Opinion ID: 2201861
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Maryland License

Text: Benbow's Maryland driving record shows that he enjoyed a valid Maryland operator's license at the time of his arrest. Thus, the information that Benbow alleged he heard the dispatcher impart to the trooper was, in fact, correct. At the hearing, the trooper made no mention of any information he had received concerning the status of Benbow's Maryland driving privilege nor was he asked about it. If the State had wished to rebut Benbow's assertion that the trooper had been told that Benbow had a valid Maryland license, it could have recalled the trooper to the stand to say, if he could, that the dispatcher did not inform him that Benbow had a valid Maryland license or that, if the dispatcher did say it, the trooper did not hear it. In that event, the judge need not have believed Benbow, but, as the record stands here, Benbow's testimony was totally unrebutted and unrefuted. Benbow's version was not inconsistent with what the trooper said and was consistent with the Motor Vehicle Administration's record received in evidence. The judge neither expressly nor impliedly rejected Benbow's testimony on the matter; the judge simply did not address it. On this state of the record, we believe that we must treat Benbow's version as being accepted, that is, that the trooper had been informed before the arrest that Benbow was the holder of a valid Maryland license. As we read the arguments of the prosecutor, the State proceeded on the basis that Benbow's version was true.