Jones v. State

814 S.W.2d 801, 1991 Tex. App. LEXIS 1871, 1991 WL 135987
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedJuly 25, 1991
DocketC14-90-00993-CR
StatusPublished
Cited by26 cases

This text of 814 S.W.2d 801 (Jones v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Jones v. State, 814 S.W.2d 801, 1991 Tex. App. LEXIS 1871, 1991 WL 135987 (Tex. Ct. App. 1991).

Opinion

OPINION

ELLIS, Justice.

Appellant, Chester Josh Jones, appeals his judgment of conviction for the offense of felony theft. Texas Penal Code Ann. § 31.03 (Vernon 1989). Appellant waived trial by jury and the Court rejected appellant’s not guilty plea and, after finding the two enhancement paragraphs of the indictment to be true, assessed punishment at life confinement in the Institutional Division of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, We affirm.

Viewed in the light most favorable to the verdict the evidence showed the following. On August 23, 1989, Harvey Oudekerk worked as an electrical contractor at the job site of a three-story office building. At about 5:00 p.m. Oudekerk went to see Duncan Frazee, the project manager at Year-out-Ledet Construction. While returning to his office from seeing Frazee, Oudekerk passed the job site, and saw some men loading material into a parked truck. Oudekerk returned to the Yearout Construction office to ask Frazee about the men, and they called the police.

Frazee and Oudekerk returned to the job site, where they saw four people loading aluminum mullions onto a truck. A Mullion is a piece of aluminum that holds window glass into a structure. They watched the men for about five minutes. When the men began to leave, Frazee yelled at them to stop. Oudederk testified that the men appeared to have heard Frazee but did not stop. Instead, the truck proceeded west. Oudekerk and Frazee followed the truck in separate vehicles. On FM 249, Oudekerk *803 flagged down a Sheriff’s vehicle and gave a Deputy Thomas a description of the truck and its license plate number. Oudekerk and Frazee had lost sight of the truck for about three minutes, but saw the truck again while talking to Thomas. They pointed out the truck to Thomas, and all three of them pursued the truck.

Thomas pulled the truck over, and Oude-kerk recognized the people who got out of the truck as the same individuals who had loaded the mullions onto the truck earlier. The aluminum mullions, which were still on the truck, were moved to the job site. Oudekerk, Frazee and Ron Yearout, the owner of Yearout construction, returned to the job site and unloaded the mullions.

Later, Officer Thomas went to the job site to take pictures of the mullions. Thomas determined there were twenty-eight mullions on the truck. Thomas also testified that Frazee and Oudekerk identified the men he stopped as the same men they saw loading the mullions.

In his first point of error, appellant asserts the evidence is insufficient to prove that the value of the stolen property exceeded the minimum jurisdictional amount of $750.00.

In reviewing the sufficiency of the evidence, the Court must determine whether, after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. Butler v. State, 769 S.W.2d 234 (Tex.Crim.App.1989). We find that, considering the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict, there was sufficient evidence for the trial court to find the value of the mullions exceeded seven hundred fifty dollars.

According to Tex.Penal Code Ann. § 31.-08(a) (Vernon’s 1989), the definition of value is:

(1) the fair market value of the property or service at the time and place of the offense; or
(2) if the fair market value of the property cannot be ascertained, the cost of replacing the property within a reasonable time after the theft.

Fair market value must be established if the testimony concerning value is given by someone other than the owner. Sullivan v. State, 701 S.W.2d 905, 908 (Tex.Crim.App.1986). It has long been the rule in this State that the owner of property is competent to testify as to the value of his own property. Id. When an owner testifies, the presumption is that the owner is testifying to an estimation of the fair market value. Id. Thus, the owner may testify as to the fair market value of the property either in terms of purchase price or the cost to him of replacing the stolen property. Id. (emphasis added.) Because an owner’s testimony is an offer of the witness’s best knowledge of the value of his property, such testimony constitutes sufficient evidence for the trier of fact to make a determination as to value based on the witness’s credibility. Id. at 909. If appellant wishes to rebut the owner’s opinion evidence he must do more than merely impeach the witness’ credibility during cross-examination; he must offer controverting evidence as to the value of the property. Id.

The State alleged Donald Frazee as the owner of the aluminum mullions. In a prosecution for theft, the State may allege ownership by alleging a person who has a greater right to possession of the property than the defendant. Inman v. State, 650 S.W.2d 417, 419 (Tex.Crim.App.1983). Frazee testified as to the replacement value of the mullions, but appellant asserts that Frazee’s testimony was not sufficient to establish the value of the mullions.

In Ketchum v. State, 707 S.W.2d 718, 719 (Tex.App.—Texarkana 1986 no pet.), the witness testified to the replacement value of the stolen items and not to their fair market value. As in the case before this Court, appellant argued that because the witness was only the manager of the store and testified as to the replacement value, the evidence was insufficient to support the conviction. Id. The Court disagreed, stating that the manager of the store from which the items were taken, *804 was the owner for purposes of the prosecution. Id., quoting Sullivan v. State, supra, the court noted that an owner may testify as to the replacement value of the property and that will be sufficient. Id. Frazee testified that as project manager of the site he had care, custody and control of the aluminum mullions. There were two types of mullions at the job site: new mullions purchased from a factory in Bay City, Texas and older mullions purchased from a job site in Huntsville, Texas. Frazee stated that he did not know if new or old mullions were stolen, but he did know that to replace the mullions, be they newly purchased or taken from Huntsville, would cost $6.90 per linear foot. Frazee testified that the total linear footage of the stolen mullions was twenty-eight times twelve feet, and the actual cost of the mullions themselves was two thousand four hundred and ninety dollars ($2490). Frazee testified that they measured the mullions depicted in State’s Exhibits nos. 1 through 10. The mullions were counted at the site where the truck was pulled over and again when they unloaded the mullions at the site. Frazee testified that every mullion on the truck came from their construction site.

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Bluebook (online)
814 S.W.2d 801, 1991 Tex. App. LEXIS 1871, 1991 WL 135987, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/jones-v-state-texapp-1991.