Court Opinion

ID: 9667836
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 01:56:07.091855+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:41.157906
License: Public Domain

LeGRAND, Justice
(concurring specially).
I concur in the result reached by the majority but disagree with the views expressed in Division II thereof.
After citing two lines of respectable authority concerning the permissible inference arising in a burglary prosecution from possession of recently stolen property the majority, in my opinion, adopts the wrong one.
It seems specious to say one in possession of recently stolen property taken in a burglary may just as easily have acquired it in some other way. That same rationale, if valid at all, is applicable to all inferences related to possession of recently stolen property, whether a burglary is involved or not. I also disagree with the majority’s statement the real problem is whether the presumed fact defendant committed the breaking and entering follows from existence of the proved fact defendant possessed recently stolen property. In my opinion the real problem, rather, is whether such “presumed fact” follows from possession of recently stolen property feloniously taken during the commission of the burglary with which defendant is charged.
I believe there is a sufficient rational connection between such possession and the *726established burglary to permit the inference defendant committed the burglary. If unexplained, such evidence should be sufficient to support a guilty verdict.
As already mentioned, there is authority for both rules concerning the effect of the inference we are here concerned with. In State v. Mays, 204 N.W.2d 862, 865 (Iowa 1973) we seemingly settled this question. Relying on a number of other cases decided by this court, we there held possession of recently stolen property when the theft took place in connection with a burglary is sufficient to warrant a conviction of breaking and entering.
The majority says Mays did not state whether the inference must be such as to convince the jury beyond a reasonable doubt or whether it is enough if the presumed fact follows the inference as more likely than not. This is the due process problem raised in Barnes v. United States, 412 U.S. 837, 93 S.Ct. 2357, 37 L.Ed.2d 380 (1973). We recognized, but did not decide, the question in State v. Thornburgh, 220 N.W.2d 579, 585 (Iowa 1974).
I believe we should follow the more-likely-than-not rule. The general instruction that the jury must find defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt is definitive of the State’s duty. There is no sound reason why the inference must itself be independently established beyond a reasonable doubt. I recognize the cases (and the majority) speak of possession “alone.” There is no such thing as possession alone.
In another area, in discussing guest statute claims, we said there is no such thing as speed alone. It is always accompanied by other circumstances. See Winkler v. Patten, 175 N.W.2d 126, 129 (Iowa 1970); Lewis v. Baker, 251 Iowa 1173, 1176, 104 N.W.2d 575, 577 (1960).
I think that same reasoning is applicable here. Possession doesn’t occur in a vacuum. It is always attended by circumstances of time, place, and details of incidental conduct.
I take this to be the real holding in at least one of the cases cited by the majority. See Schaum v. Commonwealth, 215 Va. 498, 211 S.E.2d 73, 75-76 (1975).
I would hold, along with the authorities which the majority cites to that effect, that possession of recently stolen property permits an inference defendant committed the burglary during which the property was stolen; that the inference need not follow beyond a reasonable doubt; and that such possession, if unexplained, would support a finding defendant committed the break-in at which the property was taken.
Since the majority reaches that conclusion on other grounds, I concur in the result.
MOORE, C. J., and REYNOLDSON, J., join in this special concurrence.