Mills v. State

Morton, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. In this appeal the sole question is the legal sufficiency of the evidence to sustain the several convictions here involved. On July 31, 1966, at approximately 12:15 A.M. White’s Tavern, located in Baltimore City, was robbed of $265. A patron testified that he heard someone in the rear of the Tavern say that this is a robbery; he turned and faced a gunman with whom he grappled and knocked to the floor, after which the gunman ran out the door, jumped into a 1964, two-door Chevrolet sedan.

The witness pursued him, observed the number on the rear license tag, and thereafter gave the tag number and a description of the car to the police. Approximately an hour later the police located the unoccupied car parked some ten blocks from the scene of the robbery. The car had been stolen; the rear license tag was different than the front tag; and the tags had been stolen from separate owners. Another patron testified that he saw someone rifling the cash register and that there were at least two other men involved in the holdup.

He was asked if he saw any of the holdup men in court and answered: “Yes, I think it is this boy over here in front of me.” He was referring to Charles Thompson, the ⁶⁹⁵ Appellant’s co-defendant who had been charged with the same offenses. The witness did not identify the Appellant. The getaway car was processed for fingerprints and an impression of the Appellant’s right little finger was lifted from inside the left front window of the car. The fingerprints of “many others” were found but the individuals were not identified.

As a result, the Appellant was charged with and convicted of armed robbery, larceny of the automobile and larceny of the license tags. He was sentenced to ten years, three years and one year on the respective convictions, the sentences to run concurrently. On August 2, 1966, at about 6:00 P.M. an officer of the Baltimore City Police Department observed two individuals and the Appellant sitting in a 1965 Ford automobile sniffing paper bags which later were determined to contain glue. After attempting to flee on foot, the Appellant and Charles Thompson were apprehended and the third individual escaped.

The automobile in which the three were sitting had been stolen. The Appellant was charged with and convicted of receiving stolen goods, i.e. the stolen automobile, and he pleaded guilty to the charge of sniffing glue. 1 He was sentenced to two years and one year on the respective convictions to be served concurrently with the other sentences. The State concedes that the only evidence to support the Appellant’s convictions of the armed robbery, larceny of the 1964 Chevrolet getaway car, and larceny of the tags thereon is the fingerprint impression found on the car and a newspaper clipping found on the Appellant at the time of his arrest which described the robbery of White’s Tavern. The State argues, however, that this evidence is legally sufficient to sustain the convictions.

We disagree. Recently, this Court has been called upon in several cases to discuss the application of the appropriate principles governing the use of fingerprint evidence. Musgrove v. State, 3 Md. App. 54 ; Hannah v. State, 3 Md. App. 325 ; Lawless v. State, 3 Md. App. 652 ; McCargo v. State, 3 Md. App. 646 . In each ⁶⁹⁶ case we have recognized the soundness of the rule enunciated in McNeil v. State, 227 Md. 298, where the Court of Appeals stated: “It is generally recognized that fingerprint evidence found at the scene of a crime must be coupled with evidence of other circumstances tending to reasonably exclude the hypothesis that the print was impressed at a time other than that of the crime. 3 Wharton, Crinunal Evidence (12th ed.), sec. 982; II Wigmore, Evidence (3rd ed.), §414.” In Lawless, supra, Judge Orth, in speaking for this Court said: “From the cases considered, we think it clear that the ‘fingerprint evidence found at the scene of the crime’ as stated in the rule enunciated in McNeil v. State, supra, refers only to that evidence which proved that the print was that of the accused.

Thus, the ‘circumstances tending to reasonably exclude the hypothesis that the print was impressed at a time other than that of the crime’ need not be circumstances completely independent of the fingerprint, and may properly include circumstances such as the location of the print, the character of the place or premises where it was found and the accessibility of the general public to the object on which the print was impressed. A latent fingerprint found at the scene of the crime, shown to be that of an accused, tends to show that he was at the scene of the crime. The attendant circumstances with respect to the print may show that he was at the scene of the crime at the time it was committed. If they do so show, it is a rational inference, consistent with the rule of law both as to fingerprints and circumstantial evidence, [footnote omitted] that the accused was the criminal agent.” Thus, the issue to be determined in the case at bar is whether the evidence of the attendant