Court Opinion

ID: 9773395
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 17:44:30.350363+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:56.151541
License: Public Domain

OPINION ON APPELLANT’S MOTION FOR REHEARING ON PETITION FOR DISCRETIONARY REVIEW
McCORMICK, Judge.
Appellant was convicted of third degree felony theft under V.T.C.A., Penal Code, Section 31.03(a) and (b)(1). He was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment. On original appeal, appellant argued that the evidence was insufficient to support his conviction. In an unpublished opinion, the Eastland Court of Appeals disagreed and found the evidence sufficient. Berg v. State, No. 11-82-074-CR, delivered March 24, 1983 (Tex.App.—Eastland 1983). We granted appellant’s petition for discretionary review to examine the sufficiency of the evidence. On original submission to this Court, Judge Miller, writing for the majority, found the evidence sufficient and affirmed the conviction. Appellant now urges on rehearing that the resolution of his case hinges entirely on the interpretation of the theft statute (31.03, supra), which appears in the case of Casey v. State, 633 S.W.2d 885 (Tex.Cr.App.1982). Appellant accordingly argues that upon original submission this Court wrongly applied the Casey rationale to the facts of his case.
The evidence, reviewed in the light most favorable to the verdict, shows that the residence of Karen Bonham was burglarized on July 9,1980. Taken in the burglary was a wedding ring set which included a wedding band and an engagement ring. The engagement ring contained a one-quarter karat diamond. Abilene police apprehended a juvenile in connection with the burglary. Discussions with the juvenile led police to the Goldsmith Shop, an Abilene jewelry store managed and co-owned by the appellant. A review of the store’s check stubs revealed that appellant had written a $23.00 check on July 11,1980, for the purchase of “scrap metal.” However, the stub did not indicate to whom the check had been written or for what specific items the money was paid. Abilene police instructed Bonham to go the Goldsmith Shop and determine if she could identify any of the missing jewelry.
On July 17, 1980, Bonham went to the Goldsmith Shop and asked appellant if he had any rings which matched the description of her rings. At first appellant insisted that he had no such rings. However, after much persuasion by Bonham, he allowed her to look through a box of scrap metal that had been wrapped up to be sent to a smelter. Bonham found her rings in the box. However the one-quarter karat diamond had been removed from the engagement ring. Bonham testified at trial that when she asked appellant to return her diamond, he took her name, address and phone number and said he would contact her later. The next day, on July 18, 1980, appellant phoned Bonham and in*808formed her she could pick up the rings. She immediately proceeded to appellant’s store where he gave her a Ziploc bag containing the rings and a stone wrapped in Scotch tape. In addition appellant charged Bonham $75.00. Bonham testified that appellant represented to her that the stone he gave her was the diamond originally mounted in her engagement ring. Later when Bonham took the rings and stone to another Abilene jeweler to have the stone mounted, she was informed that the stone given to her by appellant was not a diamond but was in fact a cubic zirconium.
At trial, appellant testified that he did not remember how he obtained appellant’s rings however he did remember that the engagement ring did not have a diamond in it when he first saw the ring. He specifically denied ever removing the diamond from the mounting on the ring. Appellant related that when Bonham discovered her rings in the box of scrap metal, she asked him if he had a stone that would fit in the mounting and he sold her the cubic zirconium. The $75.00 charge was for the cubic zirconium.
In rebuttal, the State produced Cindy Mahoney, a former employee of appellant’s. Mahoney testified that she was working in the store on July 11,1980, when two juveniles walked into the store and sold appellant the wedding ring set and a silver bell for a total of $25.00. Mahoney testified that she saw the engagement ring on that date and it did have a one quarter karat diamond in the mounting.
In a two count indictment, appellant was charged with the offense of theft. The first count alleged the theft occurred on July 11, 1980, the day appellant purchased the rings from the juveniles. The second count, the sole count on which the jury was charged, alleged that the theft occurred on the day appellant substituted the cubic zirconium for the diamond. The indictment reads in pertinent part that:
“on or about the 18th day of July, 1980, ... John Berg did then and there unlawfully, knowingly and intentionally appropriate property to-wit: a diamond of the value of over $200.00 and under $10,-000.00 from Karen W. Bonham, the owner thereof, without the effective consent of the said owner and with intent to deprive the said owner of said property,
The indictment alleged theft under Section 31.03(a) and (b)(1), supra.
In his petition for discretionary review to this Court appellant argued that conviction under Section 31.03(a) and (b)(1) could not stand because there was no evidence to show that he participated in the initial appropriation of the diamond from Bonham (the burglary of Bonham’s home). Appellant relied on Casey. This Court distinguished the instant case from Casey in that Casey was tried for theft based on the transfer of stolen property to him (V.T.C.A. Penal Code, Section 31.03(b)(2)) while appellant was tried for theft based on his appropriation of the diamond after it was in his possession. The Court emphasized that appellant was not indicted for theft by receiving stolen property, but rather for switching the diamond with the cubic zirconium after he talked to Bonham.
