Opinion ID: 1981497
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: The Attempted Murder Indictment

Text: Officer Darryl Kane of the Baltimore City Police Department, assigned to the Southern District drug enforcement unit, testified that on 6 November 1986, about 8:30 p.m., he was on routine patrol in uniform. He was aware of the warrant outstanding for the arrest of Edison for the murder of Ellis. He saw Edison, known to him from [the officer's assignment in] Cherry Hill. Edison was standing on the corner with his hand in the front of his pants  his dip. Egerton got out of his patrol car and called: Joe, come here. He did not display his revolver. Edison took off running. Egerton informed the dispatcher through the car radio that he was into a foot pursuit and the direction [he] was running. Edison turned around during the course of his flight and extended his left arm as if he was gripping something. The officer could just [see] a dark object in [Edison's] hand, because of street lights in the area, most of them were out. Officer Dale Fields, of the Southern District, responding to the radio call for back-up, arrived on the scene and Edison was apprehended. He was patted down and nothing was found. So Egerton retraced the course of the flight to try to find the object that Edison had pointed at him which he believed to be a gun. While he was searching for the object, Fields informed him by radio that a more thorough search of Edison's person had disclosed a gun. When Officer Fields arrived on the scene, he saw Edison running with Kane chasing him on foot. Edison was apprehended near Russell Street and the Westport ramp. Fields cuffed Edison's hands behind his back and patted him down above the waist for the officer's safety. Kane had told Fields that Edison had a gun. Fields walked Edison out to the ramp and conducted a thorough search. A gun was found in Edison's pants leg. It was lodged in the pants leg, down at the ankle, on the inside of the leg. It was wedged in there.... It was in a position where it did not fall out. It was not loose. We had to go up into the pant leg to retrieve the gun. There were 6 rounds of ammunition in the cylinder. One had a dented primer. The weapon in Edison's possession was examined by Kopera, the ballistics expert. It was a .38 caliber revolver. [2] The gun was registered to a Henry Paul Taylor on 22 May 1971 but its whereabouts could not be traced from there until it was recovered from Edison. Kopera test fired it. The revolver was found to be operable and capable of being fired. The six cartridges in the gun were .38 caliber specials. On one of them there was a light firing pin impression, which was on the back of the primer ... a component part of the cartridge. Those impressions were microscopically examined and found to be not deep enough or too light for comparison purposes meaning that that striking pin did not strike hard enough for the cartridge to go off, yet left a small dimple in it to show an attempt to fire that at one time. The cartridge was examined by the jury. The revolver could be fired single action (the hammer pulled back by pressure on the hammer itself) or double action (the hammer pulled back by pressure on the trigger). The gun worked properly in the single and double action mode. It did not misfire upon testing it. The other five cartridges were different from the misfired cartridge. The spent bullets recovered in Ellis's head were not fired from this gun  the land and groove markings made as the bullet went through the barrel were not the same. It was not established that Edison actually knew that there was a warrant for his arrest for the murder of Ellis at the time of his flight from Kane. In Egerton's attempt to locate Edison, he took the warrant to Edison's residence in Cherry Hill. Edison was not there and Egerton was not sure that he told Edison's mother the charge of the warrant. But she knew that it was an arrest warrant because he showed her the face of the document. He gave the mother his card and asked her to locate her son and have him contact me or if she could bring him in or if she could have him come in with an attorney. I gave her some options. But the main thing was that he had to turn himself in. Edison phoned Egerton that evening. Egerton told him there was a warrant for his arrest and that he could come down to the office and I would explain to him what it was all about and we could take care of things there. Edison said he would come in. Edison did not show up. Egerton next saw Edison after Kane apprehended him on 6 November 1986. It seems, however, that on 23 October 1986, about two weeks before the incident involving Kane, Edison had been stopped by the police and found to have a bottle of pills in his possession. He was not arrested but permitted to go his way pending chemical analysis of the pills. When they proved to be contraband, a warrant was issued for the arrest of Edison. All of this was stated by defense counsel at the hearing on the motion for severance, as we have seen, part I B, supra. Defense counsel argued, at the time, that even if Edison did not actually know that a warrant had been issued, he could reasonably anticipate that there would be a warrant forthcoming. During the discussion of the matter, defense counsel mistakenly indicated that Edison had been arrested when the pills were found. Edison denied that he had been arrested and released on bail. He interjected: never locked me up. They was looking for me. So it appeared that he knew that he was wanted on a narcotics charge. But there was no evidence proffered during the guilt stage of the trial with respect to the incident or the issuance of a warrant.