Kitt v. State

Per Curiam. The appellant ¡was found guilty of robbery with a deadly weapon and murder in the first degree (without capital punishment) on May 3, 1966 by a jury in the Criminal Court of Baltimore. He was sentenced by Judge James A. Perrott to* a life term on the murder charge and twenty years imprisonment on the robbery count, the sentences to run consecutively. He contends on this appeal that there was no legally sufficient evidence of his guilt to go to the jury, and more particularly that there was no corroboration of the testimony of an accomplice, and that consequently the court erred in failing to grant his mo ³⁰⁹ tion for judgment of acquittal offered at the end of the entire case.

The evidence adduced at the trial established that on the morning of January 2, 1965, at about 6:00 a.m., Burman’s Cafe was held up and about $23.00 was taken at that time. Charles O. Hazard, the bartender who opened the establishment in the morning, was shot in the abdomen in the course of the robbery and died as a result of this wound on January 5, 1965 at Bon Secours Hospital. Alphonso Craft, an accomplice, testified at the trial that in the early morning hours of January 2, 1965, he, together with the appellant Roosevelt Boone, and Abraham Goode, planned to rob one “Little Melvin,” a narcotics pusher. When Little Melvin failed to appear at his house after a four hour wait, the quartet formulated plans for another robbery.

Acting in accordance with this plan, the four drove in Craft’s yellow ’62 Chevrolet to a lot near the intended robbery scene, Burman’s Cafe. Craft testified that he stayed in the car while the other three went toward the cafe, the plan being for Boone and Goode to go inside, while the appellant functioned as a lookout. Three or four minutes later, Craft observed a young boy with a hood over his face walk past and cross the street. At that time the appellant returned to the car, followed a few seconds later by Boone and Goode.

Boone placed a paper bag over the license plate of the car, after which Craft observed that appellant had in his possession a black pistol with a pearl or white handle. Craft testified that he heard appellant threaten to shoot Boone and Goode “for shooting the man in the bar” and that Goode had admitted the slaying, saying that it was accidental. The appellant and Boone left Craft’s car shortly after the killing, at which time Goode gave some money to each of them. Craft further testified that he was promised immunity from prosecution by the State in return for his testimony.

The autopsy report, admitted into evidence by stipulation, established that the deceased had died of a gunshot wound, and that his death was a homicide, incurred during a hold-up at Burman’s Cafe, wherein the body was found. James C. Bur-man, manager of the cafe, testified that on the morning of January 2, 1965, at about 6:40 a.m., he arrived on the scene and ³¹⁰ found the premises in a rubble, blood all over the floor, and an open cash register with $23.00 missing therefrom. He stated that at that time the deceased, who had opened the tavern in the morning, had already been taken to the hospital. Wayne Fleming, a newspaper boy, testified that on the morning of January 2, 1965, between 5 :45 a.m. and 6:15 a.m., he saw two men in Burman’s Cafe who subsequently ran out carrying paper bags and proceeded around the corner to a white ’62 or ’63 Chevrolet parked in an alley nearby.

The witness stated that a photograph of a car identified by Craft as his automobile used as the get-away car in the robbery looked like the car he had seen that morning. On the morning of the robbery, the witness Fleming was wearing a hood or mask over his face, which was admitted into evidence, and identified by Craft as the one which he had observed a paper boy to be wearing on the morning of the crime. Mrs. Evelyn Knight testified that between 6:00 a.m. and 7:00 a.m. on the morning of January 2, 1965, she was visited at her house by the appellant and Roosevelt Boone, identified as one of the robbers. Mrs. Knight stated that the appellant had in his possession what looked like a gun with a white handle.

Sergeant Austin B. Callahan of the Baltimore City Police Department testified that the appellant acknowledged to him that he had seen Craft, Boone and Goode together prior to the commission of the crime, but that he had declined to go with them in their car. The appellant told Sergeant Callahan that on the date