WASHINGTON v. STATE, 233 Md. 276 (1964)

196 A.2d 446

WASHINGTON v. STATE

[No. 174, September Term, 1963.]Court of Appeals of Maryland.
Decided January 8, 1964.

CRIMINAL LAW — Robbery — By Snatching Victim’s Purse On Street — Non-Jury Case — Evidence Held Sufficient To Permit Lower Court, As Trier Of Fact, To Have Been Convinced Beyond Reasonable Doubt Of Defendant’s Guilt — Identification By Victim — Defendant, On Stand, Did Not Deny (But, In Effect,

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Confessed) Snatching, And He Had Led Police To Lot Where Various Items From Purse Were Recovered. pp. 277-278

J.E.B.

Decided January 8, 1964.

Appeal from the Criminal Court of Baltimore (CULLEN, J.).

James Leroy Washington was convicted of robbery, by the trial court, sitting without a jury, and from the judgment entered thereon, he appeals.

Affirmed.

The cause was submitted to HENDERSON, HAMMOND, PRESCOTT, MARBURY and SYBERT, JJ.

Submitted on brief by W. Emerson Brown, Jr., for the appellant.

Submitted on brief by Thomas B. Finan, Attorney General, R. Randolph Victor, Assistant Attorney General, William J. O’Donnell, State’s Attorney for Baltimore City, and George J. Helinski, Assistant State’s Attorney, for the appellee.

PER CURIAM.

Appellant, claiming insufficiency of the evidence, seeks reversal of his conviction and sentence for robbery of a plastic pocketbook torn from the owner’s hand as she walked along the street in Baltimore.

The testimony of the victim was that the appellant snatched her purse and that she recognized his face and his clothes — he had turned toward her as he pulled the purse away — and that she identified him after his apprehension soon after the robbery. The appellant, on the stand, did not deny (in effect, confessed) the snatching. After he was taken into custody as a result of the description the victim gave the police, the appellant led the police to a lot where various items, which unquestionably had been in the victim’s purse, including her income tax returns and envelopes addressed to her, were recovered. There can be no

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question that the evidence was sufficient to permit the trier of fact, the court sitting without a jury, to have been convinced beyond reasonable doubt of the guilt of he defendant.

Judgment affirmed.

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