State v. Estrella

133 N.W.2d 97, 257 Iowa 462, 1965 Iowa Sup. LEXIS 600
CourtSupreme Court of Iowa
DecidedFebruary 9, 1965
Docket51461
StatusPublished
Cited by30 cases

This text of 133 N.W.2d 97 (State v. Estrella) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Iowa primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Estrella, 133 N.W.2d 97, 257 Iowa 462, 1965 Iowa Sup. LEXIS 600 (iowa 1965).

Opinions

Larson, J.

— By a county attorney’s information defendant was charged with the crime of shoplifting of goods of a value in excess of $20, in violation of section 709.20, Code of Iowa, 1962. Pursuant to trial and conviction he was sentenced to five years imprisonment in the state penitentiary. Six assigned errors are relied upon for reversal.

[465]*465 I. Appellant first contends the court erred in overruling his motion for a directed verdict based upon the insufficiency of the evidence. The rule is well established in this jurisdiction that criminal cases should be submitted to the jury if there is substantial evidence tending to support or reasonably tending to support the charge. State v. Miskell, 247 Iowa 678, 686, 73 N.W.2d 36; State v. Anderson, 239 Iowa 1118, 1125, 33 N.W.2d 1, and cases cited therein. This evidence may be direct or circumstantial or a combination of each. State v. Manly, 211 Iowa 1043, 233 N.W. 110; State v. Heinz, 223 Iowa 1241, 275 N.W. 10, 114 A. L. R. 959.

In considering a motion for a directed, verdict the evidence, of course, is to be viewed in the light most favorable to the party against whom the motion is directed. No authority need be cited in support of that proposition, but see 23A O. J. S., Criminal Law, section 1145(3)h; State v. Anderson, supra.

The record discloses that as Mr. Robert Williams, the owner of the Hub Clothiers store in Algona, Iowa, was watching television in the rear of his store shortly after 5 p.m. on December 14, 1963, he heard something fall to the floor near the front of the store. He turned in time to see someone going out the door. He called out offering to wait upon this person, but the party merely looked back, left the store hastily, and in doing so dropped something blue. Mr. Williams ran to the front of the store, picked up a long-sleeved knit sport shirt from the floor where it had been dropped, and stepped outside in time to see the party, later identified as the defendant, walking westward on State Street “outside the cars.” Williams could not see him carrying anything, but when he returned to the store he noticed three or four piles of shirts were gone from the place they were normally kept. He called the police, locked the store, and went in search of the party he had seen leave the store. He was joined by a highway patrol officer. They observed Dick Beisell sitting in his car near the corner of that block and asked him if he had seen anybody of defendant’s description. Williams said he told them he had seen such a man going south with unwrapped shirts in his arms, that this man had turned into the alley behind Sheakley’s store and had returned a few minutes later empty-armed.

[466]*466Williams and tbe. officer, went down, tbe, alley and found ten shjrts bearing tbe Hub store markings under an-air. conditioner at the rear of Sheakley’s store. Williams testified tbe retail price of these shirts totaled $71.60. He said they were returned to the Hub store and placed on a counter separate from other merchandise. The -following Monday, December 16, the sheriff, at. Williams- -request, took a picture of these shirts, and .the photograph was later introduced in evidence as State’s Exhibit A.

, ; Mr. Beisell testified he saw. defendant come down the street with his arms loaded with clothing or wearing apparel of bright colors. He said defendant came from the east and went south to the alley behind the Sheakley store, then east down the alley, and that defendant soon reappeared without the apparel.

Defendant’s sole evidence was given by Officer Richard Groen, who said he arrested defendant in Rusk’s Drug Store in Algona at about 5:45 or 5:50 p.m. on that day. The officer was called there because defendant was causing a disturbance. Officer Groen testified he observed defendant standing in the store, that defendant did not stagger around, that he talked with defendant, that defendant gave him his name, and that defendant.willingly left the store with him. The officer also said defendant was later, sentenced to 15 days in jail on an intoxication charge in the mayor’s court.

The direct evidence produced by the State is sufficient to sustain a jury finding of guilt. Williams and Beisell positively identified the defendant and connected him with the taking and concealing of store apparel. Williams saw him as he left the store and as he walked westward down the street. He saw defendant’s face, his build, and his wearing apparel. True, he could not say he saw the defendant carrying this merchandise, for at all times defendant was moving away from Williams and could have been carrying the shirts in such ¿ way that they could not be.seen from the rear. Qn the other hand, Beisell saw defendant at approximately the same time approaching from the east,’saw him carrying’unwrapped shirts, and observed his course of travel to the alley where the. shirts were found a short time later. Thus, we find no contradiction in Williams’ testimony. While he said he saw no shirts in' defendant’s arms as he fled from the store, he did not say defendant was leaving empty-handed.

[467]*467The dropped shirt, plus' the noted absence of thrée or' four piles of" shirts from the counter, gave rise to a fair and reasonable conclusion that they were taken from the store by defendant. The immediate discovery of the place- that defendant hid -the shirts would also give rise to a fair and reasonable conclusion that they were so concealed by him. Indeed, appellant suggests no other reasonable hypothesis from the facts disclosed by th'ese witnesses. Thus there is no merit in the contention that this evidence was merely circumstantial and, as such, insufficient to sustain a conviction. The cases of State v. Whisler, 231 Iowa 1216, 3 N.W.2d 525, and State v. Cristani, 192 Iowa 615, 185 N.W. 111, cited by appellant, are not in point, for in each the evidence relied upon for conviction was entirely circumstantial and clearly insufficient to sustain a conviction. Convictions may, of course, be had on purely circumstantial evidence.

We conclude under this record there was substantial evidence, both direct and circumstantial, which reasonably' tended to support the verdict.

II. In his-second assignment'appellant contends that a photograph, State’s Exhibit A, was erroneously admitted. We are definitely committed to the rule of admissibility where proper ■foundation has been laid. State v. Ebelsheiser, 242 Iowa 49, 56, 43 N.W.2d 706, 19 A. L. R.2d 865. The photograph herd was shown to be a true representation of the stack of shirts, something which it purported to represent. Since a verbal description of these shirts would have been admissible, the photograph was admissible. Such a photograph would be competent evidence of that which would be competent and relevant if verbally- described by a witness. State v. Ladehoff, 255 Iowa 659, 666, 122 N.W.2d 829, 834; State v. Ebelsheiser, supra; State v. Leib, 198 Iowa 1315, 201 N.W. 29; 23 C. J. S., Criminal Law, section 852(1). Mr. Williams here identified the exhibit as a photograph of the shirts that were taken from his store on the evening of December 14. He had placed them on that counter'when returning them to the store. Sheriff Ralph W.

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Bluebook (online)
133 N.W.2d 97, 257 Iowa 462, 1965 Iowa Sup. LEXIS 600, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-estrella-iowa-1965.