Couser v. State

Per Curiam. The appellant was convicted of breaking an outhouse with intent to steal goods of the value of $100 and upwards and breaking an outhouse and stealing goods of the value of $5 and upwards at a court trial in the Circuit Court for Baltimore County. A general sentence of imprisonment for a term of 10 years was imposed. Robert L. Clements, the owner of a retail appliance and hardware store testified that he closed his store at 9:00 P.M. on 24 April 1967.

He returned to the store about 1:30 A.M. 25 April and when he arrived the police were there. “My warehouse door was open; a side window had been pulled loose and removed, and I also discovered an attempt to get into the main building also by having had a lock broken, and the wire grating removed and jimmy marks on the window”. The open side window in the warehouse had been covered by a metal for sale sign fastened flush against the building with the printing on the ⁵⁴⁵ sign facing inside the warehouse. There was no way “to reach inside the sign between the window and the sign.” The metal sign had been removed and was on the ground beneath the window it had covered. The sign had been over the window “at least two years”.

He had not seen the appellant before and said that the appellant had never been in the warehouse. A RCA color television set valued at $480, a RCA dehumidifier valued at $68, thirteen power lawn mowers valued at $38 each, a Hoover washing machine, copper tone in color valued at $102 and three Frigidaire air conditioners valued at $115 each were missing. A Xeroxed copy of a card containing fingerprints of the appellant was admitted in evidence by stipulation. Corporal Edward Vanik, a Baltimore County police officer, attached to the Crime Laboratory Unit, whose duties included the processing of crime scenes for latent fingerprints, arrived at the scene of the breaking about 2:24 A.M. on 25 April.

He found two latent prints on the writing side of the sign but only one had enough “points in it for identification purposes”. That print was not more than one day old. It was offered in evidence for identification purposes but was never moved into evidence. Vanik further testified that he had fingerprinted the appellant at a later time and those prints were admitted in evidence.

Sergeant William B. Krause, a Baltimore County police officer assigned to the Crime Laboratory, Identification Section, had been comparing and identifying fingerprints for over 7 years. He had attended the F. B. I. Fingerprint Course, lectured on the subject and compiled a book on fingerprints used in the training of police personnel. He testified that on 21 July 1967 he compared the latent print obtained from the sign with the ink rolled prints of the appellant on the card, a copy of which had been admitted in evidence. “My conclusion was that the latent print and the left thumb of Eugene Couser was one and the same”. The appellant was arrested and his fingerprints obtained.

The prints obtained incident to the arrest and the ink rolled prints used in the comparison with the latent print were found to be those of “one and the same person”, the appellant. The appellant testified that he “could hardly say” where he was on 25 April 1967 but doubted that he was at the hardware store. He denied trying to break into the warehouse and his ⁵⁴⁶ only explanation of his thumb print on the sign was that his job “did take me out in this area * * * I junks, and I works down — I do day’s work down, down near * * * Sparrows Point”. But then he said that “on one particular date” when he and another man were junking in a pick-up truck he tried to get some metal signs off garages in the area. “If those are definite my prints, then it’s a possibility that my prints could have been left on the sign.

This is the only explanation I give for my prints being on there”. On cross-examination he admitted to an extensive criminal record — a robbery conviction, two burglary convictions and convictions of assault by stabbing a police officer and carrying a deadly weapon concealed. The appellant contends that the evidence was not sufficient to sustain the convictions because the metal sign