Briley v. State

Prescott, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. Kelly Briley was indicted in the usual form for the murder of Jessie Mills, which occurred on January 21, 1956, in Baltimore City. He pleaded not guilty and was tried before Judge Joseph L. Carter and a jury. He was found guilty of ⁴⁴⁷ murder in the first degree.

A motion for a new trial filed before the Supreme Bench of Baltimore City was denied. He was sentenced to death by hanging and from this judgment he has appealed. No motion for a directed verdict was made in the trial court at the end of the State’s evidence, or at the conclusion of all the testimony taken; nor were there any objections or exceptions to the trial court’s charge to the jury. We are requested, however, under the alleged authority of Sec. 700, Art. 27 of the Maryland Code (1951) and Rule 5A, Part Four, I, of the Gen.

Rules of Prac. and Proc. (1955), now Rule 738 a b, to review the evidence and determine whether it is sufficient to sustain a conviction of murder in the first degree. Since the adoption of Article 15, Section 5, as an amendment to the Constitution of Maryland, we have had authority and the obligation, when the question is properly reserved, to decide the legal sufficiency of the evidence to sustain a conviction in a criminal case. It is manifest from the constitutional amendment and the supplementary statute and the rule of court that appellate review is predicated upon the refusal of an instruction offered and a ruling thereon by the trial court.

When the record discloses no such request for an instruction, there can be no review by this Court of the sufficiency of the evidence. Leet v. State, 203 Md. 285, 292 , 100 A. 2d 789 , and the cases therein cited. When the question is properly reserved and this Court is called upon to review the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain a conviction in a criminal