FOR PUBLICATION

ATTORNEY FOR APPELLANT: ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLEE:

MATTHEW D. ANGLEMEYER GREGORY F. ZOELLER

Marion County Public Defender Attorney General of Indiana

Indianapolis, Indiana

GEORGE P. SHERMAN

Deputy Attorney General

Indianapolis, Indiana

IN THE

COURT OF APPEALS OF INDIANA

DEKUITA STEEN, )

)

Appellant-Defendant, )

)

vs. ) No. 49A02-1211-CR-877

)

STATE OF INDIANA, )

)

Appellee-Plaintiff. )

APPEAL FROM THE MARION SUPERIOR COURT 

The Honorable James B. Osborn, Judge

Cause No. 49F15-1012-FD-89974 

May 2, 2013

OPINION - FOR PUBLICATION

VAIDIK, Judge
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Case Summary 

Dekuita Steen appeals her Class D felony theft conviction. She contends that the 

trial court erred in admitting a loss-prevention officer’s testimony concerning security

tags and store labels into evidence because it was inadmissible hearsay and there is 

insufficient evidence to sustain her conviction. Finding that the evidence was properly 

admitted and the evidence is sufficient, we affirm.

Facts and Procedural History

On Black Friday, November 26, 2010, Kyle Hadley, a loss-prevention officer 

employed by U.S. Security, was working at H & M clothing store in Circle Centre Mall. 

Hadley saw a large group of women enter H & M. One woman, Steen, was pushing a 

stroller, but there was no child inside. Hadley watched Steen for about half an hour and 

saw her take items such as jeans, shirts, and children’s clothing and place them on top of 

the stroller. Steen then moved to the children’s department between shelves and a wall 

and began putting the clothing items inside bags on the bottom of the stroller. Hadley 

watched this happen through the shelves and had a clear view of Steen’s actions.

The group of women Steen entered the store with left, and Steen exited the store 

without paying for the clothes in the stroller about a half minute later. As Steen left H & 

M, the store’s E.A.S. podiums, which scan the electronic tags on items that have to be 

deactivated at the registers, began beeping. Hadley followed Steen out of the store and 

into the mall, stopping her after she had walked past two or three other stores. Hadley 

identified himself and showed his loss-prevention officer badge and identification card. 
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Hadley asked Steen to return to H & M so that they could talk about the clothing that she 

took without purchasing.

Steen followed Hadley willingly back to the store, but as they started to enter the 

store, Steen said that she did not know what Hadley was talking about and she refused to 

go into the store office. Steen started to walk away so Hadley grabbed her arm. Steen 

pulled away and began to resist, so Hadley placed her in handcuffs and escorted her and 

the stroller into the store office. Once inside the office, Hadley removed the clothing 

from the bags in the bottom of the stroller and recognized it as the same clothing he had 

seen Steen select and take out of the store. Hadley also saw the H & M security tags and 

store labels on the clothing.

Hadley requested to see Steen’s identification, and she showed him an 

identification card. She stated that the address on the identification was incorrect, so she 

gave Hadley another address and social-security number. Hadley confirmed that the 

person pictured on the identification was Steen. At that time, the store manager told 

Hadley that the women that Steen had come to the store with earlier had returned and 

were grabbing large amounts of merchandise. Hadley asked the manager to stand in front 

of the office door so he could go see what was happening. When Hadley returned, the 

manager told him that Steen had left through the back room and gone down the fire 

escape. Hadley looked for Steen in the fire escape and went down to the floor level, but

he could not find her. Hadley flagged down an Indianapolis Metropolitan Police 

Department officer and gave the officer a description of Steen. Four days later, IMPD 
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Detective Julie Busic contacted Hadley and asked to meet with him, and Hadley 

identified Steen from a photograph.

The State charged Steen with Class D felony theft and Class A misdemeanor 

conversion, but it later dropped the conversion charge. A jury trial was held and Steen 

was found guilty. The trial court sentenced her to 365 days with 363 days suspended to 

probation.

Steen now appeals.

Discussion and Decision

Steen raises two arguments on appeal: (1) whether the trial court erred in 

admitting a loss-prevention officer’s testimony concerning security tags and store labels 

into evidence and (2) whether there is sufficient evidence to sustain her conviction for 

Class D felony theft.

I. Security Officer’s Testimony

Steen contends that the trial court erred in admitting the loss-prevention officer’s 

testimony concerning the security tags and store labels that were on the clothing because 

it was inadmissible double hearsay. A trial court has broad discretion in ruling on the 

admission or exclusion of evidence. Kimbrough v. State, 911 N.E.2d 621, 631 (Ind. Ct. 

App. 2009). The trial court’s ruling on the admissibility of evidence will be disturbed on 

review only upon a showing of an abuse of discretion. Id. An abuse of discretion occurs 

when the trial court’s ruling is clearly against the logic, facts, and circumstances 

presented. Id. Error may not be predicated upon a ruling that admits or excludes 

evidence unless a substantial right of the party is affected. Ind. Evidence Rule 103.
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Steen argues that both the security tags and store labels on the clothing and 

Hadley’s testimony about the tags and labels constitute hearsay. We disagree. 

Hearsay is “a statement, other than one made by the declarant while testifying at 

the trial or hearing, offered in evidence to prove the truth of the matter asserted.” Ind. 

Evidence Rule 801(c). We find that the security tags and store labels in this case do not 

fall under this definition and therefore are not hearsay. While the security tags and store 

labels are not in evidence, we assume based on the parties’ briefs that the security tags 

and the store labels contained the writing “H & M.” This writing, taken by itself, is not 

capable of being true or not true.1 Since it is not capable of being true or not true, the 

clothing labels could not have been admitted for the truth of the matter asserted. Rather, 

they were admitted as circumstantial evidence showing that because the tags were 

attached to the clothing, it made it more likely than not that the clothing belonged to H & 

M. Since the security tags and store labels inside the clothing were not out-of-court 

assertions admitted for the truth of the matter asserted, they did not constitute hearsay 

evidence.

As for Hadley’s testimony about the clothing labels, the trial court stated that 

Hadley was “testifying to what he observed,” Tr. p. 76, and we agree.2 A witness may 

 

1 This distinguishes the present case from those that the State refers to in its brief in which price 

tags were deemed to be hearsay since they were admitted for the truth of the price listed on the label in 

order to establish the value of an item. See, e.g., Stephans v. State, 262 P.3d 727, 732 (Nev. 2011); 

Robinson v. Com., 516 S.E.2d 475, 478 (Va. 1999); State v. Odom, 393 S.E.2d 146, 151 (N.C. Ct. App. 

1990). 

2 We note that this is not a best-evidence argument. See Lawson v. State, 803 N.E.2d 237, 240-41 

(Ind. Ct. App. 2004), trans. denied. As best we can understand, this is a personal-knowledge argument, 

and we agree with the trial court’s ruling.
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testify to what he observed as long as it is based on his personal knowledge of the matter. 

Ind. Evidence Rule 602. Since Hadley was testifying to his personal knowledge of what 

he saw on the clothing, the H & M security tags and store labels, his testimony was 

proper and not inadmissible hearsay.

The trial court did not err in admitting Hadley’s testimony at trial.

II. Sufficiency of the Evidence

Steen also contends that there is insufficient evidence to sustain her conviction. 

Our standard of review with regard to sufficiency claims is well settled. In reviewing a 

sufficiency of the evidence claim, this Court does not reweigh the evidence or judge the 

credibility of the witnesses. Bond v. State, 925 N.E.2d 773, 781 (Ind. Ct. App. 2010), 

reh’g denied, trans. denied. We consider only the evidence most favorable to the verdict

and the reasonable inferences draw therefrom and affirm if the evidence and those 

inferences constitute substantial evidence of probative value to support the verdict. Id. 

Reversal is appropriate only when a reasonable trier of fact would not be able to form 

inferences as to each material element of the offense. Id.

Class D felony theft is governed by Indiana Code section 35-43-4-2(a) which 

states that “A person who knowingly or intentionally exerts unauthorized control over 

property of another person, with intent to deprive the other person of its value or use, 

commits theft, a Class D felony.” Steen argues that the State presented no evidence that 

H & M owned the clothes she took out of the store and no evidence that Steen exerted 

unauthorized control over the clothes. We disagree.
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The evidence presented at trial showed that Hadley, while working at H & M, 

watched Steen select clothing items from the store, place them on top of the stroller, put 

them inside bags on the bottom of the stroller, and walked out of the store, causing the 

E.A.S. podiums to beep. Tr. p. 70-71. When Hadley brought Steen back into the store 

and removed the items from the bags, he testified that they were the same items that he 

saw her earlier select from the store. Id. at 76. Hadley also testified that he saw the H & 

M security tags and store labels on the items. Id. This is sufficient evidence that H & M 

owned the clothes that Steen took out of the store.

The evidence also showed that Steen exerted unauthorized control over the 

clothes. She placed the clothes into bags in the stroller and walked out of the store 

without paying for them. Id. at 71, 73. Hadley also testified that he let Steen walk out of 

the store and past both doors of H & M to ensure “that she wasn’t looking for those 

people that was with her...maybe, you know, for – if they had something of hers to pay –

anything like that. I wanted to make sure that she was intentionally leaving the store 

without wanting to pay for the merchandise.” Id. at 73. Finally, when Hadley stepped 

out of the store office while he was questioning Steen, she fled from the store and down 

the fire escape, id. at 78, providing circumstantial evidence of her guilt. Gee v. State, 526 

N.E.2d 1152, 1158 (Ind. 1988). This is sufficient evidence to show that Steen exerted 

unauthorized control over the clothes that she took out of the store. We therefore affirm 

Steen’s Class D felony theft conviction.

Affirmed.

KIRSCH, J., and PYLE, J., concur.