Hill v. State

Marbury, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. After being tried in the Circuit Court for Baltimore County, sitting without a jury, the appellant was convicted under a one count criminal information charging conspiracy to obtain money under false pretenses from Joseph Snyder and sentenced to eighteen months in the penitentiary. He was also convicted under the second and third counts of a three count indictment -charging respectively, forgery, uttering and obtaining money by false pretenses from Josh Horner, upon which he was sentenced to five years in the penitentiary, the two sentences to run consecutively. From the two judgments and sentences he has brought this appeal. ⁴⁶⁰ With reference to the uttering and false pretenses counts of the indictment, the evidence produced by the State (the appellant did not testify nor produce any witnesses in his behalf) shows that on June 7, 1962, four men, including the appellant, entered the Sherwood Hill Liquor Store in Cockeysville, Baltimore County, and each purchased a bottle of liquor, paying for the liquor out of the proceeds of checks of the B & D Contractors, Inc., Baltimore, Maryland, which each in turn represented to Mr. Horner, in charge of the store, was a payroll check of B & D Contractors, Inc., drawn on the Equitable Trust Company, Baltimore, Maryland.

The check involving the appellant was payable to Albert Vessels, in the amount of $93.21, and was endorsed in Horner’s presence, in the name of the payee, by Hill after exhibiting a driver’s license in the name of Vessels as identification. All four checks were deposited but were returned by the bank unpaid because they were forgeries. As to the conspiracy charge, the evidence showed that three men, one of whom was identified as the appellant, entered the Midway Inn, in Bradshaw, Baltimore County, on June 15, 1962, and attempted to cash some checks of the B & D Contractors, Inc., which had been stolen from a printer approximately two years previously. Mr. Snyder, the manager, who had been forewarned by the police of the spurious B & D checks, declined to cash the checks and as soon as the men left the premises, hailed a trooper and reported the incident.

The policeman apprehended the three men and the automobile as described by Snyder. A search of the automobile in which the appellant was riding disclosed no checks, but a subsequent inspection of the area where the automobile had been originally parked-when observed by the trooper turned up several checks of the construction firm in addition to wallets and identification cards, which did not correspond to the identities of any of the three suspects. On this appeal appellant presents three contentions. The first one, with reference to the conspiracy charge, is that the court erred in allowing testimony as to the acts of a co-conspirator made during the progress of the execution of the object of the conspiracy, before the State had offered any evidence ⁴⁶¹ to