Myers v. State
| Decision Date | 12 January 1921 |
| Docket Number | 52. |
| Parties | MYERS v. STATE. |
| Court | Maryland Court of Appeals |
Appeal from Criminal Court of Baltimore City; Morris A. Soper Judge.
Andrew Reid Myers was convicted of unlawfully having and receiving an automobile knowing it to have been feloniously stolen, and he appeals. Affirmed.
Argued before BOYD, C.J., and URNER, STOCKBRIDGE, ADKINS, and OFFUTT, JJ.
Isaac Lobe Straus, of Baltimore (J. Paul Schmidt, of Baltimore, on the brief), for appellant.
Lindsay C. Spencer, Asst. Atty. Gen., and Alexander Armstrong, Atty. Gen. (Robert F. Leach, Jr., State's Atty., of Baltimore, on the brief), for the State.
Andrew Reid Myers, the appellant, was arrested in Norfolk, Va., on January 27, 1920, while in possession of an automobile owned by Mrs. Ray E. Delevia which had been stolen from her, while it was standing on Eutaw street in Baltimore, on January 19 1920. Upon his arrest Myers told the Norfolk police that he lived in Baltimore and gave them his name, and they communicated this information, together with a description of the automobile to the police department of Baltimore City, who requested that he be held for them. He and the automobile were then brought to Baltimore City, where he was indicted for the larceny of the automobile, and for having and receiving it knowing it to have been stolen.
He was tried before a jury which found him not guilty of the larceny, but guilty of the charge of unlawfully having and receiving the automobile knowing it to have been feloniously stolen, and upon that verdict the judgment and sentence of the court was that he be confined in the Maryland penitentiary for ten years, the sentence to run concurrently with like sentences in two other cases. From that judgment this appeal was taken.
The record contains three exceptions, two of which relate to rulings on evidence and one to the action of the Supreme Bench of Baltimore in overruling a motion to arrest the judgment.
Charles Ennis, the office manager of the agency from which the automobile was purchased in February, 1918, was asked to state the "purchase price of that car." The appellant objected to the question, but the objection was overruled, and the witness answered that its purchase price was $1,917.82.
Abe Delevia, who bought the car and gave it to his wife, was asked what he paid for it. This question was also objected to, but the court overruled the objection, and the witness replied that he paid $1,700 for it "after allowance was made." The rulings of the court in respect to these questions are the subject of the first and second exceptions.
Where the value of an article of personal property is in issue in a criminal case, the inquiry should be confined to its market value, where it is of such a character that it can be said to have a definite market value. 10 Ed. Wharton, Cr. Ev. par 258. The term "market value," when applied to such an article, means its present cash or selling price in the open market. It is the price it would bring at a fair sale where one party wanted to sell and the other to buy. Words and Phrases, Second Series. What the market price of a particular article is, is "a conclusion which is largely made up of presumption, and may always be proved by the opinions of witnesses based of necessity in part on hearsay"; but, while it may be proved by the opinions of such witnesses, the proof need not be confined to them, but recourse may be had to any facts or circumstances which may aid the court or jury in trying the issue, in the inquiry before them, and which under the circumstances of the case affords the best...
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