Wilson v. State

Morton, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The Appellant, Woodrow Wilson, was convicted of robbery with a deadly weapon by Judge George L. Russell, Jr., sitting without a jury, in the Criminal Court of Baltimore on August 10, 1966. After his motion for a new trial had been denied, he was sentenced to fifteen years in the Maryland Penitentiary. His previous conviction for the same offense had been set aside on the basis of Schowgurow.

At approximately 11:15 a.m., on December 4, 1964, according to the record, four men entered a cafe; two had drawn pistols and the third wielded a shotgun with a star on the stock. The owner and patrons were forced to lie on the floor while the armed men proceeded to rob the establishment of some $3,400. The owner of the cafe was unable to identify Wilson as one of the robbers. The owner’s brother, who was an employee, testified that, as he arrived at the establishment to begin his day’s work, he saw a man jump out of a 1955 or 1956 green and white Chevrolet and run into the cafe, but he could not say it was Wilson.

He did, however, identify a picture of Wilson’s car as the green and white Chevrolet he had observed at the scene. A police officer testified that as he and another officer were responding to the reported “holdup” in a cruise car, he observed a green and white Chevrolet occupied by five men proceeding at a rapid speed in the opposite direction which fitted the description given in the robbery report. The officers made a U-turn and gave chase but lost sight of the car after it had gone through a red light. After cruising the area for a few minutes, they discovered the car on a vacant lot, unoccupied.

They looked in and saw a shotgun with a star on the stock lying on the rear floor. One of the police officers radioed Headquarters to detain for investigation anyone who reported this car as stolen. Within five or six minutes the police received ²¹³ a report from Wilson that his car had been stolen and within an hour Wilson, who was identified by the officer as the driver of the car, was arrested, questioned and then released. Approximately six weeks later, Wilson was apprehended again on the basis of an arrest warrant.

In this appeal he contends that his conviction rests on the uncorroborated testimony of an accomplice, who was convicted as a participant in the same holdup. However, he had not been sentenced at the time he testified at Wilson’s trial to the effect that Wilson owned and drove the holdup car and was one of the principal participants. It is, of course, elementary that an accused may not be convicted of a crime upon the uncorroborated testimony of an accomplice. Watson v. State, 208 Md. 210 ; Basoff v. State, 208 Md. 643 .

However, as was said by the Court of Appeals of Maryland in Boggs v. State, 228 Md. 168, 171 , “it is well settled that not much in the way of corroboration of the testimony of an accomplice is required. It is not necessary that the corroborating testimony be, of itself, sufficient to convict the accused but only that it support some of the material points of the accomplice’s testimony.” See also McKenzie v. State, 236 Md. 597 ; Booth v. State, 229 Md. 528 ; Jefferson v. State, 228 Md. 331 . The lower court found, and we agree, that there was ample corroboration. The brother of the holdup victim saw a green and white Chevrolet at the scene, which was later identified as belonging to Wilson; the police pursued Wilson’s car from the scene and found therein a shotgun with a star on the stock, which the robbery victim testified had been used in the holdup.

The police officer at the trial positively identified Wilson as the driver of the getaway car which he pursued. There was sufficient corroboration of the accomplice’s testimony to sustain the conviction. The trial judge was not required to believe Wilson’s alibi that while getting a haircut between 11:00 and 11:30 a.m. on the day of the crime his car was stolen, or the testimony of his alibi witness that Wilson spent fifteen or twenty minutes with her shortly after noon on the same day. Holtz v. State, 1 Md. App. 358 ; Chittum v. State, 1 Md. App. 205, 209 ; Logan v. State, 1 Md. App. 213, 216 . ²¹⁴ The Appellant also contends that his motion to suppress the evidence should have been granted.

He argues that his first arrest was illegal since he was released immediately thereafter and, accordingly, the articles taken from his car were illegally seized without a search warrant and therefore inadmissible at his trial. The first arrest was not illegal since the arresting officer had probable cause, as a result of the reported robbery, to believe that a felony had been committed, and ample probable cause to believe that Wilson had committed the felony since the officer pursued