713 S.E.2d 793
No. COA10-1222North Carolina Court of Appeals
Filed 7 June 2011 This case not for publication
Scotland County No. 09 CRS 50035.
Appeal by Defendant from judgment entered 29 April 2010 by Judge W. David Lee in Scotland County Superior Court. Heard in the Court of Appeals 2 May 2011.
Attorney General Roy Cooper, by Assistant Attorney General Newton G. Pritchett, Jr., for the State.
Mario M. White for Defendant.
BEASLEY, Judge.
Reginald Franklin (Defendant) appeals from a judgment consistent with a jury verdict finding him guilty of possession of
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stolen goods. On appeal, Defendant contends the trial court erred in denying his motion to dismiss at the close of all the evidence. For the following reasons, we find no error.
Defendant was charged with felonious larceny of a horse trailer and felonious possession of a stolen horse trailer. In 2008, James Perry Locklear was a farmer in Laurinburg and had a produce market on X-Way Road. He owned a blue horse trailer that he used to haul produce. Locklear bought the horse trailer new in 1990 for $2,600.00. The original title to the trailer was in Locklear’s name, with no transfers to anyone else. During the years Locklear owned the horse trailer, he painted it, “redone the inside three times[,]” and installed a new floor with metal supports. In Locklear’s opinion, the trailer was in better condition and worth more in 2008 than when he bought it because of inflation and the updates to the trailer. Locklear kept the horse trailer parked behind his produce market.
Locklear discovered his horse trailer missing from behind his produce market on his birthday, 25 November 2008, and surmised that the trailer had been taken sometime between 19 and 24 November 2008. At first, Locklear thought a friend might have borrowed the horse trailer without telling him, so he phoned two or three friends to whom he had loaned the trailer in the past. After he realized that none of his friends had borrowed the horse trailer, Locklear reported the trailer stolen. Locklear tried to locate his horse trailer with no success until 1 January 2009, when he drove to a horse sale in
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Bennettsville, South Carolina. Locklear parked his truck in the parking lot and started looking for his horse trailer. He “walked right up to it” and noticed that the license and serial number were missing. Locklear went to the stockyard office and told the owner that he needed to call the police because his stolen horse trailer was on the premises.
A police officer arrived at the stockyard and took Locklear’s statement. In the meantime, the stockyard owner paged James Spivey, who had used the horse trailer to haul four horses to the horse sale. After hearing his name over the loudspeaker, Spivey went to the office and was directed to the horse trailer in the parking lot. Locklear told Spivey that the horse trailer belonged to him. He showed Spivey the registration and asked Spivey who took his trailer. Spivey told Locklear that he obtained the horse trailer from Andrew Johnson, a man who was also at the horse sale. Spivey went into the sale and brought Johnson out to the parking lot. Johnson told Locklear that he obtained the horse trailer from Defendant.
While Locklear, Spivey, and the police stood in the parking lot, Johnson called Defendant on speaker phone. When Defendant answered, Johnson said, “Hey, man, this horse trailer you sold me is stolen. There’s a man down here to pick it up, and he acts like it’s his and got the title. It’s his horse trailer. I don’t know where you got it from, but it’s his horse trailer.” Defendant
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responded that he could have the title for the trailer in two or three days. Locklear spoke up and told Defendant that he would have to steal it because the title to the trailer was on Locklear’s desk. Defendant hung up the phone.
The next day, Locklear contacted Detective Jonathan Edwards of the Scotland County Sheriff’s Department, who had been aware of the stolen trailer since November 2008. Locklear informed Detective Edwards that he had located his horse trailer at a horse sale in Bennettsville and that Spivey was bringing the trailer back to him. Detective Edwards interviewed Spivey and Johnson. In his statement to Detective Edwards, Johnson stated that he did not know where Defendant got the trailer; that Defendant wanted to sell the trailer to Spivey, but the two could not come to an agreement; that Johnson traded a horse, colt and saddle in exchange for the horse trailer; and that he subsequently traded the trailer to Spivey in exchange for a horse. Spivey told Detective Edwards that Defendant originally wanted to sell the trailer to him for $1,500.00 plus a horse he was selling for $1,500.00. Spivey also told the detective that he eventually obtained the trailer from Johnson, who gave him the trailer in exchange for paying off a debt. Defendant was subsequently arrested.
Spivey testified at trial that he was in the livestock business and made his living buying and selling horse trailers. Spivey
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testified that Defendant attempted to sell him the horse trailer for $3,500.00. Spivey declined to buy the trailer for $3,500.00 because it was not worth that much new and Defendant did not have the title to the horse trailer. Spivey testified that the trailer without the title was worth “maybe fifteen hundred[.]” A few weeks later, Johnson told Spivey that he traded the Defendant some horses for the trailer. Johnson, who owed Spivey about $1,400.00 to $1,500.00, offered to trade Spivey the trailer in exchange for forgiveness of the debt. Spivey agreed to the exchange.
