Johnson v. State

• Citation: 262 A.2d 325,9 Md.App. 37
• Decision Date: 02 March 1970
• Docket Number: Nos. 151,217,s. 151
• Parties: Ronald JOHNSON v. STATE of Maryland.
• Court: Court of Special Appeals of Maryland

Page 37

9 Md.App. 37

262 A.2d 325

Ronald JOHNSON v. STATE of Maryland.

Nos. 151, 217.

Court of Special Appeals of Maryland.

March 2, 1970.

Certiorari Denied June 2, 1970.

Frank Cannizzaro, Jr., Baltimore, for appellant.

James L. Bundy, Asst. Atty. Gen., with whom were Francis B. Burch, Atty. Gen., Charles E. Moylan, Jr., and Michael E. Kaminkow, State's Attys. and Asst. State's Atty. for Baltimore City respectively, on brief, for appellee.

Before MURPHY, C. J., and ANDERSON, MORTON, ORTH and THOMPSON, JJ.

PER CURIAM.

ORDER

The appellant, Ronald Johnson, was convicted, on two separate indictments, of robbery with a deadly weapon and assault with intent to murder in a non-jury trial in the Criminal Court of Baltimore. Concurrent sentences of twenty years and ten years, respectively, were imposed.

The record discloses that in the early evening of October 26, 1968, Benjamin Yevzeroff was carrying out his duties as a pharmacist when two armed men entered the drugstore in which he was employed and demanded money. He responded to this demand by handing over approximately $200.00 from the store's cash register. As the two men were leaving, the victim turned to go to the rear of the store and as he did so, was shot in the back. Approximately two weeks after the crime he picked appellant's picture out of a group of nine photographs shown to him and positively identified appellant at trial as one of the two men who had robbed him. He could not state, however, which of the two men had shot him and ballistics tests shed no light on the issue.

Appellant contends that the evidence was legally insufficient to sustain his convictions. We disagree.

The weight to be given photographic and courtroom identifications is for the trier of facts to determine. Fletcher and Smith v. State, 6 Md.App. 219, 225, 251 A.2d 35; Felder v. State, 6 Md.App. 212, 215, 250 A.2d 666. And this Court has held many times that if the testimony of the victim of a crime establishes the corpus delicti and identifies the accused as the prepetrator of the crime, such evidence is legally sufficient to sustain a conviction. Simon v. State, 7 Md.App. 446, 452, 256 A.2d 348.

From the record before us, we cannot say that the lower court was clearly erroneous in its determination that the appellant was an active participant in the robbery. Md.Rule 1086. As a principal in that crime, appellant would be responsible for all the natural or probable consequences that flowed from the common purpose to rob the pharmacist. Clark and Marshall, Crimes, Sixth Edition, § 8.08. Accordingly, the fact that his accomplice, rather than appellant, may have actually shot the victim would not affect the legal sufficiency of the evidence to support appellant's conviction of assault with intent to murder.

It is further contended that 'prejudicial error in his cases was committed when one of the Assistant State's Attorneys entered the jury room where witnesses had been sequestered.' The record indicates that after the Assistant State's Attorney returned from the jury room and had begun a conversation with his colleague...