Adams v. State

Delaplaine, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This is the appeal of William Adams from his conviction by the Criminal Court of Baltimore on an indictment charging that he and Walter Rouse, of Baltimore, on August 1, 1947, and thence continually until August 15, 1951, unlawfully conspired together, and with certain other persons to the jurors unknown, to violate the lottery laws of the State of Maryland. The Court, acting upon the motion of Rouse, ordered a severance. Adams was then tried by the Court sitting without a jury.

He was found guilty and was sentenced to the Maryland Penitentiary for a term of seven years and to pay a fine of $2,000. It appears that the State failed to produce any evidence that appellant had conspired with anyone by the name of Rouse, but showed that appellant had conspired with Reuben Maurice Jones and other persons. Jones, the chief witness for the State, was one of the participants in a numbers business conducted on Calhoun Street from November, 1947, until March, 1948. He testified that on November 1, 1947, appellant phoned him that if he would call to see Milton Foster, he could get a job in that business that would pay him a commission of 25 per cent of the profits.

Jones called at Foster’s home on November 2 and started to work on November 3. He kept the accounts of eight men who were “getting ⁴⁵⁸ the numbers business out in the street,” and after each day’s work he took the money to his home. Whenever he accumulated about a thousand dollars, he would take it to the Adams Realty Company on Pennsylvania Avenue, where appellant had his private office. He testified that at one time the pile of cash in the safe at the Adams Realty Company amounted to $29,000.

However, on March 20, 1948, according to his testimony, he quittted the business. He recalled that he walked into appellant’s private office, threw the books on the table and said to him: “I am through with this job. There is not any future in it whatsoever.” Jones further testified that one day in October, 1949, while playing golf in Carroll Park, he was talking with appellant about the gambling business. He testified: “I was kidding him about numbers 500 and 501 hit just before Labor Day.” He further testified that appellant told him that he could get a job in a new numbers business, whereupon he replied: “I feel that numbers you are paying too much, 7 to 1. * * * I felt it should have been 6 to 1, if he was going to operate.

In that way you would have more plush or margin on which to sustain those big numbers when you hit like 500 or 501.” Jones finally testified that in June, 1950, he attended two meetings held in the office of the Adams Realty Company to consider starting a new numbers business. At those meetings he declared that he would not work in any numbers business unless it paid him a commission of 25 per cent of the profits and the numbers paid only 6 to 1, as “that was the only way anybody in Baltimore is going to really make money out of the numbers business. The clear inference can be drawn from these conversations between appellant and Jones that appellant was still unlawfully conspiring as late as June, 1950. One of the early rules of the common law was that the name of a person necessary for complete description of a crime should be stated in the indictment, if the name of such person is known.

The obvious reason for ⁴⁵⁹ this rule is that every person indicted for a crime is entitled to be informed of the nature of the charge as precisely as possible to enable him to properly prepare his defense. State v. Rappise, 3 N. J. Super. 30, 65 A. 2d 266 . However, in order to prevent a failure of justice, it is now generally accepted that if the name of a person necessary for complete description of a crime is unknown to the grand jurors, they are justified in alleging that the name of such person is unknown to them. It is preferable that an indictment for conspiracy should- state the names of the co-conspirators.

Code (1951), art. 27, sec. 48; Hurwitz v. State, 200 Md. 578 , 92 A. 2d 575 . It frequently happens, however, as the Court said in Rosenthal v. United States, 8 Cir., 45 F. 2d 1000, 1003 , 78 A. L. R. 1415, that an indictment charges the defendant with a conspiracy with persons unknown, even though it is not contemplated that the unknown persons will ever be prosecuted. Of course, in order to convict on an indictment charging a conspiracy, the evidence must establish the conspiracy charged and not some other conspiracy. Dowdy v. United States, 4 Cir., 46 F. 2d 417 ; Lefco v. United States, 3 Cir., 74 F. 2d 66 .

But where an indictment alleges that two defendants conspired with other persons to the grand jury unknown, one of the defendants may be convicted, even though the other was not a party to the conspiracy, if the proof shows that some other person unknown to the grand jury was a party to it. Worthington v. United States, 7 Cir., 64 F. 2d 936, 939 . In the case at bar the chief witness, Reuben Maurice Jones, was known to the grand jurors, because he appeared as one of the witnesses before them. Nevertheless, his testimony showed that appellant conspired to violate the lottery laws not only with him but also with other persons who were presumably unknown to the grand jurors.

Appellant contended that the prosecution was barred by the Statute of Limitations. Prosecution for the crime ⁴⁶⁰ of conspiracy must be commenced in Maryland within two years after the commission of the offense. Code 1951, art. 27, sec. 46; Scarlett v. State, 201 Md. 310 , 93 A. 2d 753 . The indictment in this case was filed on August 24, 1951.

Appellant argues that Jones got out of the numbers business on Calhoun Street in March, 1948, and that his testimony as to his conversation with appellant in October, 1949, and as to the meetings held in the office of the Adams Realty Company in June, 1950, to consider starting a new numbers business was not substantial enough to prove that he conspired to violate the lottery laws after March, 1948. If there were any doubt on this contention, it was removed by the introduction in