Defendant presented evidence and testified that he bought the horse trailer from someone on “craigslist[;]” that the seller wanted $1,300.00 for the trailer; that Defendant traded his children’s old four-wheeler for the trailer; that Defendant was supposed to give the seller $300.00 when the seller brought the title back to Defendant in a few days; that Defendant traded the horse trailer to Johnson for a horse, a colt and a saddle; and that Johnson did not need a title. On cross-examination, Defendant testified that when he bought the trailer he was not concerned that it was stolen even though the horse trailer had no license tag or serial number, and the seller had no title. Defendant further testified that without the title, the horse trailer was worth more than $1,000.00.
A jury found Defendant guilty of felonious possession of stolen goods and not guilty of felonious larceny. The trial court sentenced
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Defendant to eight to ten months imprisonment, suspended the sentence and placed Defendant on supervised probation for 30 months. Defendant appeals.
Defendant contends the trial court erred by denying his motion to dismiss based on insufficiency of the evidence. The standard for ruling on a motion to dismiss “is whether there is substantial evidence (1) of each essential element of the offense charged and (2) that defendant is the perpetrator of the offense.” State v. Lynch, 327 N.C. 210, 215, 393 S.E.2d 811, 814 (1990). Substantial evidence is that relevant evidence which a reasonable mind might accept as adequate to support a conclusion. State v. Patterson, 335 N.C. 437, 449-50, 439 S.E.2d 578, 585
(1994). In ruling on a motion to dismiss, the trial court must consider all of the evidence “in the light most favorable to the State, and the State is entitled to all reasonable inferences which may be drawn from the evidence.” State v. Davis, 130 N.C. App. 675, 679, 505 S.E.2d 138, 141 (1998) (citation omitted). “Any contradictions or discrepancies arising from the evidence are properly left for the jury to resolve and do not warrant dismissal.” State v. King, 343 N.C. 29, 36, 468 S.E.2d 232, 237 (1996).
The essential elements of felonious possession of stolen goods are “(1) possession of personal property, (2) valued at more than [$1,000.00], (3) which has been stolen, (4) the possessor knowing
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or having reasonable grounds to believe the property to have been stolen, and (5) the possessor acting with a dishonest purpose.” State v. Davis, 302 N.C. 370, 373, 275 S.E.2d 491, 493 (1981). See N.C. Gen. Stat. §§ 14-71.1 and 14-72 (2009). Defendant specifically argues that the State failed to present substantial evidence to establish the $1,000.00 value element of felonious possession of stolen property.
“The fair market value of stolen property at the time of the theft must exceed the sum of [$1,000.00] for the possession to be felonious.” State v. Holland, 318 N.C. 602, 610, 350 S.E.2d 56, 61 (1986), overruled on other grounds by State v. Childress, 321 N.C. 226, 362 S.E.2d 263
(1987); N.C. Gen. Stat. § 14-72. Stolen property’s fair market value is the item’s “reasonable selling price[] at the time and place of the theft, and in the condition in which it was when [stolen]. . . .” State v. Dees, 14 N.C. App. 110, 112, 187 S.E.2d 433, 435 (1972) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). The State is not required to produce “direct evidence of . . . value” to support the conclusion that the stolen property was worth over $1,000.00, provided that the jury is not left to “speculate as to the value” of the item. Holland, 318 N.C. at 610, 350 S.E.2d at 61.
Here, the State presented evidence that Locklear bought the trailer new in 1990 for $2,600.00. Since then, Locklear had painted
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the trailer, redone the inside of it three times, and installed a new floor with metal support. Locklear testified that the trailer was in better condition and worth more in November 2008 than when he bought it in 1990 because of inflation and the updates. Locklear’s testimony regarding the value of the trailer was corroborated by Spivey, who made his living buying and selling trailers. Spivey testified that with the title, the trailer was worth $2,500.00-$3,000.00, and without the title, the trailer was worth “maybe fifteen hundred[.]” Spivey testified that Johnson bartered the horse trailer to him in return for $1,400.00 to $1,500.00 worth of debt forgiveness. Finally, Defendant testified at trial that the trailer was worth more than $1,000.00.
Viewed in the light most favorable to the State, the “reasonable selling price” of the trailer, in Laurinburg and at the time it was stolen from Locklear, was over $1,400.00. See Dees, 14 N.C. App. at 112, 187 S.E.2d at 435. Therefore, the State’s evidence was sufficient to satisfy the $1,000.00 fair market value statutory minimum and to support a felonious possession of stolen goods conviction. We therefore hold that the trial court properly denied Defendant’s motion to dismiss for insufficient evidence.
No error.
Judges STEPHENS and ERVIN concur.
Report per Rule 30(e).
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