Court Opinion

ID: 9776572
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 19:39:18.502522+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:09:10.903422
License: Public Domain

Ernie E. Wright, Acting Chief Judge, dissenting. This sixteen-year-old first offender was involved with some other youths in the burglary of a home and theft of property valued at $2,500.00 or more from the home. Appellant was sentenced to concurrent eight-year terms on each of the two convictions. I concur with the prevailing opinion stemming from an equally divided court with the exception of the disposition on appeal as to the degree of theft. In my view the conviction of theft of property of a value of $2,500.00 or more is not supported by substantial evidence, although the evidence does support a conviction of theft of property of the value of more than $200.00 but less than $2,500.00, a Class C felony. The theft occurred in January 1989. The only evidence of value was the testimony of the owner. She testified to the total value of the items stolen, which included a ten-year-old, three-quarter length mink coat, a VCR, and a quart of strawberries. However, she failed to provide a reasonable basis for the total value. When she was questioned as to values by item, she testified the fur coat she purchased in 1979 or 1980 had a value of $2,200.00, the amount of the original purchase price. She assigned a value of $279.00 for the VCR based on the purchase price some two years prior to the theft. She did not state a value for the quart of berries but when asked the question, “ [w] e are not talking about anything over $2.00 or $3.00?” her answer was “[n]o.” Although there was no evidence of anything else having been stolen, she stated, “[t]he police said later that a shirt was missing from my son’s bedroom.” She offered no testimony as to the value of the shirt and there is no substantial evidence appellant or his accomplices took the shirt. The owner testified she had priced some new coats of the same type and the prices for them ranged from $3,000.00 to $5,000.00. There was no evidence the market value of the ten-year-old coat could not be ascertained; and there was no evidence of what the cost would be to replace the coat with a similar ten-year-old coat. As the VCR had been purchased for $279.00 fairly recently prior to the theft that would be substantial evidence of its market value. However, the cost of $2,200.00 for the fur coat purchased some ten years prior to the theft would not be substantial evidence of its market value. In Moore v. State, 299 Ark. 532, 773 S.W.2d 834 (1989), our supreme court reversed for insufficiency of the evidence. In Moore, the owner of a stolen car testified she paid $3,600.00 for the car in 1985 and that it was still worth what she paid for it. We know that the time at which she purchased the car would be some four years prior to the decision on appeal and would have been a lesser time prior to the alleged offense. The court said: “[w]e cannot, however, find sufficient evidence that the value of the car was in excess of $2,500.” See also, Cannon v. State, 265 Ark. 270, 578 S.W.2d 20 (1979) and Rogers v. State, 248 Ark. 696, 453 S.W.2d 393 (1970). I would reduce the conviction for theft of property of the value of $2,500.00 or more to a theft of property having a value of more than $200.00 but less than $2,500.00, a Class C felony, and reduce the sentence to three years on the theft charge. Cooper, J., joins in this dissent.