Keane v. State, 9.
| Decision Date | 25 May 1933 |
| Docket Number | No. 9.,9. |
| Parties | KEANE v. STATE. |
| Court | Maryland Court of Appeals |
KEANE
v.
STATE.
No. 9.
Court of Appeals of Maryland.
May 25, 1933.
Appeal from Criminal Court of Baltimore City; Eli Frank, Judge.
Petition by Frank Keane for a writ of error coram nobis. From an order dismissing the petition, petitioner appeals.
Affirmed.
Argued before BOND, C. J., and PATTISON, URNER, ADKINS, OFFUTT, DIGGES, PARKE, and SLOAN, JJ.
Leon A. Rubenstein, of Baltimore, for appellant.
G. C. A. Anderson, Asst. Atty. Gen., and J. Bernard Wells, Deputy State's Atty., of Baltimore (Wm. Preston Lane, Jr., Atty. Gen., and Herbert R. O'Conor, State's Atty., of Baltimore, on the brief), for the State.
OFFUTT, Judge.
Frank Keane was on March 26, 1929, indicted in the criminal court of Baltimore city for robbery with a deadly weapon, and later on that charge tried, convicted, and sentenced to a term of ten years in the Maryland penitentiary. On June 13, 1932, over three years after he was sentenced, he filed in the same court a petition for a writ of coram nobis on the ground (1) that the prosecuting witness, the only person who at the trial identified him as the person who committed the crime charged in the indictment, subsequently admitted that he had been mistaken in his identification, and (2) that two other persons present when that crime was committed, although the petitioner was exhibited to them, failed to identify him, but that that fact was not presented to the jury which tried him, and that in consequence, although innocent of the crime with which he was charged, he was, through the mistaken identification of the prosecuting witness and the failure of the state to call the other two eyewitnesses who were unable to identify
him, convicted thereof. He accordingly asked the court to grant the writ and review the facts of the case. Supporting affidavits were filed in connection with the petition, and on November 5, 1932, the court, in an elaborate and interesting review of the history and function of the writ and its relation to the relief prayed, decided that it afforded no relief against such a mistake of fact as that alleged in the petition, and accordingly dismissed it. The appeal is from that order.
From the pleadings and affidavits it appears that on March 16, 1929, two men armed with pistols entered a branch store of the Crook's Stores on Clifton avenue in the city of Baltimore and robbed Herman Bradley, the manager, of $368. There were present at the time two clerks, William E. Jackson and John William Hook. Subsequently Keane was arrested and charged with the crime. At the ensuing trial Bradley positively identified him as one of the two men who had robbed him, but neither of the two clerks was called, and, as stated above, Keane was convicted and sentenced.
In June, 1930, Keane interested Theodore H. Dorsey, who had preached at the penitentiary where Keane was confined, and he (Dorsey) interviewed Bradley and asked him if "he was absolutely certain that he had picked the right man." At first Bradley was indignant that there should be any question about his testimony, but later stated that he had become convinced of his error in identifying Keane, "mainly as a result of having seen in a daily newspaper pictures of two other men, Rawlings Whittemore and a certain Minnor, also charged with robbery; that he showed the pictures to the two clerks, Hook and Jackson, and he and they recognized them as pictures of the two men who had robbed Bradley; that he, Bradley, was afraid to bring this information to the attention of the "authorities" because he feared he would lose his position. Subsequently Bradley informed the state's attorney's office of his alleged error, and he was then summoned to the Maryland penitentiary and shown prisoners who were lined up for identification. In the line were Rawlings Whittemore, whose picture he had seen, and Keane. He identified Keane, not as having been present at the robbery, but because he had seen him before, but failed at that time to recognize Whittemore.
It is also alleged that before the trial the two clerks informed the state through its prosecuting officers that they were unable to identify the robbers because they were so frightened that they could not remember their faces. But in their affidavits filed with the petition they said they had seen the robbers, had had a good look at their faces, that one of them made the two clerks hold up their hands while the robbery occurred and until the robbers left the store. Jackson said that he did not think Keane was present, and Hook said that, when he was taken to a...
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