Smith's Criminal Case Compendium
Smith's Criminal Case Compendium
Table of Contents
Smith's Criminal Case Compendium
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This compendium includes significant criminal cases by the U.S. Supreme Court & N.C. appellate courts, Nov. 2008 – Present. Selected 4th Circuit cases also are included.
Jessica Smith prepared case summaries Nov. 2008-June 4, 2019; later summaries are prepared by other School staff.
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Criminal Offenses > Larceny, Embezzlement & Related Offenses > Possession of Stolen Goods > Knew/Reason to Believe Item Was Stolen
In this Brunswick County case, defendant appealed his conviction for possession of a stolen firearm, arguing error in denying his motion to dismiss for insufficient evidence. The Court of Appeals majority found no error, affirming the denial.
In January of 2022, officers were observing a hotel known as a hub for illegal activity in Shallotte. One officer noticed a vehicle registered to defendant, who had four felony warrants. The officers observed the vehicle until defendant returned, and approached him as he was in the vehicle with the door open. After a brief discussion, defendant closed the door and fled in the vehicle, leading officers on a high-speed chase that ended in a crash. A search of defendant’s hotel room turned up narcotics and .38 caliber ammunition, and a search of the vehicle found a .38 caliber revolver hidden in a compartment next to the steering wheel. The revolver was reported stolen. When moving to dismiss the charge, defendant argued the State did not prove he knew the gun was stolen; the trial court denied the motion and defendant was convicted.
Taking up defendant’s arguments, the Court of Appeals looked to a line of cases holding that “a defendant’s knowledge of property being stolen . . . may be evinced by incriminating circumstances.” Slip Op. at 7. Here, defendant fled from officers, hid his gun in a special compartment in the vehicle, and denied having a gun when asked directly by the officers. The court concluded these facts represented incriminating circumstances that were substantial evidence defendant knew the gun was stolen.
Judge Murphy dissented, disagreeing with the majority’s conclusion that the State met its burden of proving defendant knew or had reasonable grounds to believe the gun was stolen.
The evidence was sufficient to support a conviction for possession of stolen property. The defendant challenged only the sufficiency of the evidence that he knew or had reasonable grounds to believe that the items were stolen. Here, the defendant had possession of stolen property valued at more than $1,000, which he sold for only $114; although the defendant told a detective that he obtained the stolen property from a “white man,” he could not provide the man’s name; and the defendant did not specifically tell the detective that he bought the items from this unidentified man and he did not produce a receipt.
The court held that there was sufficient evidence to sustain the defendant’s conviction for possession of a stolen vehicle, rejecting the defendant’s argument that he did not have reason to believe the vehicle was stolen, in part because the defendant’s own statements indicated otherwise.
In a possession of stolen goods case, the evidence was insufficient to establish that the defendant knew that the item at issue, a four-wheeler, was stolen. Distinguishing State v. Lofton, 66 N.C. App. 79 (1984), the court noted, among other things, that the cosmetic changes to the four-wheeler were minimal,the defendant openly drove the four-wheeler, and the defendant did not flee from police. Additionally, there was no evidence regarding how the defendant got possession of the four-wheeler.
The evidence was insufficient to establish that the defendant knew a gun was stolen. Case law establishes that guilty knowledge can be inferred from the act of throwing away a stolen weapon. In this case, shortly after a robbery, the defendant and an accomplice went to the home of the accomplice’s mother, put the gun in her bedroom, and left the house. These actions were not analogous to throwing an item away for purposes of inferring knowledge that an item was stolen.