Case Brief
Case Name, Citation, and Court:
Christopher C. OWENS, Jr. v. STATE of Maryland
93 Md. App. 162; 611 A.2d 1043; 1992 Md. App. LEXIS 230
Court of Special Appeals of Maryland
Key Facts:
      On March 17, 1991, Trooper Samuel Cottman, a police officer of the State, drove to the area of Sackertown Road in Crisfield in response to a complaint that had been called in about a suspicious car.
The police officer found the appellant sleeping in his car in a driveway with the motor running. He had an open can of beer between his legs and two empty cans in the car.
The police awoke the appellant who smelled a strong odor of alcohol and his license revealed an alcohol restriction. The appellant stumbled out of the car .His speech was unclear. But he declined to a blood test for alcohol.
Christopher Columbus Owens, Jr. was convicted of driving while intoxicated in the Circuit Court for Somerset County by Judge D. William Simpson, sitting without a jury.
  Christopher Columbus Owens, Jr. appealed. He argued that there was insufficient evidence to convict him because the State of Maryland failed to establish whether he was coming or going from the driveway.
Issue:
Did the appellant drove on the public highway before coming to rest on the private driveway
Holding:[angel1]
Yes, it’s more reasonable that the appellant had arrived at the driveway from somewhere else.
sort out the factsSummary of the Court’s Reasoning[angel2] :
  We[angel3]  have here a conviction based upon circumstantial evidence alone. The evidence was meager. But the language is, “[A] conviction upon circumstantial evidence alone is not to be sustained unless the circumstances are inconsistent with any reasonable hypothesis of innocence”.
    The appellant don’t deny the fact of drunkenness. The defense counsel try to establish that the vehicle was sitting on the private driveway. We agree that the appellant was not convicted of drunken driving on the private driveway, but of drunken driving on the public highway before coming to rest on the private driveway. It’s a classic case of circumstantial evidence.
  It can reasonably be inferred that such individual either had just arrived by way of the publ
ic highway or was just about to set forth upon the public highway. It’s lack of evidence of any third reasonable explanation, such as the presence beside him of an inamorata or of a baseball game blaring forth on the car radio.
  For the state to prevail there has to be some other factor to enhance the likelihood of the first inference and to diminish the likelihood of the second. We must look for a tiebreaker.
  As Trooper Cottman woke the appellant, he asked him what he was doing there. The appellant responded that he had just driven the occupant of the residence home. The appellant’s objection to the answer was sustained.
  In trying to resolve whether the appellant had just been driving or was just about to drive, it would have been helpful to know whether the driveway in which he was found was that of his own residence or that of some other residence. If he were parked in someone else’s driveway with the motor still running, it would be more likely that he had just driven there a short time before. If parked in his driveway at home, the relative strength of the inbound inference over the outbound would diminish.
    The driveway where the arrest took place was on Sackertown Road. The charging document listed the appellant’s address as 112 Cove Second Street. Since one of the charges against the appellant was that of driving in violation of an alcohol restriction on his license, it would have been routine procedure to have offered the license, showing the restriction. Because of the summary nature of the trail, the license was never offered in evidence.
l Three beer cans were in evidence. The circumstance would give rise to a reasonable inference that the appellant’s drinking spree was on the downslope rather than at an early stage. One doesn’t drink in the house and then carry the empties out to the car, turn on the lights and motor. Some significant drinking had taken place while the appellant was in the car. The appellant’s unconsciousness state enforces that inference. One passes out on the steering wheel after one has been drinking for some time, not as one only begins to drink.
    The vehicle had been observed driving in some sort of erratic fashion. Had the appellant simply been sitting, with his motor idling, on the driveway of his own residence, it’s not likel
y that someone from the immediate vicinity would have found suspicious the presence of a familiar neighbor in a familiar car sitting in his own driveway.
It does not prove guilt in and of itself. It simply makes one of two alternative inferences more reasonable. The totality of the circumstances are, in the last analysis, inconsistent with a reasonable hypothesis of innocence. It makes the drawing of the inference of guilty more than a mere flip of a coin between guilt and innocence. It makes it rational and therefore within the proper purview of the fact-finder.
Judgment:
Appellant’s conviction was affirmed by the court.

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