Sawyer v. Warden of the Maryland Penitentiary

⁶³⁰ Hammond, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. On April 2, 1962, Norfleet Sawyer, the applicant for leave to appeal, and an accomplice, Ricardo Cortez Espin, were convicted of robbery with a deadly weapon (having bludgeoned a cab driver with a hammer and made off with about twenty-five dollars) by Judge Manley, sitting without a jury in the Criminal Court of Baltimore, and each was sentenced to twenty years in thei Maryland Penitentiary. Sawyer and Espin appealed, questioning the sufficiency of the evidence, and we affirmed their convictions. Espin v. State, 230 Md. 298 .

Sawyer filed a petition under the Uniform Post Conviction Procedure Act in June 1963, alleging that (1) his arrest was illegal, (2) evidence illegally seized was introduced against him at trial, and (3) the indictment under which he was tried was defective in that it attributed ownership of the money stolen to the cab driver rather than to the company by which he was employed, and the money actually belonged to the company. In addition, at the hearing on Sawyer’s petition, conducted by Judge Grady, the applicant claimed that he was not adequately represented by counsel at trial. The defendants were indigents and one attorney was appointed by the court to represent them both. Sawyer claimed that a conflict of interest existed between himself and Espin because Espin confessed to the crime and he denied participation.

Following a hearing on October 3, 1963, the applicant’s petition was dismissed and he made application for leave to' appeal. Passing the fact that Sawyer at his original trial in 1962 did not object to the introduction of the evidence of which he now complains, the short and complete answer to Sawyer’s first