Thompson v. State

Orth, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. Robert Lee Thompson, the appellant, age — undisclosed in the record, home — Roaring River, North Carolina, single — “only family I got is the one that I was adopted to,” testified at his trial before the court in the Criminal Court of Baltimore that he had been first convicted of a crime in North Carolina in 1958 when he served two years for the offenses of breaking and entering, larceny and receiving. Thereafter he “got locked up for being drunk,” walked away from the work gang and they gave me two years for escape * * * I got locked up, again, for being drunk — the same thing happened * * * They gave ¹⁹³ me eighteen months for escape that time.” He served thirty-one months in Florida for automobile theft and his most recent arrest was in Delaware — “I was trying to get home, and they got me for soliciting a ride.” He served ten days. 1 On 14 July 1967 about 9:00 A.M. he was released from the prison in New Haven, Delaware. He was given a bus token to Wilmington and the address of the Prisoner’s Aid.

At the Prisoner’s Aid he was given $15 and he bought a bus ticket to Baltimore for $2.95. “Then I drank a little bit.” He boarded a bus at 6:55 P.M. He got sick on the bus and left it 10 miles outside of Baltimore. “I caught a ride, and that’s all I remember on that particular day.” About three months later while he was at Clifton T. Perkins State Hospital he recalled the events of the day of 14 July. 2 He remembered that he and another man, ¹⁹⁴ who had given him a ride, went into a store and bought a bag of potato chips. He then went back into the store to get cigarettes. The counter in the store had a “little partition” that separated one side of the counter from the other. As the storekeeper “got the cigarettes, I stepped to the end of that partition, and he grabbed me, and I said, ‘What’s wrong with you, you going crazy?’ ” And he says, “You ain’t robbing me.” Then the storekeeper pulled out a cap pistol. “Then I threw up my hands and I said, ‘Friend, if you are going to shoot me, you are going to shoot me in the back.’ Then I walked out of the place.” He denied that he had a knife or that he went in the store with any intention of robbing the storekeeper.

He claimed he had a couple of dollars when he went in the store but adriiitted that when he was arrested the police found no money on him. He was right handed “cause I got three fingers missing off my left hand.” His left hand contained only the thumb and index finger. 3 He said he asked a police officer the morning after his arrest how his right arm became scratched — “I had three places on there where it looked like somebody dug their fingernails in my arm” about four inches above the wristbone —and the police officer said “that guy grabbed my arm and scratched me that I tried to rob.” The appellant said that when he went into the store he “had on a shirt, a pair of pants and a pair of boots”; he did not have on a jacket or coat. Samuel Verstandig, who, the lower court noted for the record, spoke “with a heavy foreign accent”, operated a grocery ¹⁹⁵ store at 2146 Aiken Street at the corner of Bonaparte Avenue in Baltimore City. He had been robbed on three prior occasions —“One time a guy came in, put a gun to my head and he took my money last year, Thanksgiving.” On the afternoon of 14 July the appellant came into his store, took a bottle of soda from a dispensing machine and paid for it with 13 pennies.

He drank the soda and left. “He was to me looking like he was drunk or under the influence of a narcotic * * * He wasn’t moving straight. He was moving like drunk, or like under the influence of a narcotic. He was moving all over the store.” About 10 minutes later he came back at the same time another man came in — “I don’t know they came together.” Each bought a bag of potato chips, taking them from the display rack. Each paid for his purchase with 10 pennies.

The appellant asked Verstandig what time he closed the store. “I told him 1 closing nighttime, I didn’t know exactly the time — I didn’t tell him.” The appellant walked out but in another 5 or 10 minutes returned. “He walk in, he asked me for a pack of cigarettes, same way he wralk — turning, going, walking all around (indicating) * * * There was children around who I served. He ask for cigarettes, I saw him, and I, right away, I ask him what he want. He ask me for a pack of cigarettes — Pall Mall * * * I hand to him the cigarettes and he wTas coming behind the counter * * * the inside from the counter 4 * * * he go behind the counter * * * at the end, on the side from the counter * * * there was some papers he took out, some little papers * * * from the pants pocket (the witness did not know whether it was the right or left pants pocket) * * * He put down the papers, and I asked him, you please give me the money for the cigarettes. He told me to wait on the customers, and I told him I don’t wait on the customers, please give me the thirty-two cents.

Then, he, all of a sudden, pulled out a knife * * * from the pocket * * * the left part of the hip.” Verstandig did ¹⁹⁶ not remember which hand the appellant used. “Exactly I can’t —I saw the knife. I saw the knife — saw like that (it was the right wrist of the appellant that was scratched) — and I catch him with the hand * * * As soon as I saw the knife like that, I catch him right away. I got no choice — I catch him from the hand * * * his wrist, and I tried to wrestle with him five minutes, and I yelled to my wife, call the police, till I find out— till he give me out the knife. And I took my toy gun, and I say, I going to shoot you, pick up the hands.

He pick up the hands, and with the hands up, he walk out from the store. And this time came the police, and I go off after him with one hand the knife and one hand with my toy gun, and I go after him, and the police come over here and I point to him, and the police arrested him.” Verstandig said that during the struggle for the knife he did not say anything to the appellant but the appellant said, “I’m a sick man, let me go, I don’t want to rob you.” He said this when Verstandig “wrestled already — I wrestled the knife from him.” The knife was eight inches long and was admitted in evidence upon identification by Verstandig. When the police arrived the appellant was across the street, walking away from the store. Verstandig did not remember how the appellant was dressed — “I cannot say exactly he got a winter coat or he didn’t have any.” When the appellant came into the store “I saw he keep his hands like that (indicating), like he got a gun or something.” It was noted for the record that the witness indicated his left hand in the left pocket area of his pants.

Only two witnesses testified at the trial, Verstandig for the State and the appellant in his own behalf. The appellant was found guilty of attempted robbery with a deadly weapon and assault. He was sentenced to 15 years on each conviction, the sentence on the assault conviction to run concurrently with the sentence on the attempted robbery conviction. On appeal from the judgments the appellant contends that the evidence was not sufficient to sustain the convictions, urging that the “pulling” of the knife by the appellant did not show an intent to rob or assault Verstandig, that the testimony of Verstandig was “so vague, uncertain and enigmatical to be entitled to any probative force and that the evidence adduced ¹⁹⁷ by the State negated larcenous intent.” We do not agree that the testimony of the State’s witness was not entitled to