Gamble v. State

Murphy, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court. Appellant was convicted of grand larceny by a jury in the Circuit Court for Montgomery County and sentenced to a term ²⁷⁴ of eight years imprisonment. He urges on this appeal from that judgment that six errors were committed at the trial, each separately necessitating reversal of the judgment of conviction. The facts essential to a determination of the appeal are these: Appellant was arrested by Montgomery County police on April 12, 1966 pursuant to a warrant for housebreaking.

At the time of the arrest, appellant was seated on a bench in a restaurant reading a newspaper. He was then sitting on another section of the newspaper, part of which was sticking out from under his leg. Upon inspection at the scene of the arrest, the police discovered several shares of stock and a $1,000.00 Federal Reserve note within the newspaper upon which appellant had been sitting. Appellant denied ownership of the paper.

The stock and note were the property of Mr. and Mrs. Robert W. Gosnell of Reading, Pennsylvania. The evidence showed that the Gosnells had placed these items in a safe in their home in Reading on or about October 25, 1965. There was evidence showing that the safe had been removed from the Gosnell home and that no permission had been given for its removal. Appellant first contends that there was no proof of the corpus delicti, viz., that there was no legally sufficient evidence of theft of the Gosnell property from its situs in their Pennsylvania home.

It is, of course, well settled that the corpus delicti may be proved by circumstantial evidence. Banks v. State, 228 Md. 130 . As indicated, the stock and note were kept by the Gosnells in a safe in their home. Upon inspection, the safe and its contents were found missing.

No permission had been given for anyone to take either. Under such circumstances, and bearing in mind the nature of the missing objects, we conclude that the only logical inference which could be drawn from their impermissive absence is that they were stolen. Even though they may have been taken originally in Pennsylvania, the subsequent asportation of the stolen goods in the State of Maryland constitutes a new larceny for which the transporting party may be convicted by the courts of this State. Worthington v. State, 58 Md. 403 .

Appellant’s conviction for larceny rests essentially upon the rule which infers guilt from the unexplained possession of re ²⁷⁵ cently stolen goods. That rule was recently restated by this court in Anglin v. State, 1 Md. App. 85 at page 92: “The law is clear that recent possession of stolen goods is evidence of guilt o£ the possessor and casts the burden on the possessor of such stolen goods to give a reasonable explanation of how he came into its possession * * Chief Judge Hammond, speaking for the Court of Appeals in Anglin v. State, 244 Md. 652 at page 656, stated the rule as follows: “* * * It has long been established in Maryland that, absent a satisfactory explanation, exclusive possession of recently stolen goods permits the drawing of an inference of fact strong enough to sustain a conviction that the possessor was the thief, or, if the circumstances revealed by the testimony so indicate, that he was the receiver of the stolen goods. * * *” The term “possession” in this context does not necessarily require actual manual possession by an accused as long as he obtains a measure of control or dominion over the stolen goods. Polansky v. State, 205 Md. 362 ; Brooks v. State, 235 Md. 23 . At the time of his arrest, appellant was found sitting on a newspaper containing the stolen stock and note.

We hold that these facts constitute sufficient evidence from which the jury could properly infer possession in the appellant. The requirement that goods be “recently” stolen is a relative one. In Anglin v. State, 1 Md. App. at page 92 , this court, quoting B utz v. State, 221 Md. 68, 77 , said: “The term ‘recent’ when used in connection with recently stolen goods, is a relative term, and its meaning as applied to a given case will vary with