Gutridge v. State

Henderson, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court. Prescott, J., concurs in the result. The appellant was convicted, as a second offender, of control of narcotics. He contends that the testimony of his wife should have been excluded, since it disclosed a “confidential communication made by the one to the other,” in violation of Code (1957), Art. 35, sec. 4.

He further contends that the narcotics put in evidence against him were obtained as a result of an illegal search. The facts are virtually undisputed. On June 22, 1963, the appellant was in the custody of the Baltimore County Police, charged with assault on his wife, Janice. Another prisoner, Marvin Offield, testified that Gutridge asked him to call Mrs. Gutridge to pick up some articles at the train station, and told him “if the police got a hold of them he could get twenty years,” ⁵¹⁶ Offield informed the officers, who went to the home of Mrs. Gutridge.

She produced the key to a station locker that her husband had given her, accompanied them to the station, opened the -locker and took out a paper bag containing narcotics, which she opened, and handed the contents to the officers. At the trial she testified, over objection, that while she and her husband were en route to the police station in the police car, following his assault on her, he slipped a ring of keys into her pocketbook without any explanation. One of the keys had a tag identifying it as being the key to locker No. 8006, Camden Station. She testified that she accompanied the officers to the station, opened the locker, looked into the paper bag containing narcotics and marcotics paraphernalia, and handed the contents to the officers.

Although the appellant said nothing to his wife at the time be slipped the keys into her handbag, his obvious purpose was to prevent the police from finding them. In his subsequent attempted message to her through a trusty, Offield, it was his purpose to have her remove and secrete or destroy the contents ■of the locker. But Offield' informed the police, and when the police asked her for the keys her husband had given her, she voluntarily accompanied them to the station. At the outset, it seems clear that there was no breach of privilege involved in the information given to the police by Offield.

The message sought to be sent to the appellant’s wife through another cannot be regarded as confidential. Cf. Master v. Master, 223 Md. 618, 623 , and cases collected in 97 C.J.S. Witnesses, § 272. See also Pereira v. United States, 347 U. S. 1 ; Wolfle v. United States, 291 U. S. 7, 17 ; People v. Melski, 10 N. Y. 2d 78, 176 N. E. 2d 81 ; McCormick on Evidence, § 84; Wharton, Criminal Evidence (12th ed.) § 831.

The act of dropping the keys in her handbag, in and of itself, can hardly be deemed a “communication,” although the courts are divided on the point. See McCormick on Evidence, § 83 and cases cited. See also State v. Dixson, 80 Mont. 181, 203, 204 , 260 P. 138, 146 , and note 10 A.L.R. 2d 1389 . Even the cases