In his motion for rehearing, appellant contends that the sequence of events from July 11 to July 18 cannot not be broken up into two separate offenses. He asserts that if there was an offense committed it was one continuous theft beginning on July 11, 1980. Thus, under Casey, appellant’s participation in the original, unlawful appropriation must be shown in order for the evidence to be deemed sufficient. He urges us to properly apply Casey and reverse his conviction for insufficient evidence.
While we do not find appellant’s reasoning persuasive, the issue is, in any event, now largely moot. This Court has expressly overruled the Casey decision by our recent holding in McClain v. State, 687 S.W.2d 350 (Tex.Cr.App.1985).1 As we stated in McClain:
*809“In sum, neither the rationale nor holding of Casey is supported by logic or legal authority; in fact, Casey flies in the face of the Legislature’s express purpose in consolidating theft offenses. It attempts to reduce the offense of theft to ‘two separate and distinct ways in which the offense could be committed’ which, with deference, is much too simplistic; there are myriad ‘ways in which the offense could be committed.’ But Casey attempted to elevate mere matters of proof to ‘distinct elements’ comprising ‘two separate’ offenses, then tacked on a new ‘element of the offense’ (‘initial actual taking’)....”
In deciding the McClain case, this Court determined that the Casey decision was predicated on a fundamental misconception concerning the nature of theft. The Casey decision placed a distorting focus on the method or manner of acquisition of stolen property in defining the elements of theft necessary for the State to plead and prove. In McClain, this Court decided that it is error to focus on the “manner of acquisition” of personal property in a theft case. Instead, we held that the manner by which one acquires the property which he steals is inconsequential. Rather, “the gravamen of theft is in depriving the true owner of the use, benefit, enjoyment or value of his property” without the owner’s consent. McClain v. State, supra, at 353.
The Casey opinion was flawed in that it confused the elements constituting the offense of theft with evidentiary matters constituting proof of the commission of the offense. As we noted in McClain, this confusion with regard to theft was precisely what the Legislature had intended to correct and clarify by the enactment of the present penal code. McClain v. State, supra, at 355.
It is now clear that the State need only allege that the person charged (1) “unlawfully” appropriated personal property (2) with the intent to deprive the owner of the property. See V.T.C.A., Penal Code, Section 31.03. If the State alleges these elements, then they have alleged all that is necessary to establish that the accused has been charged with a crime and all that is necessary to give the accused notice of the crime of which he is accused. The State need not plead the manner of acquisition or the circumstances surrounding the offense. The manner of acquisition or circumstance surrounding the acquisition are merely evi-dentiary matters and there is no requirement that the State plead evidentiary matters. Thomas v. State, 621 S.W.2d 158 (Tex.Cr.App.1981); McClain v. State, supra.
The State need only prove the offense as stated in Section 31.03(a). To plead, as the State did in this case, the offense in terms of Section 31.03(b)(1) and (2) is to plead evidentiary matters which are surplusage and in point of fact give the accused more notice than is constitutionally required. Thomas v. State, supra.
Thus, it can be seen that whatever theory the State presents as to how the offense occurred is irrelevant. So long as the evidence is sufficient to prove that appellant unlawfully appropriated the property in question with the “intent to deprive the owner of the property” appellant’s conviction must stand. It is immaterial whether the State’s theory at trial and the evidence offered involve theft as it is described in Section 31.03(b)(1), or theft as it is described in Section 31.03(b)(2).
*810In the case before us, we must conclude that the evidence presented at trial is sufficient to show that appellant unlawfully appropriated the property of the complaining witness with the intent to deprive the owner of it. McClain v. State, supra. See also Section 31.03(a), supra.
Appellant’s motion for rehearing is denied and the conviction is affirmed.
TEAGUE, J., concurs in the result.
CLINTON, J., dissents.

. McClain has had a lengthy history in our State courts. After our decision in McClain cited above, the case was remanded to the Court of Appeals in order for that court to make the determination whether the evidence established beyond a reasonable doubt that both McClain’s *809and Navarro’s exercise of control of the affected property was without the owner’s effective consent. In the Court of Appeals, McClain and Navarro argued that there was insufficient evidence to support their convictions because the only evidence before the trial court was their stipulations and the trial court did not sign the agreements to waive the appearance of witnesses and stipulate to the evidence. After the Court of Appeals rejected this argument and affirmed their convictions (McClain and Navarro v. State, 697 S.W.2d 807 (Tex.App.—Houston [1st] 1985)), both defendants filed petitions for discretionary review which we granted. This Court agreed with McClain and Navarro and held that because the consent to stipulate was not approved in writing by the trial court, the stipulations could not be considered as evidence. As a result, both McClain’s and Navarro’s cases were remanded to the trial court for new trials. McClain and Navarro, 730 S.W.2d 739 (Tex.Cr.App.1987).