Gray v. State

Per Curiam. The Appellant, Rinwood Gray, was convicted of robbery with a dangerous and deadly weapon by a jury in the Circuit Court for Prince George’s County, Judge Perry G. Bowen, Jr. presiding, and sentenced to twenty years in the Maryland Penitentiary. The record indicates that on October 7, 1966, two men, armed with a gun, robbed Robert E. Butler, an employee of Safeway Food Stores, as he was approaching the store with a bag of money which had just been obtained from a local bank. Mr. Butler testified that the Appellant was not one of the two men who robbed him and that the unknown robbers had fled in an automobile driven by a third person.

He could give no description of the driver of the car other than that he was a male. A fellow employee who was with Mr. Butler at the time of the robbery also testified that the Appellant was not one of the robbers and he could give no description of the driver of the getaway car. Officer Charles B. Badden testified that he observed the robbery and the flight from the scene in a car occupied by a driver and two passengers. He found the car abandoned approximately five minutes later.

He could not identify any of the individuals and could only say that “the driver of the car was a pretty big sized man, as I remember.” ¹⁵⁷ The record further indicates that fingerprints corresponding to those of the Appellant were lifted from the rear view mirror and the right door of the getaway car and from a deck of cards found in the car. It was stipulated by the State and the defense that the automobile in question was the property of National Car Rental. Although the Appellant did not take the stand, an employee of National Car Rental testified that he had given the Appellant a ride in that same car during the period between September 20 and September 25, 1966, and that the Appellant had ridden in the front seat of the automobile. Among other issues raised in this appeal, the Appellant contends that the lower court erred in denying his Motion for Judgment of Acquittal at the conclusion of the entire case since the only evidence to connect him with the robbery was fingerprint evidence.

At the trial, the State’s Attorney conceded that the State’s case against the Appellant rested solely upon the proposition that the Appellant had driven the getaway car and that the only evidence to sustain this contention was “One, the fingerprint of the man in the car, and, two, Mr. Badden’s minuscule description of the driver of the car.” The fingerprint evidence showed that the accused’s right thumbprint was on the rear view mirror of the car; that he had left a single print on the right hand door of the car near the door handle; and that a number of his fingerprints were found on a deck of cards that had been found in the car. There was no evidence presented as to the probable age of the fingerprints. It is clear that the jury could find that the Appellant had been in the subject automobile. However, in order to sustain his conviction, the evidence must also be sufficient to show, or to support a rational inference, that the Appellant was in the car at the time of the robbery.

This Court has been called upon to discuss the appropriate principles governing the use of fingerprint evidence on a number of occasions. See Musgrove v. State, 3 Md. App. 54 ; Hannah v. State, 3 Md. App. 325 ; Lawless v. State, 3 Md. App. 652 ; McCargo v. State, 3 Md. App. 646 ; Mills v. State, 3 Md. App. 693 . In each case we have recognized the soundness of the rule enunciated in McNeil v. State, 227 Md. 298 , where the Court of Appeals stated: ¹⁵⁸ “It is generally recognized that finger print evidence found at the scene of a crime must be coupled with evidence of other circumstances tending to reasonably exclude the