Kay v. State

Pattison, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. In this case four persons, including the appellants, were jointly indicted for the violation of article 27, section 482, of the Code of Public General Laws of Maryland. N The indictment contained four counts. A demurrer, filed to each and all of the counts thereof, was overruled.

Upon the entry of the plea of “not guilty,” the case was tried before the court, and defendants were found “guilty” upon the first and second counts, and “not guilty” upon the third and fourth counts. They were duly sentenced, and the two defendants Douglas Kay and E. R. Watson, the appellants, entered this appeal. The section in the article of the Code mentioned, for the violation of which they were found guilty, provides that, “If a person shall be apprehended having upon him any picklock, key, crow, jack, bit, or other implement, at places and under circumstances from which an intent may be presumed feloniously to break and enter into any dwelling house, warehouse, storehouse, stable or outhouse * * * every such person shall be deemed a rogue and vagabond, and on being convicted thereof shall be sentenced to the penitentiary for not less than one month nor more than two yéars, or to imprisonment in jail, at the discretion of the court, for a like term.” ²²⁰ The first count of the indictment, one of those under which the defendants were found guilty, was in these words: “The Jurors of the State of Maryland, for the body of Anne Arundel County, do on their oath present that E. R. Watson, Douglas Kay * * * on the 26th day of January, in the year nineteen hundred and thirty-four, at the county aforesaid, were then and there apprehended and taken into custody by D. Donnelly, who was then and there a police officer of said county, then and there acting in the due discharge of his duty as such police officer * * * and that at the time the said E. R. Watson, Douglas Kay * * * did then and there have upon and about him and their person, a certain jimmy, and certain other implements and offensive weapons * * * the said E. R. Watson, Douglas Kay * * * having then and there an intent feloniously to break and enter a certain storehouse of the Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company, situated at Glen Burnie. * * *” It will be seen that the charge laid in the indictment is substantially in the language of the statute. In Bosco v. State, 157 Md. 407 , at page 409, 146 A. 238 , Judge Adkins, speaking for this court, said: “Whatever may have been decided elsewhere, it would seem that in this State it is not open to question that a statutory offense is sufficiently charged, if the indictment is laid in the language of the statute. * * *” The objection urged against the