Fisher v. State

Thompson, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. Robert Lindsay Fisher, the appellant, was convicted in the Criminal Court of Baltimore of storehouse breaking, malicious destruction of property and petty larceny of a set of Maryland license plates. Fisher was sentenced to ten years under the storehouse breaking charge, one year, concurrent, under the malicious destruction of property charge, and two years, also concurrent, under the petty larceny charge. Fisher’s sole contention on appeal is that the evidence was insufficient to support the convictions.

On December 21, 1966 at approximately 10:00 P.M. Joseph Penn, the Vice-President and General Manager of Penn Brothers, Inc., an automobile agency, locked and secured the auto agency. He gave no one permission to enter the premises later that night. When the agency was opened the next morning by employees of Penn Brothers, they discovered that the premises had been broken into and vandalized. Physical damage exceeded $3,000.

Merchandise exceeding $6,000, including a 1967 Plymouth Belvedere automobile, was missing. In the early evening of December 22, 1966, Officer Mills of the Baltimore Police Department stopped a 1967 Plymouth Belvedere automobile for a traffic infraction. Fisher was the operator of the car. The officer noticed that the license plates were wired, not bolted, on.

Upon discovering that Fisher did not have a driver’s license or the proper registration card, the officer made a radio check on the license tags and found that they had been issued to one Margie Hilton for a 1966 Plymouth. Fisher and Cruddup, a passenger in the 1967 Plymouth, were then placed under arrest. At the time of the arrest, Fisher and ¹⁵⁷ his companion gave conflicting stories as to the ownership of the car. Petty Larceny Margie Hilton did not testify at the trial.

No evidence was produced by the state to show that the automobile tags had been stolen. We have no difficulty in finding that the trial judge was clearly erroneous under Maryland Rule 1086 when he found Fisher guilty of this charge. There was no evidence or any rational inference to support the allegation that Fisher stole the license tags, see Paesch v. State, 2 Md. App. 746, 237 A. 2d 83 . Storehouse Breaking and Malicious Destruction of Property In order for the state to prove the charges of storehouse breaking and malicious destruction of property, it had to link Fisher to these acts by showing that the vehicle he was driving was the one stolen on the