Streat v. State

Morton, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The appellant, Purnell Fox Streat, was convicted of murder in the first degree and robbery with a deadly weapon by a jury in the Criminal Court of Baltimore. As the verdict of the jury with respect to the murder charge was returned with the qualification “without capital punishment”, appellant was sentenced to life imprisonment for that crime. A concurrent sentence of twenty years imprisonment was imposed by the court on the armed robbery conviction.

The record indicates that at approximately 11:15 a.m. on June 17, 1969, Basil Silsley was found lying wounded on the floor of his jewelry store in the 2000 block of North Charles Street. The victim died a few hours later from what the medical examiner’s report described as a “gunshot wound of the head which perforated the brain.” According to the victim’s brother, “it appeared that about two trays of rings were missing, and on one end of the shelf maybe two boxes of watches were missing.” In this appeal appellant raises the following contentions : (I) “The trial judge should have granted the motion to suppress evidence taken in the search of the dwelling 306 East 26th Street without a warrant.” (II) “A conviction may not rest upon testimony of an accomplice unless corroborated by other evidence.” (III) “That the testimony of Melvin Rawls was contradictory and not subject to belief.” (IV) “That the testimony was insufficient to justify a conviction of robbery and murder.” ⁵⁴⁶ As contentions II through IV all question the legal sufficiency of the evidence to sustain appellant’s convictions, these contentions will be discussed together. I. The record indicates that on July 3, 1969, appellant was arrested as an escapee from the Maryland House of Correction. The next day the police searched the premises at 306 East 26th Street and found a small jeweler’s merchandise tag in a shopping bag, which appellant had brought onto the premises a few days before.

It is this tag and shopping bag which were the subject of appellant’s motion to suppress. At the hearing on the motion to suppress, which was held on the day of trial out of the hearing of the jury, Miss Jo-Ann Ross testified that she and her mother rented the house at 306 East 26th Street and that on July 4, 1969, both of them signed consent to search forms and accompanied the police in a search of the house. According to the witness, she was the appellant’s girl friend and he often spent the night in the house. Approximately three days prior to appellant’s arrest, however, he asked Miss Ross if he could move into the house until he could get “a place of his own.” After permission was obtained from Miss Ross’s mother, the appellant moved in, bringing with him the seized shopping bag full of clothes.

Miss Ross related the details of the discovery of the tag in the shopping bag, which was in the cellar of the house, and stated that the bag was empty, except for the tag, when the police found it because she had taken the clothes to the cleaners. At the completion of Miss Ross’s testimony, the State and counsel for appellant stipulated that if called to testify on the issue of the search of 306 East 26th Street, Miss Ross’s mother, Mollie Ross, would testify to substantially the same facts as her daughter. In this factual posture, the trial judge found that the tag and shopping bag were properly admissible because they were discovered after consent to search the house ⁵⁴⁷ was obtained from Mollie Ross and her daughter, Jo-Ann. We agree. Assuming, without deciding, that appellant was a co-tenant and not merely a guest in the Ross home, this status, of itself, does not make impermissible the warrantless search of the premises.

This Court has held that the consent of one co-tenant may validate a warrantless search of jointly occupied premises. Evidence obtained by such search may be introduced against the other co-tenant who was not present on the premises at the time of the search and whose permission to conduct the search had not