Porter v. State

• Court: Maryland Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: PER CURIAM
• Citation: Porter v. State, 187 A.2d 870, 230 Md. 535 (Md. 1963)
• Decision Date: 05 February 1963
• Docket Number: No. 173,173
• Parties: James Gordon PORTER v. STATE of Maryland.

Page 535

230 Md. 535

187 A.2d 870

James Gordon PORTER v. STATE of Maryland.

No. 173.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

Feb. 5, 1963.

Charles Cahn, II, Baltimore, for appellant.

Robert F. Sweeney, Asst. Atty. Gen. (Thomas B. Finan, Atty. Gen., William J. O'Donnell and James W. Murphy, State's Atty. and Asst. State's Atty., respectively, for Baltimore City, Baltimore, on the brief), for appellee.

Before HENDERSON, HAMMOND, PRESCOTT, MARBURY and SYBERT, JJ.

PER CURIAM.

The appellant and one Hudson were tried for burglary in the Criminal Court of Baltimore, sitting without a jury. They were convicted and each was sentenced to four years in the Maryland House of Correction. This appeal by Porter alleges that evidence presented in the trial should have been excluded, since it was the product of an illegal search and seizure.

At approximately 5:00 A.M., December 30, 1961, police entered the Baltimore apartment of one Herbert Fish, after knocking on the door and being admitted by Fish, and then proceeded to enter the adjoining apartment occupied by appellant and John Crevensten, through a connecting door. They burst through the door, woke appellant, and then carried out a search of the one room apartment. The police did not have a search warrant. The search turned up several items that had been reported stolen from the apartment of Louis Price on December 25, 1961. On that date, a restaurant owned by Price had been broken into, money taken, and access to his upstairs living quarters had been gained through the restaurant. A radio taken from Mr. Price was found in Fish's apartment, and Fish testified that appellant had given him the radio as a Christmas present. Appellant denied that he had stolen any of the articles. Fish and Crevensten testified that appellant and another person had brought the articles into the apartment in the early morning of December 25, 1961. No objection to the introduction in evidence of the stolen articles was made at the trial until the conclusion of the State's case. At that time counsel for appellant moved that evidence pertaining to the recovery of those articles be stricken, because there was no showing on the part of the State that there was a valid search and seizure. This motion, being the equivalent of a motion for judgment of acquittal under Maryland Rule 755, then in effect, being denied, at the conclusion of the entire case, the motion was renewed on the grounds of illegal search and seizure, which was also denied.

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