Smith v. State

¹²⁹ Per Curiam. Appellant was convicted of grand larceny and carrying a concealed weapon on September 18, 1967 in the Criminal Court of Baltimore, Judge Anselm Sodaro presiding without a jury. He was sentenced to a term of six years for the larceny and to a term of two years for carrying a concealed weapon, to run concurrently with the six-year sentence. On this appeal, appellant contends (a) that the evidence was insufficient to convict him on the larceny charge, and (b) that he was unlawfully arrested on the concealed weapon charge and that evidence taken from him as a result thereof was improperly admitted in evidence at the trial, and (c) that the evidence was insufficient to support his conviction for carrying a concealed weapon.

It was established at the trial that appellant went to the home of Wallace Westcott in Baltimore City on the evening of October 8, 1965; that appellant was there looking for work and Westcott put him up for the night because he had no place to stay; that Westcott agreed to take appellant to a friend’s house the next morning and also agreed that appellant should return to his home for work the following Monday; that Westcott retired at approximately 1:00 a.m., after checking that everything in the house was locked up for the night. Upon arising at 5 :00 a.m., Westcott discovered that appellant was gone and that approximately $33.00 had been taken from his pants pocket; that a camera and electric razor had also been taken. There was evidence showing that Westcott checked to see if the doors and windows were still locked and discovered that there was no forced entry. The appellant did not return to Westcott’s house as he had promised.

On these facts, we hold that the evidence was sufficient to establish appellant’s guilt on the grand larceny charge and that the finding of the trial court was not clearly erroneous. Maryland Rule 1086. We find no legally sufficient evidence, however, to support the conviction of carrying a concealed weapon. As to that charge, the record shows that appellant was sitting at the counter drinking a coke in a drugstore in Baltimore City on May 8, 1966 when a police officer, responding to a call that a man was in ¹³⁰ the drugstore “armed with a straight razor,” entered the store and arrested him.

The arresting officer testified that upon entering the store, he observed that appellant “had the top of a straight razor protruding out” from his left side coat pocket of a sport coat. The