Hill v. State

Morton, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. Appellant contends that the in-court identifications by two of the State’s witnesses were insufficient evidence upon which to base a finding of guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. He was convicted" of robbery with a deadly weapon by Judge Meyer M. Cardin in the Criminal Court of Baltimore, sitting without a jury. 1 ⁵⁵⁷ Clifford D. Davis, manager of Murry’s Steaks store located in Baltimore City, testified that at approximately 9:10 p.m. on June 29, 1967, as he was preparing to close the store, three men, two of whom were carrying revolvers, and the third wearing a Halloween face mask, entered the store. He stated that the appellant, whom he identified at the trial, placed a gun at his back and forced him to open the safe from which was taken four hundred-sixty three ($463) dollars; that the second man with a gun, whom he later identified as Stephen Williams, forced his assistant, Mrs. Letherberry, and a stock boy to lie on the floor during the robbery; they then were locked in a closet and the robbers escaped.

Mrs. Letherberry took the stand and substantially corroborated Davis’ version of the robbery and identified the appellant as one of the robbers. Although descriptions of the robbers were immediately given to the police by Davis and Mrs. Letherberry, the appellant was not apprehended until November 7, 1967. The appellant was described as being five feet-nine inches tall, weighing approximately 145 pounds, light-complected, and clean-shaven. In the course of cross-examination, Davis asserted that he had seen the appellant and his confederates approaching the store from a distance of approximately thirty yards over a period of fifteen seconds, and that as the appellant came through the entrance within a foot of Davis he observed the appellant for another three seconds, and “that’s the last time I actually saw his face for he kept behind me all the time.” Davis also testified that several months after the holdup, as a result of reading a newspaper article about the arrest of three men suspected of committing another robbery in the area, he and Mrs. Letherberry decided to attend their preliminary hearing, and while waiting in the courtroom for the hearing to begin, they observed the appellant and Williams looking out of a small window in an anteroom.

According to Davis, “they [the appellant and Williams] was looking out the window to us. I said ‘there they are.’ She [Mrs. Letherberry] says ‘Yes, there they are,’ ” Davis further stated that he and Mrs. Letherberry had testified at the prior, separate trial of Williams involving the same ⁵⁵⁸ robbery charge and during the course of the trial had identified him 'as being one of the robbers. Williams, however, took the stand as a witness for the appellant and asserted that he was acquitted of the robbery charge, notwithstanding the courtroom identifications by Davis and Mrs. Letherberry, since he was able to show that he had been hospitalized at the time of the robbery. The appellant took the stand, denied participating in the robbery, and stated that he was wearing the same type of moustache on the day of the crime as he was wearing at trial.

He conceded that he had been previously convicted of larceny on two separate occasions. The appellant does not argue that the formal mandates of United States v. Wade, 388 U. S. 218 , and Gilbert v. California, 388 U. S. 263 , have any direct application here but he does urge that the identifications of the appellant as one of the robbers by the State’s witnesses were so inherently weak as to be incredible. He points out that the