Wilson v. State

• Decision Date: 13 May 1969
• Docket Number: No. 375,375
• Citation: 253 A.2d 439,7 Md.App. 41
• Parties: Salan Lonnie Coy WILSON v. STATE of Maryland.
• Court: Court of Special Appeals of Maryland

Page 41

7 Md.App. 41

253 A.2d 439

Salan Lonnie Coy WILSON v. STATE of Maryland.

No. 375.

Court of Special Appeals of Maryland.

May 13, 1969.

Joseph E. Emerson, Baltimore, for appellant.

H. Edgar Lentz, Asst. Atty. Gen., with whom were Francis B. Burch, Atty. Gen., Charles E. Moylan, Jr., and Edward F. Seibert, State's Atty. and Asst. State's Atty. for Baltimore City, respectively, on brief, for appellee.

Before MURPHY, C. J., and ANDERSON, MORTON, ORTH and THOMPSON, JJ.

ORTH, Judge.

The only question presented on this appeal is whether the evidence was sufficient to sustain the conviction of the appellant, who was found guilty of being a rogue and vagabond at a court trial in the Criminal Court of Baltimore on 2 October 1968 and sentenced to one year consecutive to a sentence he was then serving. The question is to be resolved under Md.Rule 1086, by the provisions of which this Court will not set aside the judgment of the lower court on the evidence unless clearly erroneous, giving due regard to the opportunity of the lower court to judge the credibility of the witnesses. In the Memorandum on Motion for Reargument in Edwards v. State, 198 Md. 132, 81 A.2d 631, 83 A.2d 578, 26 A.L.R.2d 874, the Court of Appeals noted that it was asked by counsel how it could ever say that the trial court was clearly wrong. It said, at 159, 83 A.2d at 582:

'This question can only be answered as and when it is presented, case by case. If we recognize the difference between the roles of triers of facts and appellate courts, and the terms of Rule 7 (containing, as then in effect, the substance of present Md.Rule 1086), it is to be expected that such cases will be rare * * *.' See Williams v. State, 5 Md.App. 450, 452-460, 247 A.2d 731.

This is one of those rare cases and we find that the judgment of the lower court on the evidence was clearly erroneous.

The appellant and Samuel Stuart Simms were jointly indicated but tried separately. ¹ The indictment contained one count, charging that on 20 June 1968 they '* * * were rogues and vagabonds in violation of Article 27, Section 490 of the annotated code of Maryland * * *.' ²

Marie Marsiglia testified that she resided at 2624 St. Paul Street, Normandy Apartments, 1-A. She went to get her mail about 11:30 A.M. on 20 June 1968 and 'noticed that there were two young boys or men in the hall'-hallway on the first floor. 'And I went back in again (into her apartment) and I came out a few seconds more and I noticed the boys going down the mailboxes at the names.' They were running their finger down looking at the names. 'So then I looked to go to get the manager and, as I am going down the hall, I meet Miss Crue and I tell her. With that the two yound men come down the hall and we asked them what they were looking for and they said, '4-B.' They had some painting to do. I went to get the manager and Miss Crue (a neighbor and tenant in the apartment house) wouldn't allow them up the steps. * * * She held them off and wouldn't allow them up the steps. So they set in the chairs in the hall where they were seated. They stayed there for about five or ten minutes. With tha they left. With that the manager came up and saw them going down the steps, going out the door. They were really raising a rumpus because we had stopped them. And that's all.' She made a positive in-court identification of the appellant as one of the boys she saw in the hallway. When she first saw him he had a magazine in his hand but nothing else. On cross-examination she said they were dressed in street clothes and that Miss Crue stopped them from going up the stairs by spreading her arms 'out the side of the stairway.' They did not attempt to go by her. Mrs. Marsiglia had lived in the apartment house a year and a half and had never seen the boys before. She did not know whether or not anyone was home in apartment 4-B that day.

