Bright v. State

PER Curiam. The appellant was convicted of unauthorized use of a 1966 Oldsmobile in violation of Article 27, Section 349 of the Code by a jury in the Circuit Court of Kent County on November 14, 1966. He was sentenced to serve two years in the Maryland House of Correction in Hagerstown. On appeal, the appellant contends that (a) there was insufficient corroboration of the testimony of the appellant’s accomplices to support the jury’s verdict and (b) that the court should have granted the appellant’s motion for a continuance.

Robert McCoin, one of the accomplices, testified that on Friday, February 18, 1966, he and the other accomplice, Robert Barben, picked up the appellant at his place of employment at approximately 11:30 p.m. in a Pontiac automobile (which McCoin and Barben had previously stolen); that the three of them abandoned this car and all agreed to get another car; that the second car, the Oldsmobile, was stolen by them between 4:30 and 5 :00 a.m. on Saturday morning; that each of them drove the Oldsmobile and that the three of them drove around all day and evening until shortly after midnight (early Sunday morning) when the car was involved in an accident which resulted in the death of three innocent persons. He also testified that immediately prior to the accident, they were being chased by a police car that had unsuccessfully tried to stop them in the town ⁶⁵⁹ of Rising Sun. Barben, the other accomplice, testified that he and McCoin picked up the appellant in an automobile that they had taken from an auto dealer’s lot, that this automobile was abandoned, that the three of them went to another dealer’s lot to get another car, and that all three of them drove the second car. He testified that they arrived in Rising Sun around 11:00 p.m. on Saturday; that they were chased by the police and that the chase ended in an accident.

Barben also testified that the appellant had asked him if the Pontiac was stolen and that he replied that it was (although McCoin testified that they didn’t talk about the ownership of the Pontiac). The record is replete with corroboration of those elements of the accomplices’ testimony necessary to sustain the appellant’s conviction. The appellant himself testified that he had driven both the Pontiac and the Oldsmobile. Furthermore, he testified that at one time he asked Barben whether or not the Pontiac was stolen.

His own testimony also corroborates the testimony of McCoin and Barben that they stopped in Rising Sun, fled at the sight of the police car and were subsequently involved in an accident (McCoin and the appellant claimed that Barben was the driver at the time of the accident, but Barben testified that the appellant was the driver). Mr. David T. Williams testified that a Pontiac GTO was stolen from his automobile agency sometime between 9:00 p.m. on Friday, February 18, 1966, and 8:30 a.m. the following morning, at which time he was informed by the Sheriff of Cecil County that the automobile had been recovered. Mr. Franklin T. Williams, the owner of another automobile agency, testified that a 1966 Oldsmobile was stolen from his company between 9:00 p.m. on Friday, February 18, 1966, and 8:00 a.m. the following morning. Melvin Culver, a witness for the defense who was employed at the diner where the appellant worked, testified that he saw the appellant get into a blue GTO Pontiac with two other boys between 11:20 and 11:30 p.m. on Friday night and saw him leave the diner with the same two boys in a green Oldsmobile between 11:20 and 11:30 p.m. on Saturday night. 1 Officer Cather ⁶⁶⁰ of the Rising Sun Police Department testified that he chased the speeding 1966 Oldsmobile and saw that there were three occupants in the car.

He was able to recognize only the driver, Barben. Trooper Kennedy of the Maryland State Police, who investigated the accident, testified that the appellant was an occupant in the wrecked Oldsmobile. In Maryland the uncorroborated testimony of an accomplice, standing alone, is not sufficient to sustain a conviction. McDowell v. State, 231 Md. 205, 211 .

The Court of Appeals has stated that not much in the way of corroboration is needed and that the corroborative evidence by itself need not be sufficient to convict, but it must support the testimony of the accomplice as to some of the material facts tending to show that the accused was either identified with the perpetrators of the crime or had participated in the commission of the crime