Vandegrift v. State

The appellant, Richard Allen Vandegrift, was convicted of assault and battery by a jury in the Circuit Court for Cecil County and was sentenced to five years in the House of Correction. On this appeal he raises two contentions which relate to the conduct of the trial, and thus we need allude only briefly to the circumstances of the offense.

According to the testimony of the complaining witness, a man in his fifties, he was assaulted and beaten by several young men, including the appellant, in the early morning hours of January 18, 1964, across the street from a tavern near Elkton, Maryland. He…