Blackwell v. State

Per Curiam. The appellant was tried before Judge Harlan, sitting without a jury, in the Criminal Court of Baltimore on charges of statutory burglary and larceny and was found guilty thereof and sentenced to six years’ imprisonment. The only question presented is the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain the conviction. There was evidence to show the following: At about 3:25 A.M. on October 22, 1962 [which was a Monday], a Baltimore police officer in checking the Urban Renewal warehouse ¹⁶⁰ of the City of Baltimore at 801 North Arlington Avenue found that a rear cellar door on the east side of the building had been forced open, heard a noise inside and he asked the driver of a passing cab to call for assistance.

The officer then went (or returned) to the rear of the building and heard a noise inside sounding as if someone were running to the front. The officer went around to the front and saw a man jump from a front window of the building and cross into and start running through Arlington Square. The officer called to the man to stop, fired two warning shots and gave chase. He was quickly joined by other officers, one of whom arrested the defendant, who was then slouched down on the back porch of a house in the 1200 block of West Lafayette Avenue.

The officer who testified had lost sight of the fleeing man and was searching back yards in the immediate vicinity and was three or four houses away when the arrest was made. He joined the arresting officer and they “patted down”