OCEAN CITY — In a rare appeal reversal, a local man, arrested for breaking and entering in March 2015 after being found sleeping in the crawl space under a residence on 6th Street, had his conviction and six-month sentence overturned.
Around 3:30 p.m. on March 21, 2015, OCPD officers patrolling in the downtown area observed Jeffrey Taylor, now 54, of Ocean City, disappear behind a residence on 6th Street and St. Louis Avenue The officers responded to the area and did not see the suspect, but located an uncovered opening to a crawl space under the house.
The officers walked toward the crawl space and could observe the shoes of some individual, presumably Taylor, underneath the building with the wooden covering for the crawl space opening lying nearby. The officers then observed Taylor sleeping just inside the crawl space. They identified themselves as police officers and asked Taylor to come out of the crawl space.
The officers questioned Taylor, who told them he was just looking for a place to take a nap, according to police reports. Taylor told police he had a place to stay, but was recently forced to leave it. When asked if he had permission to sleep under the residence, Taylor told police he did not.
Taylor was placed under arrest for fourth-degree burglary. The officer observed in his report nothing appeared to have been missing or out of place in the crawl space except for the displaced wooden covering, which appeared to be its only point of entry. The wooden covering would later prove to be an important part of Taylor’s eventual appeal. Taylor was found guilty to fourth-degree burglary-storehouse and was sentenced to two years in jail. All but six months of the sentence was then suspended.
Taylor appealed his conviction to the state Court of Special Appeals, asserting the evidence presented did not support the breaking and entering conviction. Taylor never denied entering the crawl space to take a nap, but did dispute the assertion he removed the wooden covering for the crawl space, which was the key component of the breaking and entering conviction. This week, the Court of Special Appeals ruled in Taylor’s favor and overturned the burglary conviction.
“Here, there is no dispute that Taylor entered the crawl space,” the opinion reads. “He was found there by the officer and later admitted as much. The dispute concerns whether the state adduced sufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Taylor had entered the crawl space after committing an actual breaking. We agree with Taylor that the state did not.”