Price v. State

PER Curiam. The appellant was found guilty of assault and battery by a jury in the Circuit Court for Cecil County and sentenced to imprisonment for a term of two years. On appeal he contends that the evidence was not sufficient to sustain the ■ conviction, that he was prejudiced by the remarks and conduct of the trial judge and that there was error in admitting certain evidence. I No. motion for judgment of acquittal was made by the appellant' either at the close of the evidence offered by the State or at- the close of all the evidence.

In the absence of such a motion at the close of all the evidence this Court will not re ¹²⁹ view the sufficiency of the evidence in a case tried by a jury. Culver v. State, 1 Md. App. 406 ; Quinn v. State, 1 Md. App. 373 . In any event, in the instant case there was evidence that a girl 16 years of age, babysitting for her neighbor, took six young children to movies on Saturday afternoon about 2:30 P.M. to see a double feature of two Walt Disney movies. She was seated in the first row that was empty with four of the children, two of them going further down front.

The appellant, who was seated in the row in front of where she was seated, kept glancing back at her. “While the movie went on, he had his hand down behind the seat and he bumped my leg. I did not think anything of it, I thought it was an accident. At different times I had to go up and get candy and things for the kids, and every time I went, he watched and kept looking back. One time I was coming back from the candy thing and he was standing there by the men’s room watching which way I was going * * * I did not want to go by him, so I went around the other way, back to the kids, back where they were sitting.

When I got back and sat down, he had returned to his seat * * * So one time I was taking one of the kids up to the front to go to the bathroom, that is when he put his hand down behind, and he had his hand there and had a hold of my leg, I said, ‘You beast,’ and took off to the front of the movies * * * He had hold of my leg, he grabbed it as 1 was getting up.” He had hold of her leg “about around the knees. I pushed my way by and he did not move his hand. I was scared to go back, so I sent Dolores down to get the other kids and he told them not to move.” She had one of the children call their father, Miller Carroll. The father saw the babysitter in front of the Sheriff’s office. “She was very disturbed and upset.

She was crying and really emotionally upset * * * She said a gentleman in the movies had been fooling with her legs.” She accompanied the father and the theatre manager into the movie, although she “did not want to go. She was scared. We went as far as the door in the movies and she saw him, then she turned and in a very emotional way and ran out the door.” The appellant accompanied the theatre manager to the jail where he was identified by the prosecuting witness. The appellant, 30 years of age and married, testifying on his ¹³⁰ own behalf, denied putting his hands on the girl or that he touched her in any way or that he glanced back at her or looked at her. “Any unlawful injury whatsoever, however slight, actually done to the person of another, directly or indirectly, in an angry, revengeful, rude or insolent manner is a battery.

Every battery includes an assault * * Clark and Marshall, Crimes, 6th Ed. § 10.19, p. 654; Leatherberry v. State, 4 Md. App. 300, 305; Kist v. State, 4 Md. App. 282. The test in reviewing the sufficiency of the evidence in a jury case is whether any relevant evidence was given to the jury which could have sustained the conviction. Tillery v. State, 3 Md. App. 142 . We think the evidence here met this test; we cannot say that there was no relevant evidence before the jury which could have sustained the conviction.

The jury was not obligated to believe the denials of the appellant. Johnson v. State, 2 Md. App. 486; Logan v. State, 1 Md. App. 213 . II During the direct examination of Miller Carroll the State asked what happened when he saw the prosecuting witness in front of the Sheriff’s office. Carroll said, “I talked to her and she