Court Opinion

ID: 7821649
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-09-07 17:56:33.220803+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:30:45.216304
License: Public Domain

George K. Cracraft, Judge. The appellant was charged in the Washington County Circuit Court with 1) two counts of Theft of Property in violation of Ark. Stat. Ann. § 41-2203 (2) (b) (Repl. 1977); 2) unlawful possession of a firearm in violation of Ark. Stat. Ann. § 4l-3103(l)(a) (Repl. 1977); and 3) being a habitual offender pursuant to Ark. Stat. Ann. § 41-1001 (Repl. 1977). A jury found him guilty on all counts. The appellant was sentenced to three years on each of the two Theft of Property charges and one year on the Felonious Possession of a Firearm charge. The Court ordered that the Theft of Property sentences be served consecutively and the Felonious Possession of a Firearm be concurrent to those. It is from this verdict, sentence and judgment that the appellant brings this appeal, asserting 1) that the conviction on the two counts of Theft of Property and the count of Felonious Possession of a Firearm were based upon defective search warrants and evidence obtained by warrantless search; 2) that the enhancement of the sentences was based upon an Information containing insufficient allegations of the charges; and 3) that the state failed to prove the value of the hubcaps to be in excess of $100. The appellant was arrested by campus security officers at 3:00 a.m. on September 29th, 1979, after having been observed by them in the act of stealing hubcaps in the University of Arkansas parking lot in Fayetteville. The officers saw him take several sets of hubcaps and place them in the trunk of his car. Later that day a warrant was issued authorizing a search of his automobile. The appellant was taken into custody at the scene in the early hours of the morning, but the search warrant was not obtained or executed until later that day. While the appellant was in custody, but before the application for the search warrant, appellant stated to the officers that there was a pistol in the trunk of his automobile. All of the officers admitted that they heard the statement and that they knew he was a convicted felon. Both the applicaion and the warrant listed only hubcaps as the articles sought. No mention of the gun was made. Prior to the trial the defendant requested and was granted a hearing on an oral motion to suppress certain statements made by him while in custody and evidence of the weapon found in his car. No other issues were raised or ruled upon. The defendant now urges that the warrant was defective in other respects and that all the fruits of the search should have been suppressed. As the questions of the service of the warrant and inventory upon the defendant were not raised in the court below, they may not be raised on appeal for the first time. Halfacre and Duty v. State, 265 Ark. 378, 578 S.W. 2d 237 (1979); Jeffers v. State, 268 Ark. 329, 595 S.W. 2d 678 (1980). The officers were not questioned about the service at any stage of the proceedings and the appellant testified that at the time of his arrest and for a period of time thereafter his memory was so faulty due to a prescription drug he was taking, that he could recall little of what had taken place. Though we hold that the warrant was valid and the initial intrusion to search for hubcaps was lawful, we conclude that the seizure of the weapon during that search was warrantless, and evidence based upon it should have been suppressed. That weapon itself was not specifically described in the warrant or the affidavit and cannot be validated under the “plain view rule.” The “plain view rule” applies only if 1) the initial intrusion resulting in the plain view discovery was lawful, 2) the discovery was inadvertent, and 3) the incriminating nature of the object was immediately apparent. Gatlin v. State, 262 Ark. 485, 559 S.W. 2d 12. Here the officers all knew for hours before the warrant was issued and the search pursuant to it, that the appellant had stated that the weapon was in the trunk of the car. In these circumstances the discovery of this weapon was not “inadvertent,” but to the contrary “advertent.” Appellant further urges that the enhancement of his sentences pursuant to the Arkansas Habitual Offenders Statutes should be reversed as it was based on insufficient allegations of the offenses in the Information. The felony information filed by the prosecuting attorney is as follows: “furthermore, the defendant, William Thompson Terry has been previously convicted of more than one felony offense and should be subject to the sentencing provisions of Ark. Stat. Ann. § 41-1001.” Ark. Stat. Ann. §41-1001(1) (Repl. 1977) provides for enhancement of sentence for “1) a defendant who is convicted of a felony and who has previously been convicted of more than one (1) but less than four (4) felonies, ***.” The Information in question correctly states the elements of the offense for which enhanced sentence may be imposed. There was evidence introduced at the trial that the appellant had been convicted and sentenced on three prior felony offenses. It is clear then that this appellant was correctly charged with having been convicted of “more than one” felony offense as provided in the statute. The appellant further contends that his conviction for Theft of Property must be reversed because the state failed to prove the value of the eight hubcaps stolen exceeded $100. This contention is meritless. Ark. Stat. Ann. § 41-2203 (2) (b) (i) (Repl. 1977) states: “Theft of Property is a class C felony if the value of the property is less than $2500 more than $100.” Here the proof shows that the appellant appropriated two sets of hubcaps. The first set was taken from a 1978 Thunderbird belonging to Sherry Goodner who had bought the car less than 13 months before the hubcaps were stolen. An expert testified that the replacement cost of each hubcap was $67.40, and tat the value of the four hubcaps was $269-60. The second set of hubcaps were taken from an automobile of Nancy Cassidy, who owned a 1978 Monte Carlo and had purchased it less than a year before the theft. An expert testified that the cost of each of the four hubcaps was $57.25, a total of $229 for a set of four. No objection was made by the appellant to this testimony. Ark. Stat. Ann. § 41-2203 (3) (Repl. 1977) defines the amount of a theft as the “amount involved in a theft shall be deemed to be at the highest value, by any reasonable standard, of the property or services which the actor obtained or attempted to obtain.” We conclude that this evidence was sufficient to establish that the value of each set of the hubcaps stolen by appellant was in excess of $100, the requisite amount for a conviction of Theft of Property. Evidence of purchase price of property may be evidence of market value when admitted without objection, and we do not feel that the date of purchase of the articles in question is too remote. Cannon v. State, 265 Ark. 271, 578 S.W. 2d 20 (1979); Boone v. State, 264 Ark. 169, 568 S.W. 2d 229 (1978). We affirm the sentences imposed on the two Theft of Property convictions and reverse the conviction on the charge of Felonious Possession of a Firearm. Cooper, J., dissents.