Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

227 Md. 172

175 A.2d 579

Rakes v. State

Court of Appeals of Maryland

Decided December 7, 1961

Court of Appeals of Maryland · decided 1961-12-07

Relies on Booker v. State · Booth v. State

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1961-12-07

How this case has been cited

Cited by 7 later decisions — most recently April 1995

7 state decisions

301961197019801990decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

Per Curiam.

¶1 The two defendants, brothers, Larry K. Rakes and Lester R. Rakes, were charged with assault upon Trooper Fields of the Maryland State Police. They were tried in the Circuit Court for Cecil County before Judges Rollins and Rasin, sitting without a jury, were found guilty and were each sentenced to five years’ imprisonment. They appeal.

¶2 The appellants’ only contention is that the evidence was insufficient to warrant their convictions. The victim of the assault was an off-duty State trooper who went to investigate an apparent robbery of a food store opposite his home at 1:30 o’clock one morning. He was severely beaten and seriously injured by two or more of a group of five young men of which the appellants were members. He testified, among other things, that he knew both of these defendants, that he was badly injured in the affray, that although he was not certain who had delivered some of the blows and kicks which he received, each of the appellants had struck him. The appellants denied it, but their testimony and that of two of their companions (the third was not present at the trial, having apparently escaped) was, to say the best of it, very vague.

¶3 The trial judges found that the State had met the burden of proving its case against the defendants beyond a reasonable doubt. The credibility of the witnesses was for the trial court and the positive testimony of one eye-witness, the victim, if believed (as it evidently was), was ample to sustain the convictions. Booth v. State, 225 Md. 71, 169 A. 2d 388; Booker v. State, 225 Md. 183, 170 A. 2d 203.

¶4 Judgments affirmed.

/227/md/172 · .json · Public domain