Lievers v. State

• Decision Date: 10 April 1968
• Docket Number: No. 242,242
• Citation: 241 A.2d 147,3 Md.App. 597
• Parties: Steven Richard LIEVERS, Jr. and James McLean v. STATE of Maryland.
• Court: Court of Special Appeals of Maryland

Page 597

3 Md.App. 597

241 A.2d 147

Steven Richard LIEVERS, Jr. and James McLean v. STATE of Maryland.

No. 242.

Court of Special Appeals of Maryland.

April 10, 1968.

Bernard F. Goldberg, Ellicott City, and Douglas N. Sharretts, Baltimore, for appellant.

Fred Oken, Asst. Atty. Gen., Baltimore, Francis B. Burch, Atty. Gen., Baltimore, and Thomas J. Nissel and James N. B. Vaughn, State's Atty. and Asst. State's Atty. for Howard County, respectively, on the brief, for appellee.

Before ANDERSON, MORTON, ORTH, and THOMPSON, JJ., and DIGGES, Special Judge.

ANDERSON, Judge.

Appellants Steven Richard Lievers, Jr. and James McLean, together with Ernest Cherry, John E. Bell, and Samuel Terry, were charged in the Circuit Court for Howard County under a three-count Criminal Information (No. 3458), substantially as follows:

(1) That on March 19, 1965, in Howard County, Maryland, they did unlawfully conspire to cause and procure to be falsely made, forged and counterfeited a certain check made payable to Steven Thompson, dated March 18, 1965, in the amount of $104.87, with intent to defraud.

(2) That on the same day, in the same county, they did unlawfully conspire to utter and publish as true a false, forged, altered and counterfeited check, being the same check as above described in count one, with intent to defraud.

(3) That on the same day, in the same county, they did unlawfully conspire by a certain false pretense to obtain from Rock Hill Corporation cash in the amount of $104.87, with intent to defraud.

Appellants, together with the above named co-defendants, were also charged under Criminal Information No. 3459, as follows:

(1) That on the same day, in the same county, they did unlawfully conspire to hold and use a forged and counterfeited Maryland chauffeur's license issued to Steven Thompson, knowing such license to have been altered, forged and falsified, with intent to defraud.

(2) That on the same day, in the same county, they did unlawfully conspire to utter and publish as true, a false, forged, altered and counterfeited Maryland chauffeur's license issued to Steven Thompson, with intent to defraud.

Tried before the Circuit Court for Howard County (Macgill, J., presiding without a jury), appellants were convicted on each count of Criminal Information No. 3458, and on the first count of Criminal Information No. 3459. Appellant Lievers was sentenced to ten years in the Maryland Penitentiary on each count of Criminal Information No. 3458, sentences to run concurrently, and five years on the first count of Criminal Information No. 3459, to run consecutively with the ten-year sentence. Appellant McLean was sentenced to five years in the Maryland Penitentiary on each of the three counts of Criminal Information No. 3458, sentences to run concurrently, and two years on the first count of No. 3459, to run consecutively with the sentences imposed in No. 3458. From these judgments, appellants have appealed, contending (a) that they were illegally arrested and, consequently, articles seized from them without a search warrant were improperly admitted into evidence, and (b) that venue of the conspiracies was improperly laid in Howard County, and (c) that the testimony at trial of accomplices in the conspiracies was not corroborated, and (d) that they were improperly convicted of four conspiracies when, at most, only one conspiracy was shown by the State's evidence.

The evidence adduced at the trial showed that William Wilson and James Jason, while awaiting trial on certain criminal charges, had agreed to aid the police in breaking up a bogus check ring; that Wilson advised Corporal Armond Elliott of the Baltimore County Rackets Squad that he had been invited by appellant Lievers to participate on March 19, 1965 in the activites of the ring and was to meet with Lievers and the others at noon at the Twelve and A Half Club in Baltimore City; that Corporal Elliott went to this location at the appointed time and, through binoculars, observed appellant Lievers and John Ellis Bell, sitting together in a 1963 Pontiac in front of the Club; that he observed Bell pass a small brown paper bag to Lievers, who opened it, pulled out some green pieces of paper which appeared to be checks, look at them, and return them to the bag; that Lievers then left the Pontiac and joined appellant McLean, Cherry, Terry, Jason and Wilson, in a 1959 brown and white Oldsmobile; that the Oldsmobile and its six passengers-appellants Lievers and McLean, Terry, Cherry, Jason, and Wilson-thereafter drove away, shortly after which Elliott arrested Bell and notified Lt. Michael Kradz of the Howard County Police Department by phone to be on the lookout for the Oldsmobile and its six passengers.

