Williams v. State

Per Curiam. Appellant was convicted of murder in the first degree and robbery with a deadly weapon by a jury in the Criminal Court of Baltimore and sentenced to life imprisonment on the murder charge and twenty years concurrent for the robbery offense. He contends on this appeal (a) that the trial judge erred in permitting the State’s Attorney to impeach a defense witness by proof of prior contradictory statements without requiring that a proper foundation be laid, (b) that prejudicial error was committed when the State’s Attorney, in his closing argument to the jury, commented on. the absence of a defense witness, and (c) that the trial judge should have granted appellant’s motion for judgment of acquittal and his motion for judgment N.O.V. The evidence adduced at the trial showed that at approximately 12:45 a.m. on October 31, 1964, Leonard Lipsitz, owner and operator of a tavern in Baltimore City, was shot and killed during a holdup. Appellant was identified by two eyewitnesses as the person who shot the deceased.

Two other State witnesses testified to appellant’s presence in the tavern earlier on the ⁵⁶⁰ night of the crime. Appellant presented witnesses in his behalf whose testimony indicated that he was not in the tavern on the night of the crime, and that he was engaged in a card game with friends at the time the holdup and homicide occurred. At the conclusion of all the testimony, including the State’s rebuttal testimony, the appellant was permitted to call William Price as a witness in his behalf. Price testified that he was in the tavern approximately four to five hours prior to the holdup, but did not, at that time, see the appellant or the other State witnesses who testified to appellant’s presence in the tavern on the night of the crime.

After Price concluded his testimony, the State called in rebuttal a police officer who testified that shortly before the date of the trial, he spoke with Price who told him that he did not remember whether he was in the tavern on the night of the crime. While appellant’s contention that the State failed to lay a proper foundation for the impeachment of Price by his prior contradictory statement is well made, Sanders v. State, 1 Md. App. 630 , we do not think that such failure so prejudiced the appellant as to constitute reversible error, since Price’s testimony was itself of virtually no probative value and the State’s impeachment of it therefore did no substantial harm to appellant’s case. Nor do we find merit in appellant’s contention that reversible error was committed by the State’s Attorney when, in closing argument, he commented to the jury relative to the absence of a missing