State v. Vargas

268 P.3d 1192, 152 Idaho 240, 2012 Ida. App. LEXIS 9
CourtIdaho Court of Appeals
DecidedJanuary 23, 2012
Docket38274
StatusPublished

This text of 268 P.3d 1192 (State v. Vargas) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Idaho Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Vargas, 268 P.3d 1192, 152 Idaho 240, 2012 Ida. App. LEXIS 9 (Idaho Ct. App. 2012).

Opinion

LANSING, Judge.

Abraham Vargas appeals from his conviction for grand theft following a jury trial. Vargas asserts that the district court erred by refusing his requested jury instruction concerning the definition of “value.” He also asserts that his conviction must be reduced to petit theft because the State failed to introduce sufficient evidence either that he possessed all of the stolen property at issue or that the value of the property exceeded one thousand dollars. We affirm.

I.

BACKGROUND

In March 2010, a Cassia County farm operator hired an irrigation pump company to do some work on one of its wells. The crew pulled nineteen ten-foot pieces of pipe 1 from the well and left the material on the ground on a Friday with the intent to re-install it the *242 following week. When the crew arrived the following Monday, however, the pipe was gone.

When alerted to the loss, the farm manager went directly to a local recycling scrapyard and asked the owner whether he had seen the pipe. The owner immediately directed the farm manager to the pipe, which the scrapyard had purchased for $332.52. The scrapyard relinquished the pipe back to the farm and it was reinstalled in the well. The scrapyard owner also gave police the license plate number and a copy of the driver’s license of the individual who brought the pipe to the yard. These showed the individual to be Vargas.

Vargas was interviewed by the police and subsequently charged with grand theft by possession of stolen property with a value in excess of one thousand dollars. Idaho Code §§ 18-2403(4), 18-2407(l)(b)(l). Vargas was found guilty at a jury trial, and he appeals the consequent conviction.

II.

ANALYSIS

A. The District Court Did Not Err by Refusing Vargas’s Requested Jury Instruction on Value

To establish Vargas’s guilt of felony grand theft, the State was required to prove, among other elements, that the theft involved property with a “value” in excess of one thousand dollars. I.C. § 18-2407(l)(b)(l). A specific definition of value applicable to theft cases is given in Idaho Code § 18-2402(ll)(a):

[Vlalue means the market value of the property at the time and place of the crime, or if such cannot be satisfactorily ascertained, the cost of replacement of the property within a reasonable time after the crime.

Vargas requested that the following instruction be given to the jury concerning value:

The term “value” as used in these instructions means as follows:

The market value of the property at the time and place of the crime, or if the market value cannot be satisfactorily ascertained, value can be shown by any number of measures including salvage value, replacement cost, purchase price, and the property’s general use and purpose.

The district court refused the requested instruction, holding that it was inconsistent with the statutory definition of “value.” The district court instead instructed the jury with the statutory definition, but said that Vargas was free to argue in closing that the jury should use the salvage price paid by the scrapyard in its determination of the market value of the pipe. Vargas posits error in the refusal of his requested instruction.

There was no error. When a statute provides the definition of a term as used in the same or a related statute, it is correct, of course, to instruct the jury with that definition.

Vargas’s proposed instruction was derived from this Court’s comments in State v. Johnson, 149 Idaho 259, 233 P.3d 190 (Ct.App.2010), a grand theft case. Although we there applied the Idaho Code § 18-2402(ll)(a) definition of value to the facts of the case, our opinion also included the following remarks:

Although salvage value may be admissible and relevant to determine the value of stolen items, it is not ipso facto the market value of property that has been sold for scrap. As we stated in State v. Hughes, 130 Idaho 698, 703, 94-6 P.2d 1338, 1343 (Ct.App.1997), if market value cannot be established, value can be shown by any number of measures other than just salvage value including purchase price, replacement cost, and the property’s general use and purpose. The choice of which measure is appropriate depends upon the circumstances of the individual case. Salvage value generally will not be the appropriate measure if it was the defendant’s actions that caused the item to be useless for anything other than scrap. State v. Cope, 7 Ariz.App. 295, 438 P.2d 442, 444-45 (1968); McClure v. State, 295 Ga.App. 465, 673 S.E.2d 856, 858 (2009); State v. Albert, 117 Or. 179, 242 P. 1116, 1118 (1926).

Johnson, 149 Idaho at 263, 233 P.3d at 194 (emphasis added). The case from which the *243 italicized language above was drawn, State v. Hughes, 130 Idaho 698, 703, 946 P.2d 1338, 1343 (Ct.App.1997), addressed a felony malicious destruction of property charge. The inquiry in Hughes was how to measure the value of the damage caused by the defendant’s destruction of the victim’s property. Unlike the grand theft statutes, the statute defining the crime of malicious destruction of property includes no definition of “value.” See I.C. § 18-7001; Hughes, 130 Idaho at 702-03, 946 P.2d at 1342-43. Thus, in Hughes, this Court was called upon to define how value may be proven when no statutory definition has been provided. Our incorporation of this portion of our Hughes analysis into the Johnson opinion was ill advised because, for the grand theft charge at issue in Johnson, the method of measuring value is that specified in Idaho Code § 18-2402(ll)(a). That statute directs that, for theft cases, if the market value cannot be satisfactorily ascertained, value is to be determined by “the cost of replacement of the property within a reasonable time after the crime.” Therefore, utilization of alternative measures identified in Hughes for malicious destruction of property cases would be inappropriate in theft cases. The district court did not err in rejecting Vargas’s proposed instruction which presented methods of measuring value that are inconsistent with the governing statute.

B. The State Provided Sufficient Evidence that the Value of the Pipe Exceeded One Thousand Dollars

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Related

State v. Johnson
233 P.3d 190 (Idaho Court of Appeals, 2010)
State v. Knutson
822 P.2d 998 (Idaho Court of Appeals, 1991)
State v. Hughes
946 P.2d 1338 (Idaho Court of Appeals, 1997)
State v. Byington
977 P.2d 203 (Idaho Supreme Court, 1999)
State v. Cope
438 P.2d 442 (Court of Appeals of Arizona, 1968)
State v. Decker
701 P.2d 303 (Idaho Court of Appeals, 1985)
State v. Herrera-Brito
957 P.2d 1099 (Idaho Court of Appeals, 1998)
McClure v. State
673 S.E.2d 856 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 2009)
State v. Albert
242 P. 1116 (Oregon Supreme Court, 1926)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
268 P.3d 1192, 152 Idaho 240, 2012 Ida. App. LEXIS 9, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-vargas-idahoctapp-2012.