Knight v. State

Thompson, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. James Joseph Knight, the appellant, was convicted in the Criminal Court of Baltimore of being a rogue and vagabond and of possessing narcotic paraphernalia. Judge David Ross, presiding without a jury, sentenced him to consecutive two year terms. Knight contends articles seized at the time of the arrest were improperly admitted into evidence, and the evidence was not sufficient to support the verdicts.

At approximately 1:30 a.m. on July 14, 1968, Melvin Anderson secured a shoe repair shop which he operated in Baltimore City, and prepared to ride home with another companion, Thomas Jenkins. As they were walking to the car, parked thirty feet away, Anderson noticed two men looking in the window of a restaurant which was located adjacent to the shoe store. As there had been numerous storehouse breakings in the vicinity, he called his companion’s attention to their actions. After deciding to observe the two men further, Anderson and Jenkins circled the block, alighted from the vehicle, and took up a position which allowed them to observe both men, one of whom was later identified as Knight, standing on a nearby street corner.

After Knight’s companion walked from the street corner into an alley located behind the shoe store, Knight also disappeared into the alley. Anderson then decided to go around to the front of his store while his companion, Jenkins, was to go to the rear of the store. As Jenkins reached the alley, he observed Knight in the enclosed backyard of the shoe shop near the rear entrance. Jenkins testified that he asked Knight what he was doing back there, and he replied, “I am not doing anything.

I am just coming from work.” Jenkins ²⁸⁴ then replied, “Something is going on funny here. You better come with me around the front and check with Mr. Anderson.” At about that time, Jenkins testified that he heard something that sounded to him like dishes rattling, and he thereupon grabbed Knight by the arm and escorted him to the front of the shoe shop. Jenkins further testified that as he was escorting Knight around the alley, “Mr. Anderson ran past me going to the back of his shop. Mr. Anderson had proceeded up Fulton to go to the front door of his shop.

He ran past me and said, ‘Somebody is in there’ ... I kept this fellow, Knight, with me. I wasn’t going to let him go. I walked him right around to the front of Mr. Anderson’s shop ....

By this time, about approximately maybe less than a minute, Mr. Anderson ran back and said, ‘He got away. The fellow came through the window’ ”. Jenkins also testified that he observed Knight to be carrying a shopping bag, which was rolled up under his arm, “like you see people walking down the street tucking a newspaper under their arm.” Anderson testified that after he had observed the men go into the alley, he went to the front entrance of his store where he looked through a large window and noticed a man inside. Anderson stated, “After that I tried to open the door with the keys.

I couldn’t find the keys. I saw the fellow go out the back door. I could still see when he went out the back way, and I rushed back around the back, around the side way, and by that time Mr. Jenkins was bringing this Mr. Knight up around the corner.” Anderson testified that stock valued from $400 to $600 was in the store at the time, that a nickel coin machine was broken open, and nickels were scattered all over the floor, and that the premises had been completely secured at the time he closed the store. After