McBryde and Bland v. State

Mason, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The appellants, Larry Carl McBryde and Cecil Douglas Bland, were convicted by a jury in the Circuit Court for Prince George’s County of being accessories before the fact to the crime of robbery with a deadly weapon. They were each sentenced to a term of twenty years. The appellants’ only assignment of error is that the evidence was insufficient to support their conviction as accessories before the fact to the crime of robbery with a deadly weapon.

The evidence adduced at trial by the State disclosed that the appellants, with one Carlton Robert McLaughlan, drove into the parking lot of a 7-Eleven store. After remaining there for a short period of time, they left the parking lot and drove into an alley which runs behind the shopping center located directly across the street from the 7-Eleven store. At the entrance of the alley McLaughlan got out of the automobile, talked briefly with the appellants, and then walked in the direction of the 7-Eleven store. Meanwhile, the appellants drove through the alley and emerged in front of the shopping center.

They cruised slowly in front of the stores in the shopping center until they reached the street which separated the 7-Eleven store from the shopping center. At this point, McLaughlan made a hand signal to the appellants and proceeded across the street into the 7-Eleven store. The appellants then drove to the same alley where they had entered previously and disappeared from view. Within moments after McLaughlan entered, alarms were actuated.

The police, who had the area “staked out” and who had observed the entire incident, arrested McLaughlan as he walked away from the store. McLaughlan had in his possession a pistol and a wad of currency. He subsequently pleaded guilty to the offense of robbery with a deadly weapon. ³⁵⁹ After McLaughlan was arrested, the police proceeded into the alley and arrested the appellants, who were sitting in Appellant Bland’s automobile, approximately fifty feet into the alley in a position completely out of sight of the 7-Eleven store. The automobile’s engine was running and its headlights were on.

Maryland recognizes the common law distinction between principals and accessories before the fact. Huff v. State, 23 Md. App. 211 , 326 A. 2d 198 (1974); Agresti v. State, 2 Md. App. 278, 234 A. 2d 284 (1967). We have defined accessories before the fact as “.. . those persons who procure, counsel, or command the deed perpetrated, but who are not present, actively or constructively, at such perpetration.” Agresti , 280. Under common law, persons who are present, either actually or constructively, and who aid and abet the commission of a crime, but do not themselves commit it, are principals in the second degree, provided there is a guilty principal in the first degree.

Id. We have noted that a principal differs from an accessory only in the requirement of presence. Huff , 214. Thus, the critical difference between an accessory before the fact and a principal is his presence or absence during the commission of the crime.

In order to sustain the appellants’ convictions, the State was required to present evidence which proved each of the two elements of the definition of an accessory before the fact, namely: (1) that the appellants aided and abetted the commission of a crime; and (2) that the appellants were not present, either actually or constructively during the commission of the crime. A review of the record reveals that the appellants and McLaughlan stopped first at the 7-Eleven store and