Lorraine Crue testified she had lived in the apartment house a little over a year on the first floor about two-thirds of the way down the hall, approximately 25 feet from the mailboxes which were located right inside the front door. She came out of her apartment and 'saw these two boys just fooling around the mailboxes and Mrs. Marsiglia was standing near my door. She said 'She said she was scared; she saw those two boys fooling around there. So I had a pan of wash to take in the yard and I walked up and I stood and watched them. And then I said, 'Well, I am not going to leave you alone.' And I took the pan of wash and set it on the first landing. There's a landing there goes down and the other stairway goes up. It's a walkup apartment. And the place where the chairs are is right opposite the stairways. There's two chairs there, one on the other side of the hall. I stood there and watched them and took the pan down and set it on the first landing. And we were standing there and these two boys came sprinting down the hall and made the turn. They were going to turn and go up the stairway. And I was right where the stair comes up from the landing and it's quite narrow, and I put one hand on the newel post and the other one on the wall just like that (indicating) nonchalantly. And we asked these boys where they were going and they insisted they were going up to do a job. They were insisting on going up to do the work upstairs, and we knew there was no work to be done up there. Then we asked them who they wanted to see. The said two different names. Each one of them spoke up a different name and they mumbled over it and it was hard to understand. * * * Well, they insisted on-each one of them was saying a different name and mumbling it over and not saying the names correctly, and then they started on this Greek name. They flung themselves down in the chair and spread out like that (indicating) and insisted on going to see this family with the Greek name, and they insisted, and they knew he was home, and so on like that. * * * Well, they kept insisting and insisting on going up to see him and we said he wasn't home. * * *.'

She identified the appellant as one of the boys. She recognized 'the Greek name' as a tenant in the apartment house. 'I know the people by sight and I know the names because the names are already on the mailboxes and on the doorbell.' She did not know whether or not the man whose name they gave was at home. After the boys sat down she went out of the building to a side entrance and got the janitor. When she and the janitor came back the boys were going out the door. 'They were just starting across 27th Street and St. Paul when we got there and saw them.' On cross-examination she described 'sprinting down the hall' as 'walking rapidly * * * just walking quickly.' The name they gave was 'Kapakas, or something like that * * * They didn't know how to pronounce it; didn't know how to spell it * * * a name like that is hard to pronounce anyway.' They insisted they were at the apartment house 'to see this party about a job * * * They insisted on going up to see him.' The transcript shows the following questions by the court and answers by the witness:

'THE COURT: You said they changed their story. Was that about seeing this Greek gentleman in reference to employment?

THE WITNESS: No, no, they wanted to go upstairs to do work first. And then, when we said there wasn't work to do, the they changed their story to wanting to go up and each one of them said a different name and they weren't pronouncing the names correctly. And then they flung themselves down in the chair.

THE COURT: You said they wanted to see this man about a job?

THE WITNESS: Yes.

THE COURT: Was that different from doing work in the apartment?

THE WITNESS: Yes, yes, because Mr. Dawson does the work in the apartments, the painting and any kind of work like that.'

On further cross-examination by defense counsel the witness said that when she first saw the boys, they said they were going upstairs to do work. 'Then they insisted on going upstairs to do painting and we knew there wasn't any work like that up there.' After they sat down they said 'They wanted to see this Greek man, they insisted on seeing him about some work. He was supposed to get some work for them. They said he wasn't employed; he was upstairs.'

Edward Dawson, the janitor, identified the appellant as one of the boys he saw going out the door. He saw a police officer coming down the street and told the officer what had happened. The officer was Earl Mathias and the apartment house was on his regular beat. He was cruising south on St. Paul Street in the 2700 block and 'observed two boys walking north on St. Paul. They were acting sort of suspicious and in the rear pocket of one I noticed a brown paper bag.' He saw Mr. Dawson on the corner waving, talked to him, then went 'east on 27th Street and North on Calvert, got to 29th Street, went west on 29th Street, and at the corner of 29th and Charles there's a high-rise apartment. I observed these same two boys about to enter the rear of this high-rise apartment.' He identified the appellant as one of the boys. 'As I approached these two boys, they stepped back over the chain and sat on the chain. He explained this and related his further actions as follows:

'There was a chain over the entrance to this high-rise apartment. And I got out and I talked to the boys for a few minutes and I asked them to accompany me-if they would accompany me to the Northern District to talk to the Sergeant. They agreed. I took them in my car to the Northern District. The Sergeant was talking to them. And I went back to 2624 and got the full information as to what happened there.'

When he went back to the station house he was informed that the boys were under arrest, each charged with being a rogue and vagabond. The brown paper bag was in the pocket of the appellant's companion, Simms, and 'the end of a screw driver was sticking out of it.' The appellant had nothing in his hands except a magazine. On cross-examination it was...