State v. Price

Per Curiam. On November 4, 1966, Alonzo Clay Price was convicted of robbery with a deadly weapon after a court trial (Prendergast, J. presiding) in the Criminal Court of Baltimore. He was sentenced to not more than ten (10) years in the Maryland Correctional Institution. Following denial of his motion for a new trial, he filed an appeal to the Court of Special Appeals of Maryland.

The sole question raised on appeal was sufficiency of the evidence to sustain the conviction. Specifically he complained as to the sufficiency of his identification as one of the participants in the robbery. On November 27, 1967, the Court of Special Appeals, in a per curiam opinion, affirmed his conviction. Price v. State, No. 47 September Term, 1967 (unpublished).

He filed a petition under the Uniform Post Conviction Procedure Act on March 13, 1968, in which he raised the following contentions: 1. The eye-witness identification was invalid and improper. 2. The defendant was never placed in a lineup. 3. The defendant was not identified by the victim until the time of the second trial. 1 4.

The statement which was used at the first trial was not used at the second trial. 5. The defendant was never shown a warrant. A hearing was held on June 25, 1968 before Judge Harry A. Cole in the Criminal Court of Baltimore at the conclusion of which the court, in a written opinion filed December 30, 1968, ordered that Price be granted a new trial. In granting Price a new trial the lower court considered only Price’s third contention, namely, that he was not identified by the victim until the time of his second trial.

Judge Cole in his opinion stated that he had reviewed the transcript of the testimony of Mr. Irvin Mc ²¹² Farland, the prosecuting witness, given at Price’s first trial, and found, as a fact, that nowhere did the prosecuting witness identify Price as his assailant. He therefore ordered a new trial, citing United States v. Wade, 388 U. S. 218 as his authority. The State filed its application for leave to appeal on January 22, 1969. In its application for leave to appeal the State raised three contentions: A. “That the lower Court made an erroneous conclusion of facts based on its failure to review the entire record of the first trial in which the Petitioner was obviously convicted on the testimony of an independent witness (James Bean) other than the victim (Irvin McFarland).

B. “That the lower Court improperly substituted its judgment as to the weight of the evidence for that of the trial Court in the second trial. C. “If, under the circumstances of this case, there exists a taint