The evidence further discloses that Lt. Kradz had been investigating the activities of appellant Lievers and John Bell since January of 1965 and that with Corporal Elliott, had arranged for the assistance of Wilson and Jason in breaking up the operations of the bogus check ring; that after Kradz had talked with Elliott by phone on March 19, he received a call from Wilson who informed him, in effect, that the 1959 Oldsmobile, which he described, together with its six occupants, was proceeding in a designated direction toward Howard County to cash bogus checks; that as a result of the call from Wilson, Kradz stationed men along the route of the Oldsmobile's travel and first observed it as it parked at Gabriel's liquor store in Baltimore County; that Kradz saw three of the occupants of the Oldsmobile, one of whom was appellant McLean, enter the store; that after they departed from the store, the Oldsmobile picked them up and proceeded into Ellicott City in Howard County, where they parked on a parking lot and the same three persons entered the Rock Hill liquor store; that Lt. Kradz then went over to the Oldsmobile and told appellant Lievers that he was under arrest, immediately after which he went into the Rock Hill liquor store where he learned from the proprietor that a tall Negro with a mustache, wearing an Army field jacket and a green sweat shirt and a hood had attempted to cash a check; that Kradz left the store and arrested appellant McLean, who answered the description provided by the liquor store proprietor; and that McLean turned over to Kradz a brown envelope containing a Robert C. Herd & Co. check made payable to Steven Thompson for $104.87, a voter's card, Social Security card, and chauffeur's license, all of which were in the name of Steven Thompson, and all of which proved to be forgeries and counterfeits.

Following the arrests, the Oldsmobile was taken to the Howard County police station where a search of its interior revealed a brown paper bag containing a number of checks, identification cards, and chauffeurs' licenses made out in the name of various individuals, all of which also proved to be forgeries and counterfeits. The documents taken from McLean and seized from the Oldsmobile in which Lievers was a passenger at the time of his arrest were introduced into evidence over objection.

It was shown at the trial through the testimony of Wilson, Jason, Cherry, and Terry that appellant Lievers provided appellant McLean and the other occupants of the Oldsmobile with forged checks and identification cards, including forged and counterfeited Maryland chauffeurs' licenses, for the purpose of having the checks negotiated, and tht this mode of operation was pursued, albeit unsuccessfully, both at Gabriel's liquor store in Baltimore County and at the Rock Hill liquor store in Howard County on March 19.

Evidence was also adduced at the trial to show that prior to appellant Lievers' arrest, Corporal Elliott had obtained an arrest warrant for him for offenses committed in 1964, which he served upon Lievers after he had been arrested by Kradz. In addition, there was evidence showing that prior to the time Kradz arrested Lievers, he had been informed over his police car radio that a warrant was outstanding for Lievers' arrest for a prior offense, and that Lievers' arrest was based, at least in some part, upon Kradz's knowledge of this warrant.

At the conclusion of the State's case, the appellants moved for judgments of acquittal, which were denied. Neither Lievers nor McLean took the witness stand and both declined to testify. The defense offered no evidence and appellants renewed their motions for judgments of acquittal, which were again denied.

I

We find no merit in appellants' contention that they were unlawfully arrested and that the incriminating articles seized from them were inadmissible in evidence. It is, of course, well settled that a police officer may arrest a suspect without a warrant if he has probable cause to believe that a felony has been or is being committed and that the arrestee had committed or is committing the offense. Capparella v. State, 235 Md. 204, 201 A.2d 362; Young v. State, 234 Md. 125, 198 A.2d 91. It is equally well settled that probable cause exists where the facts and circumstances within the knowledge of the arresting officer or of which he has reasonable trustworthy information are sufficient to warrant a reasonably cautious man in arriving at that particular conclusion. Duffy v. State, 243 Md. 425, 221 A.2d 653; Edwardsen v. State, 231 Md. 332, 190 A.2d 84. We think it clear that the arresting officer, Lt. Kradz, had reasonable grounds to believe that a felony had been or was being committed and that appellants were participants in its commission. The evidence shows that Kradz had knowledge of the bogus check ring and of Lievers's involvement with it for more than...