Fields v. State

1983 OK CR 106, 666 P.2d 1301, 1983 Okla. Crim. App. LEXIS 290
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma
DecidedJuly 29, 1983
DocketF-81-617
StatusPublished
Cited by13 cases

This text of 1983 OK CR 106 (Fields v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Fields v. State, 1983 OK CR 106, 666 P.2d 1301, 1983 Okla. Crim. App. LEXIS 290 (Okla. Ct. App. 1983).

Opinion

OPINION

BRETT, Judge:

Appellants, Wallace Geary Fields and Sarah Fields, were charged- in the District Court of Delaware County in Case No. CRF-80-183 with the offense of Knowingly Concealing Stolen Property under 21 O.S. 1971, § 1713. A supplement to the information charged appellant Wallace Geary Fields with a former conviction of the same offense. They were tried by a jury, convicted, and sentenced to serve seven and five years, respectively, in the custody of the State of Oklahoma Department of Corrections. From the judgments and sentences entered in accordance with the jury’s verdicts, both appellants have appealed to this Court.

Appellants first contend that the State’s circumstantial case against them was insufficient to support a conviction. In their second assignment of error they argue that the trial court erred in failing to direct a verdict of acquittal for appellants at the close of the State’s evidence. In regard to these contentions, a thorough recitation of the facts presented to the jury is necessary.

On August 30,1980, Steve and Susie Williams, owners of the Koffee Kup Kafe in Grove, Oklahoma, left their residence, along with her parents and their son, to visit St. Louis, Missouri for several days. The employees of the restaurant, including appellant Sarah Fields, knew about the trip. When the Williamses returned on September 2,1980, they discovered that their house had been burglarized and that approximately $45,000 in cash had been stolen. The money, which had been kept inside a grandfather clock, consisted of various denominations organized as follows: three five-thousand-dollar bundles of hundred-dollar bills, ten one-thousand-dollar bundles of fifty-dollar bills, thirty-eight five-hundred-dollar bundles of twenty-dollar bills, twelve fifty-dollar bundles of two-dollar bills, and a bundle of mixed bills that added up to almost two hundred dollars.

Each bundle was paper clipped together and had a piece of adding machine tape on it designating the amount of money in each stack. The two-dollar bill bundles also had a rubber band around each end. The only other property missing from the house was a piggy bank.

Appellant Sarah Fields missed several days of work the following week, and terminated her employment at the Koffee Kup Kafe on or about the 18th of September, 1980. Several days later, a search warrant was issued for the appellants’ residence. The following amounts of cash were found: fifty-two two-dollar bills, thirteen hundred-dollar bills, one hundred fifteen dollars in mixed bills, and almost three hundred dol *1303 lars in coin. Some of the money was found inside towels and other linens. In addition, ninety-five dollars was found on appellant Geary Fields’ person, and eight thousand dollars in fifties and hundred-dollar bills was found inside the wooden leg of a third person at the residence.

Susie Williams testified that prior to the burglary, she and Ms. Fields had been best friends, but that the relationship changed afterward. She also testified that Ms. Fields earned $1,900 in 1980, that she had been a conservative spender before the burglary, and that she (Ms. Fields) was the only person other than the witness, her husband, and her parents, who knew about the large cash savings kept in the Williams-es’ home.

The remainder of the State’s case was comprised of individuals who had received cash payments from the appellants after the burglary. Cindy Swanson, a credit clerk at Montgomery Wards in Joplin, Missouri, testified that on September 4, 1980, Ms. Fields paid her $126.77 in two-dollar bills which were in bundles of fifty dollars each and were fastened together either by paper clips or rubber bands. Curtis Ken-ney, the owner of a store in Langley, Oklahoma, testified that on September 4, 1980, he sold appellants a television set costing approximately $1,070 for which they paid with two or three hundred-dollar bills, a few fifties, and the remainder in twenty-dollar bills.

Betty Mustain, the operator of a furniture store in Grove, Oklahoma, testified that on September 2,1980, several items of furniture costing approximately $676 were bought and paid for by appellants in cash, mostly with fifty-dollar bills. Chester Crit-tenden testified that sometime during September, October or November he sold appellants a tractor for which they paid the $1,000 purchase price with twenty-dollar bills. Finally, James LeMaster testified that sometime during August or September of 1980, he delivered a load of lumber and sheet metal to the appellants’ house and was paid approximately $2,900 in twenty-dollar bills which were paper clipped into bundles.

After this testimony, the State rested. Appellants moved for a directed verdict, which the trial court denied. Appellants presented no evidence. After instructions and closing arguments, the case went to the jury.

We will consider appellants’ first and fifth assignments of error together. In their first assignment of error, appellants contend that the evidence presented by the State was insufficient to justify a conviction of the crime charged. The fifth assignment of error alleges that the circumstantial evidence failed to exclude every reasonable hypothesis but that of guilt.

Initially we note that their brief erroneously states that one of the elements of the crime of Knowingly Concealing Stolen Property is that the property was stolen by a person other than the one charged with concealing it. Although that is a requirement for receiving stolen property, the only requirements of proof for Knowingly Concealing Stolen Property are: (1) knowledge that the property was stolen, and (2) the act of concealing the property in some manner from the rightful owner. Walls v. State, 491 P.2d 320 (Okl.Cr.1971).

Appellants assert that the State did not prove these elements as there was no showing that the money found in appellants’ house was the same money stolen from the Williamses’ house. As stated in Carter v. State, 595 P.2d 1352 (Okl.Cr.1979), the State is not required to prove that an accused had actual knowledge that the property was stolen. It is sufficient to prove that the accused had reasonable cause to believe the property was stolen. And while mere possession of property recently stolen is not alone sufficient proof of such knowledge, that fact supplemented with other facts inconsistent with honest possession does create a question of fact for the jury.

When the State presents only circumstantial evidence, as in the case at bar, the circumstances proved must not only be *1304 consistent with each other, but inconsistent with any reasonable hypothesis other than the defendant’s guilt, and a conviction cannot stand where the evidence establishes no more than a mere suspicion of guilt. Fain v. State, 551 P.2d 1140 (Okl.Cr.1976).

It is our opinion that the circumstantial evidence presented in this case was sufficient for the jury to conclude there was no reasonable hypothesis other than that appellants knew the money was stolen and that they concealed it from the rightful owner. This Court has consistently held that the weight of all evidence- — circumstantial as well as direct — is for the jury. We will not disturb the jury’s verdict when there is evidence, albeit circumstantial, to support that verdict. Carter,

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Bluebook (online)
1983 OK CR 106, 666 P.2d 1301, 1983 Okla. Crim. App. LEXIS 290, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/fields-v-state-oklacrimapp-1983.