Opinion ID: 2274864
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: sufficiency of the evidence

Text: Calhoun contends that Maryland Code (1957, 1982 Repl. Vol.) Art. 27, § 413 (e) (1) provides that one may not be punished by death absent proof that he was a principal in the first degree to first degree murder. He also says, correctly, that under State v. Ward, 284 Md. 189, 197, 396 A.2d 1041 (1978), a first degree principal is one who actually commits a crime. Then he cites Bedford v. State, 293 Md. 172, 443 A.2d 78 (1982), and asserts that in order to justify the sentence of death, the State was bound to adduce evidence sufficient to permit a rational trier of facts to find beyond a reasonable doubt that [Calhoun] fired the shots which killed Officer Metz. We pointed out in Bedford: Applying [the] standard under Jackson [v. Virginia], 443 U.S. 307, [99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979)], Chief Judge Murphy said for the Court in State v. Rusk, 289 Md. 230, 240, 424 A.2d 720 (1981), The applicable standard is whether, after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. 443 U.S. at 319 (emphasis in original). Accord, Tichnell v. State, 287 Md. 695, 717, 415 A.2d 830 (1980). 293 Md. at 175-76 (footnote omitted). [4] On the burden of proof see also Veney v. State, 251 Md. 182, 201, 246 A.2d 568 (1968), cert. denied, 394 U.S. 948 (1969), a capital case, where we referred to Pressley v. State, 244 Md. 664, 667, 224 A.2d 866 (1966), as to the sufficiency of evidence, and Ramsey v. State, 239 Md. 561, 566-67, 212 A.2d 319 (1965), as to our function as an appellate court as to sufficiency of the evidence. We have already recited the evidence. Cummins described how Metz was pulled into the doorway. When less than a minute later Cummins was dragged into the office he observed Metz lying on the floor and bleeding from the head. Calhoun was alone in the room with Cummins and Metz' body at that time. Calhoun's contention relative to insufficiency is the existence of a door in the office that led to the outside. He claims that a third person might have fired the shots and then escaped from the room in question by that door. Yet Calhoun and the man who shot Cummins saw fit to escape through the roof. A rational trier of fact certainly could find that Calhoun was the only one present who could have killed Metz and that, if the robbers were aware of a quick method of escape through the door, Calhoun and his cohort would not have seen fit to go through a hole in the roof. We hold that there was sufficient evidence to conclude that Calhoun was a principal in the first degree.