Snyder v. State

Hammond, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. Snyder, the appellant, was convicted of breaking and entering a chain store with the intent to steal goods of a value of over $100 by Judge Foster, sitting without a jury. He challenges the sufficiency of the evidence as to his identity, as to a breaking, and as to intent, and contends it was error to have permitted a witness to “compare” a jacket the appellant was wearing when he was arrested a few minutes after he fled the store with that worn by a man going through an alley away from the store shortly before the arrest, for the reason, says appellant, in Maryland “[ejvidence of identity is admissible; evidence of resemblance is not admissible. Kasten v. Kasten, 159 Md. 329 ; Ginsberg, The Law of Evidence in Maryland, page 138.” There is no substance to any of the appellant’s contentions.

The testimony showed that entry to the store had been gained by opening a grill guarding a large exhaust fan and bending the blades and that at closing time the fan and grill had been in normal condition. A driver delivering bread to the store shortly after midnight heard suspicious noises, looked through a door and saw a light-skinned man peeping out of the manager’s office. The man was wearing a light brown jacket and, when he realized he had been seen, ran out of the rear of the store and up an alley. The driver chased the man but stopped when the fugitive threatened to shoot him.

At this point, a Mrs. Kritchfield, alerted by the barking of ⁵⁴⁹ her dog, looked out the window of a darkened room and observed a man running up the alley behind her house, which was quite near the store. She saw that the man was wearing a light brown jacket, which fitted tightly in the back. Soon after-wards the police arrested Snyder in front of the Kritchfield home and about two blocks from the store. Mrs. Kritchfield went out and told the police the man they had was wearing a jacket like that she saw on the man running up the alley.

A Volkswagon truck, which Snyder’s employer permitted him to use regularly, was found after the crime next to the parking lot of the store with the key in the ignition. A report by the F. B. I. said that soil and paint specimens from the point of entry “are similar in color, texture and type” to those scraped from appellant’s clothing (including a “tan suede jacket”) and “could have come from the same source.” Snyder’s explanation of his presence near the store in the early morning hours was that