Capparella v. Boslow

308 F. Supp. 209, 1970 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13090
CourtDistrict Court, D. Maryland
DecidedJanuary 23, 1970
DocketCiv. A. No. 17135
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 308 F. Supp. 209 (Capparella v. Boslow) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Maryland primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Capparella v. Boslow, 308 F. Supp. 209, 1970 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13090 (D. Md. 1970).

Opinion

WATKINS, District Judge.

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

Petitioner, presently incarcerated at Patuxent Institution, sought the issuance of a writ of habeas corpus. From the petition, and independent investigation, it was shown that petitioner, represented by court appointed counsel, pleaded not guilty to Indictment No. 2901/1962 and Indictment No. 4612/1962 charging him in various counts with robbery, assault with intent to rob, assault, petit larceny, burglary and grand larceny. After a trial before Judge J. Harold Grady, sitting without a jury in the Criminal Court of Baltimore, petitioner was found guilty on April 19, 1963 of four counts of Indictment No. 4612/1962 and of two counts of Indictment No. 2901/1962. He was sentenced to a ten year prison term for Indictment No. 4612/1962 and a five year term for Indictment No. 2901/1962 — the sentences to run consecutively. On appeal to the Maryland Court of Appeals, the judgment under Indictment No. 2901/1962 was reversed and the judgment under Indictment No. 4612/1962 was affirmed (Capparella v. State, 1964, 235 Md. 204, 201 A.2d 362).

[210]*210At the time of' petitioner's original conviction, Judge Grady committed him to Patuxent Institution for study and evaluation under the Maryland defective delinquent statute (Article 31B of the Annotated Code of Maryland). On September 14, 1964 he was found to be a defective delinquent by Chief Judge Michael J. Manley. Petitioner’s application for leave to appeal from this determination was denied by the Maryland Court of Appeals (Capparella v. Director, Patuxent Institution, 1965, 239 Md. 713, 212 A.2d 500).

Petitioner, on March 5, 1965, filed a petition for the issuance of a writ of habeas corpus in the Baltimore City Court alleging that his original conviction under Indictment No. 4612/1962 had been improperly obtained. In a Memorandum, filed April 14, 1965,' Judge James K. Cullen denied petitioner’s application. Petitioner then filed a petition for a hearing under the Maryland Post Conviction Act (Article 27, section 645A et seq. of the Annotated Code of Maryland) contesting his original conviction under Indictment No. 4612/1962. Counsel was appointed to represent petitioner and after an evidentiary hearing, relief was denied by Judge Charles D. Harris in a Memorandum filed November 15, 1965. Apparently, petitioner did not apply for leave to appeal to the Maryland Court of Appeals from his adverse decision.

In this court, petitioner presented five allegations in support of his application for the issuance of a writ of habeas corpus. They are:

“I Their [sic] was an illegal search and seizure.
II The Police had no probable cause for the search and seizure.
III Petitioner was detained without being able to have the aid of counsel.
IV The Police did not identify themselves when they illegally arrested him on the street.
V Petitioner was denied ‘due process of law.’ ”

Petitioner’s second and fourth allegations are mere paraphrasings of his first contention. He maintains that he was a victim of an illegal arrest and a subsequent illegal search and seizure. Judge Grady, at the original trial, agreed with petitioner and ruled that the arrest was illegal and excluded from evidence a toy gun seized from petitioner at the time of the arrest. The Maryland Court of Appeals, likewise, held that the arrest was illegal and that the exclusion of the toy gun was proper. (Capparella v. State, 1964, 235 Md. 204, 207-208, 201 A.2d 362), Petitioner, however, further contends that since his arrest and detention were, in fact, illegal, any evidence obtained by the police authorities during the unlawful detention should have been excluded at the trial. Petitioner specifically alleges that following his illegal arrest he was placed in a police line-up and subsequently identified as the perpetrator of the crime for which he was later convicted. Petitioner urges that the identification in the line-up was a “fruit” of the illegal arrest and any testimony relating to such identification should have been excluded at his trial. Petitioner presented this argument to the Maryland Court of Appeals on his appeal from the original conviction. The Court of Appeals held that under the Maryland Rules of Procedure, if no objection was made at the trial, petitioner could not object for the first time on appeal. (Capparella v. State, 1964, 235 Md. 204, 209, 201 A.2d 362). Petitioner, before the Court of Appeals, further argued that his fingerprints [actually palm prints] obtained by the police after the illegal arrest, which fingerprints were found to be identical with fingerprints on the victim’s car, were also a “fruit” of the illegal arrest and should not have been introduced into evidence. The Court of Appeals held, as on the issue of the line-up identification, that the point could not be raised for the first time on appeal. (Capparella v. State, 1964, 235 Md. 204, 209, 201 A.2d 362). The Court of Appeals further noted that “[I]t is not clear from the record wheth[211]*211er the fingerprint identification was made from the fingerprints of the appellant taken after the arrest in question, or by a comparison with fingerprints available to the police from one of the appellant’s earlier arrests.” (Capparella v. State, 1964, 235 Md. 204, 207, 208, 201 A.2d 362, 364). When petitioner raised these same two issues, in his collateral attacks on his detention by way of a petition for a writ of habeas corpus and for post conviction relief, both Judge Cullen and Judge Harris felt that petitioner’s allegations pertaining to the “fruits” of the illegal arrest should not be reconsidered as they had been previously passed on by the Maryland Court of Appeals.

The undersigned considered, however, that the Court of Appeals of Maryland had not ruled on the merits of these two contentions of petitioner. First, that Court did not decide whether testimony referring to the identification of the petitioner at a line-up following an illegal arrest would be inadmissible as fruit of the illegal arrest. There are cases excluding testimony of a witness about an earlier line-up identification but permitting identification of the defendant by the witness from the stand in open court (Gatlin v. United States, 1963, 117 U.S.App.D.C. 123, 326 F.2d 666; Payne v. United States, 1961, 111 U.S.App.D.C. 94, 294 F.2d 723). Secondly, the Court of Appeals of Maryland did not decide whether fingerprints of the accused taken after an illegal arrest would be inadmissible as fruit of an illegal arrest. There are cases holding such fingerprints inadmissible (Bynum v. United States, 1958, 104 U.S.App.D.C. 368, 262 F.2d 465

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308 F. Supp. 209, 1970 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13090, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/capparella-v-boslow-mdd-1970.