Pearre v. State
| Decision Date | 07 January 1965 |
| Docket Number | No. 142,142 |
| Citation | 206 A.2d 249,237 Md. 622 |
| Parties | James Albert PEARRE, Jr. v. STATE of Maryland. |
| Court | Maryland Court of Appeals |
James A. Gede, Towson, for appellant.
Thomas B. Finan, Atty. Gen., Robert F. Sweeney, Asst. Atty. Gen., Baltimore, and Frank H. Newell, III, and Richard D. Byrd, State's Atty. and Asst. State's Atty., respectively, for Baltimore County, Towson, for appellee.
Before PRESCOTT, C. J., and HORNEY, MARBURY, SYBERT and OPPENHEIMER, JJ.
Found guilty in a non-jury trial of breaking into a pharmacy with intent to commit a felony, i. e., larceny, therein, the appellant first contends that the State failed to prove a felonious intent and that therefore the evidence was insufficient to support the conviction.
The State's evidence showed that a motorist, O'Neill, saw two men who 'looked suspicious' in front of the closed pharmacy at about 10:30 P.M. and a little later heard the shattering of glass. Leaving his car, he approached the pharmacy and observed a man 'apparently talking into the store' through a hole in the glass front door. This man ran down the street, but when a second man came out of the pharmacy and fled down an areaway, the first man ran back toward the areaway and O'Neill grappled with him, but he escaped. O'Neill later identified the appellant as the man with whom he had struggled.
The appellant argues that there was not sufficient evidence from which it could be inferred that the intruders intended to steal goods of the value of $100 or more, as required by Code (1962 Supp.), Art. 27, sec. 32, under which he was charged. It is true that the testimony showed that only some drawers in a cupboard in the rear of the store were ransacked, and that nothing was actually taken, but the argument overlooks the fact that O'Neill interrupted the crime and that for this reason the intruders fled empty handed. The actual intention at the time of the breaking is controlling, and we have held that a felonious intent to take whatever the offender could get can be inferred from the hour of the entering, the ransacking of drawers, and other similar circumstances. Ridley v. State, 228 Md. 281, 179 A.2d 710; McCray v. State, 236 Md. 9, 202 A.2d 320. The appellant contends that the only inference that the evidence permits is that he intended to take narcotics for his own use and was not interested in their monetary value and therefore a felonious intent was not proved. This contention, though imaginative, misinterprets the statutory prohibition. The statute interdicts the taking of things of value;...
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Winder v. State
...at the time of the breaking is controlling. See Reed v. State, 316 Md. 521, 526, 560 A.2d 1104, 1106 (1989); Pearre v. State, 237 Md. 622, 624, 206 A.2d 249, 250 (1965). As we stated in Reed, "it is not burglary if the intent is formed after the breaking and entering are completed." Reed, 3......
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Sample v. State
...of the breaking is controlling.' Ridley v. State, 228 Md. 281, 282, 179 A.2d 710, 711 (1962). To the same effect, see Pearre v. State, 237 Md. 622, 624, 206 A.2d 249 (1965); Johnson v. State, 5 Md.App. 540, 545, 248 A.2d 663 (1968); Robinson v. State, 4 Md.App. 515, 530, 243 A.2d 879 (1968)......
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Reed v. State
...of Maryland cases in similar contexts have held that the intent at the time of the breaking controls. See, e.g., Pearre v. State, 237 Md. 622, 624, 206 A.2d 249 (1965); Ridley v. State, supra, 228 Md. 281, 282, 179 A.2d 710; Sample v. State, supra, 33 Md.App. at 404, 365 A.2d at 777; Makins......
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Howard v. State
...Court has held on many occasions that the amount or value of what is intended to be stolen is often a matter of inference. Pearre v. State, 237 Md. 622, 206 A.2d 249; Putnam v. State, 234 Md. 537, 200 A.2d 59, and cases cited. The evidence in this case was clearly sufficient to permit the t......