Price v. State

Bond, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The ease comes before this court after a second trial and conviction of the appellant. See Price v. State, 159 Md. 491 . Upon the hearing two motions have been presented, both growing out of failure of the appellant to file a record in this court within three months after appeal taken, as required by the statutes and rules of court.

Code, art. 5, secs. 6 and 44; Rules 2 and 18. The State moves that the appeal be dismissed, as required by law, in the absence of excuses specified ; and the appellant moves for a postponement until after the expiration of another period of three months, for filing an additional record, after a second order for appeal entered a month before the beginning of the present term of court, and a month and a half before the case came up for hearing in regular order. A record filed before the beginning of the term brought the case regularly into the April term of court. Code, art. 5, sec. 43; Rule 17; United Rwys. v. Corbin, 109 Md. 52, 54 , 71 A. 131 .

The verdict on the second trial, finding the appellant guilty of murder in the first degree, was rendered on December 5th, 1930; a motion in arrest of judgment was filed on December 8th, 1830, and on the same day overruled; and after the overruling of that motion the judgment and sentence were entered, also on December 8th, 1930. The appeal was ordered a week later on December 15th, 1930. On February 27th, 1931, the time for filing a bill of exceptions was extended ⁶⁷² by order of court until April 1st, 1931, but the court is informed by counsel for the appellant that no bill of exceptions was filed within the time thus allowed. The record of proceedings, without any bill of exceptions added, was sent to this court by order of the appellant’s attorney on March 27th, 1931, or after the éxpiration of the time permitted by the statutes and rules.

PTo error appears in that record. On March 2nd, 1931, the appellant’s attorney filed a paper, described by him as a motion, but containing no request for action by the court, and the court, after a hearing, overruled it. That paper stated an objection to the verdict in that it was rendered under provisions of article 15, section 5, of the Constitution of the State, that: “In the trial of all criminal cases, the jury shall be the Judges of Law, as well as of fact.” This, it is objected, is contrary to the requirements of articles 2 and 5 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights, and article 5 of the Constitution proper. The two sections of the Declaration of Rights cited refer respectively to the supremacy of the Constitution and laws of the United States, and the right of the inhabitants of the state to the common law of England and trial by jury; and article 5 of the Constitution proper refers, in its various sections, to the offices of Attorney General and state’s attorney.

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