the same offense. An objection made on the ground that an indictment fails in these particulars is not a technical objection; it is one that goes to the very heart of the law, and it must be seriously dealt with. We have recently discussed some phases of this question in the case of State v. Petrushansky, 183 Md. 67, 36 A.2d 533, 537. In that case we held the indictments good because they revealed 'no failure to inform the appellees of the charges against them, no lack of definitions which might cause them to be in danger of another charge for the same offense.'

The general rule is that every count in an indictment must be complete in itself and describe an offense. This rule was mentioned by this Court in a recent case...