Ellison v. Maryland

Appellant David Allen Elmer and co-defendant Robert Keith Brown were tried before a jury, presided over by Judge Edward D.E. Rollins, Jr., in the Circuit Court for Cecil County on ten charges stemming from a single shotgun blast fired from a car in which appellant was the passenger and Brown was the driver. Motions for judgments of acquittal were granted with respect to five of the charges at the close of the States case, and the jury returned guilty verdicts on the remaining five charges. The judge granted appellants motion for a new trial with respect to the charge of shooting with the intent to maim and then sentenced him on the four remaining convictions: malicious injury to an eye (fifteen years, ten of them suspended), assault (ten years concurrent and suspended), reckless endangerment (five years concurrent and suspended), and conspiracy to shoot with intent to disable (ten years concurrent and suspended). His appeal presents the following issues: