Miller v. State

Hammond, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. Officer Marshall of the Narcotics Squad of the Baltimore Police Department testified at the trial of this case that in August 1962 he went with an informer named Matthews to a lunchroom at which the appellant Miller, known as Uncle Bernie, was the manager and short order cook. Matthews asked Uncle Bernie if he had any eggs, meaning not the standard fare of the breakfast table, either boiled, poached, coddled, shirred, fried, scrambled, or in an omelet, but in the argot of those in the world of narcotics, “heroin in a capsule.” Uncle Bernie replied that he had no eggs but he did have two eight-dollar packs of heroin he could let them have for “a fin” each. ¹³⁸ Officer Marshall handed a ten-dollar bill (two fins), which had been given him for the purpose by the Narcotics Bureau, to Uncle Bernie, who passed it to a man standing behind the counter whose name was Roosevelt Jones, but apparently was better known to his friends as “June Bug,” and said: “Give me a deuce, June Bug.” Uncle Bernie then left the lunchroom and, in a minute or so returned, saying: “You are O. K. man, it’s on the seat, the driver’s side.” Officer Marshall immediately went to the car and found on the driver’s side of the front seat two glassine envelopes, each of which contained white powder, which later proved to be heroin. On October 28, some three months after this occurrence, the police procured a warrant for the arrest of the appellant.

It was not served because he had left Baltimore for life in New York. In the Spring of 1964 he was arrested in New York on a federal warrant charging him with travelling across State lines to avoid prosecution, contrary to the Act of Congress codified in 18 U. S. C., Sec. 1073 . He was then returned to Baltimore. On being confronted by Officer Marshall at police headquarters, the appellant said of Marshall, according to the testimony of Lieutenant Simonsen: “I saw him in my restaurant on that night.

I figured he was a police.” When asked why he had left Baltimore, he answered: “I thought he [Marshall] was a police and I did not want to incriminate myself.” Judge Harris found Miller guilty generally on an indictment charging, in three counts, possession, sale and control of heroin, and, on an addendum, of being a second offender, and gave him the minimum sentence. Miller contends that his arrest was illegal because the