Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

231 Md. 239

189 A.2d 652

Lotharp v. State

Court of Appeals of Maryland

Decided April 3, 1963

Court of Appeals of Maryland · decided 1963-04-03

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

““Since no motion for judgment of acquittal was made at any stage of the trial there can be no review of the sufficiency of the evidence on appeal. Under the provisions of § 5 of Art. XV of the Constitution of this State, Code (1957), Art. 27, § 593, and Maryland Rule 755, an appellate review of the sufficiency of the evidence in a criminal case tried by a jury is predicated on the refusal of the trial court to grant a motion for judgment of acquittal. Humphreys v. State, 227 Md. 115 , 175 A.2d 777 ; Ledbetter v. State, 224 Md. 271 , 167 A.2d 596 . See also Stevens v. State, 230 Md. 47 , 185 A.2d 194 . The judgment must therefore be affirmed.””

quoted by 2 later decisions, including 131 Md. App. 1 - Williams v. State, Ennis v. State

Relies on Ledbetter v. State · Humphreys v. State · Stevens v. State

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1963-04-03

How this case has been cited

Cited by 20 later decisions — most recently October 2020

20 state decisions

401963197019801990200020102020decided

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 appellant, convicted of a homicide by a jury at a trial in which he was represented by counsel of his own choosing, contends on appeal that the failure of counsel to move for a judgment of acquittal should not preclude him from having this Court review the sufficiency of the evidence to convict him of murder in the second degree.

¶2 Since no motion for judgment of acquittal was made at any stage of the trial there can be no review of the sufficiency of the evidence on appeal. Under the provisions of § 5 of Art. XV of the Constitution of this State, Code (1957), Art. 27, § 593, and Maryland Rule 755, an appellate review of the sufficiency of the evidence in a criminal case tried by a jury is predicated on the refusal of the trial court to grant a motion for judgment of acquittal. Humphreys v. State, 227 Md. 115; Ledbetter v. State, 224 Md. 271. See also Stevens v. State, 230 Md. 47. The judgment must therefore be affirmed.

¶3 We may add that an examination of the record indicates that had the motion for judgment of acquittal been made pursuant to the rule, the result would be the same.

¶4 Judgment affirmed.

/231/md/239 · .json · Public domain