La Plata, MD – The police know they got the right car, but did they get the right man?
That is the question a Charles County Circuit Court jury had to decide in the case of Phillip Walter Wallace, 31 of Washington, DC, before Judge Thomas R. Simpson Jr.
Monday, March 16, the jury needed only 10 minutes to decide Wallace was not guilty of theft and fleeing and eluding police. The case began Friday the 13th and shifted into the new week as Charles County Assistant State’s Attorney Jessica R. Vining presented the state’s case where two suspects driving a car identified as the defendant’s robbed a Waldorf Safeway April 3, 2012.
The state argued based on testimony from Officer Mackall of the Charles County Sheriff’s Office that he saw the suspect during a high speed chase in speeds exceeding 110 miles per hour up northbound Route 210.
The jury had to decide if Wallace was the man Mackall saw, from a distance, before breaking off the chase.
Officer Gilroy, who headed up the investigation, was asked by Public Defender John R. Getz what Wallace told her when questioned. She responded that he said his car was stolen.
“Was the vehicle ever recovered?” Getz asked her.
“It was recovered,” Gilroy testified. “No one was in the vehicle. It had been abandoned.”
For the defendant, his case may have hinged on this particular testimony, for the jury had to debate if Wallace, a Muslim, wearing a kufi, when most are asked to remove their hats before the bench in court, was behind the wheel when the robbery of more than $300 of merchandise from Safeway in Waldorf occurred.
Vining argued that the Safeway manager took a photo of the vehicle’s license plate after it sped away.
“Of course, these two people were working together,” she said. “That’s him. That’s the defendant. You heard the officer testify that he was sitting at Route 228 when the lookout went out. The defendant testified that he didn’t need the car that he dropped it off at his sister’s where it was stolen. Why wasn’t it reported stolen until much later in the day?”
Getz said the defense did not deny there was a theft.
“The state wants you to believe that man was involved.” He said, pointing to the defendant. “All the state has is that officer Mackall was trying to chase somebody.”
He sat in a chair across the room from the jury, his back to the jurists, and turned his head to a count of “one one thousand, two one thousand.”
“That’s what you have,” he stressed. “I’m suggesting there’s no way. I’m asking you to use common sense. You saw how close Officer Mackall got. Not very. The car was stolen. That has been corroborated. All the pieces do not fit,” he added. “The state wants you to go from here to her with nothing in the middle.”
The jury agreed, returning a verdict of not guilty.
Getz said he felt the jury realized the state’s case was based on the identification of the suspect during a high-speed chase and they didn’t have enough evidence to convict his client beyond a reasonable doubt.
Contact Joseph Norris at joe.norris@thebaynet.com