Porter v. State

⁵³⁶ P®R Curiam. The appellant and one Hudson were tried for burglary in the Criminal Court of Baltimore, sitting without a jury. They were convicted and each was sentenced to four years in the Maryland House of Correction. This appeal by Porter alleges that evidence presented in the trial should have been excluded, since it was the product of an illegal search and seizure.

At approximately 5:00 A.M., December 30, 1961, police entered the Baltimore apartment of one Herbert Fish, after knocking on the door and being admitted by Fish, and then proceeded to enter the adjoining apartment occupied by appellant and John Crevensten, through a connecting door. They burst through the door, woke appellant, and then carried out a search of the one room apartment. The police did not have a search warrant. The search turned up several items that had been reported stolen from the apartment of Louis Price on December 25, 1961.

On that date, a restaurant owned by Price had been broken into, money taken, and access to his upstairs living quarters had been gained through the restaurant. A radio taken from Mr. Price was found in Fish’s apartment, and Fish testified that appellant had given him the radio as a Christmas present. Appellant denied that he had stolen any of tfie articles. Fish and Crevensten testified that appellant and another person had brought the articles into the apartment in the early morning of December 25, 1961.

No objection to the introduction in evidence of the stolen articles was made at the trial until the conclusion of the State’s case. At that time