State Ex Rel. Beard v. Warden of Maryland House of Correction

PER CURIAM. This is an application for leave to appeal from an order refusing to grant a writ of habeas corpus. The record in this case makes no reference whatever to the case in which the applicant was indicted, tried, convicted and sentenced, but we must assume that he was indicted by a legally constituted grand jury for the illegal possession of narcotics, tried by a court of competent jurisdiction, convicted and sentenced, there being nothing in the record to the contrary. The only point attempted to be raised is that the police officers came to his room in a boarding house and, without a warrant for his arrest or a search warrant, illegally searched his room and found narcotics.

There is nothing in the record that states that the evidence discovered by the officers in their search was offered in evidence and admitted by the court over objection and an exception taken to the ruling. Wright v. Swenson, 191 Md. 762 , 62 A. 2d 573 . The illegal possession of narcotics is made unlawful by section 329 of Article 27, Code 1939, and penalty therefor is prescribed in section 352 of that Article. It is a misdemeanor and insofar as evidence resulting from an illegal search and seizure is concerned, section 5, Article 35, Code 1939 governs prosecutions for misdemeanors.

This section, however, is specifically made inapplicable to