Robinson v. State
| Decision Date | 02 March 1921 |
| Docket Number | 24. |
| Parties | ROBINSON v. STATE. |
| Court | Maryland Court of Appeals |
Appeal from Criminal Court of Baltimore City; Chas. W. Heuisler John J. Dobler, and Walter I. Dawkins, Judges.
"To be officially reported."
Robert Robinson was convicted of murder in the first degree, and he appeals. Judgment affirmed.
Argued before BOYD, C.J., and BRISCOE, THOMAS, URNER, STOCKBRIDGE ADKINS, and OFFUTT, JJ.
Milton Dashiell, of Baltimore, for appellant.
Alexander Armstrong, Atty. Gen. (Lindsay C. Spencer, Asst. Atty. Gen and Robert F. Leach, Jr., State's Atty., of Baltimore City, on the brief), for the State.
The appellant has been convicted of murder in the first degree and is under sentence of death. The homicide charged against him was committed in Anne Arundel county. After his indictment in that jurisdiction, the case was removed to the criminal court of Baltimore City, where it was tried before Judges Heuisler, Dobler, and Dawkins; a jury trial being waived. The victim of the murder was James Elder Tydings, and the scene of the crime was in the woods near Town Neck Church on the state road from Annapolis to Baltimore. Mr. Tydings was on his way home from work on a Saturday afternoon when he was killed and robbed. The weapon used was a large stone with which his skull was crushed and which was found near his body.
Within a few hours after the murder was committed, the appellant left his home in the neighborhood and went to Virginia. He was arrested there about two weeks later. After being brought back to this state, he was questioned as to his movements on the day of the murder. His first statement was to the effect that he stopped work at Round Bay on that day at 12 o'clock and returned to his home, where he ate his dinner and remained there, mending shoes and getting ready to leave, until about 3 o'clock, when he went to Boone Station and boarded a train for Baltimore, where he took a train at 4:45 for Washington, and went on to Virginia the same evening on a visit to his former home at Forrest Depot in that state.
In the course of another interview, which occurred on the day following the one just referred to, the appellant stated that after returning home from work and eating his dinner, on the afternoon of the murder, he went down to the store to buy a pair of socks, and while he was there a truck came along the road on its way to Baltimore, and he jumped upon the truck and rode along with the driver awhile inquiring whether there was any work he could get in Annapolis, and while thus talking he rode further than he intended; that he got off the truck after passing Town Neck Church and walked back along the road and went into the woods, where he saw Mr. Tydings in the act of driving away some colored boys who were playing "craps"; that he saw Mr. Tydings hit one of the boys, and saw one of them wrestling with him; and that he (the appellant) then left the woods and went home. When asked whether he would point out the place where he saw Mr. Tydings and the boys, he consented to do so, and went with two officers in an automobile to within a short distance of the woods in which the murder was committed, and there conducted them on foot to the spot where the body of Mr. Tydings was reported to have been found. Later on the same day the appellant was confronted with the three boys he had mentioned as having been in the woods with Mr. Tydings, and persisted in that assertion in spite of their denials.
In an interview two days afterwards with Mr. Green, the state's attorney for Anne Arundel county, the appellant stated that when he went into the woods, on the afternoon in question, he saw Mr. Tydings, who cursed him and struck him with a stick and he returned the blow, also using a stick; that with a second blow he knocked Mr. Tydings down, and then went through his pockets and got $12 in paper money, and looked through the...
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Harris v. State
... ... followed up by other evidence. No motion was made at a later ... stage of the case to strike it out. There was no dispute that ... Harris received the property, and as Harris was found not ... guilty on the conspiracy counts, there appears no prejudice ... or harm to appellant. Robinson v. State, 138 Md ... 137, 141, 113 A. 641. In conspiracy cases the order in which ... the evidence should be produced is a matter largely within ... the discretion of the Court. Bloomer v. State, 48 ... Md. 521; Klecka v. State, 149 Md. 128, 131, 131 A ... 29; Garland v. State, 112 Md. 83, ... ...
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Gray v. State
... ... of this record that this case is in no wise one that involves ... selfdefense and proof that he was fearful of grave bodily ... harm or death is in total conflict with his theory that the ... killing was accidental ... [30 A.2d 748] ... In the ... case of Robinson v. State, 138 Md. 137 at page 141, ... 113 A. 641, at page 642, this Court said: 'Obviously he ... was not harmed by the refusal to permit him to testify at one ... stage of the case in support of a theory which he definitely ... rejected when he came to make his formal defense.' We ... think ... ...