Opinion
E032766.
10-10-2003
THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. DAVID CHARLES ROMINE, Defendant and Appellant.
Lizabeth Weis, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant. Bill Lockyer, Attorney General, Robert R. Anderson, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Gary W. Schons, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Marvin Mizell and Pat Zaharopoulos, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
A jury convicted appellant of receiving stolen property (Pen. Code, § 496, subd. (a)) but acquitted him of grand theft and burglary. The trial court found true allegations that appellant had served three prior prison terms (§ 667.5, subd. (b)) and had a prior serious or violent felony conviction (§§ 667, subds. (c) and (e); 1170.12, subd. (c)). The trial court sentenced appellant to the midterm of two years for receiving stolen property, doubled to four years for the prior strike, with an additional year for each of the prior prison terms, for a total sentence of seven years.
On appeal, appellant contends that insufficient evidence was introduced at trial to establish that appellant knew the tools were stolen, and so the conviction must be reversed.
FACTS
The victim was working as a plumbing supervisor at an apartment building construction site. On a Friday afternoon, the victim and other workers placed their personal tools in a toolshed in the back of the construction site office trailer. The victim marked his personal tools with yellow paint to identify them as his. Only the victim, another supervisor, and the job foreman had keys to the toolshed.
On Monday morning, the victim was the first to open the toolshed and discovered that most of the tools were gone. It appeared the thief had attempted to cut the padlock to the shed, but ended by prying open a sheet of metal over a window and reaching inside. The victim reported the theft to his boss, who called police.
Another worker, Jose Robles, testified that he was among the first to arrive at the job site on Monday morning. He said that appellant arrived at the job site in a green van and offered to sell him a pair of pipe cutters for $20. When Mr. Robles said he did not need them and had no money, appellant asked him if he would take the pipe cutters and see if anyone on his crew would buy them. Mr. Robles agreed and placed the pipe cutters in his tool bucket. Mr. Robles admitted that he had a prior conviction for a theft offense in 1989, for which he served probation and paid back $1,400 in restitution.
Later that day, the victim noticed the pipe cutters in the tool bucket of Mr. Robles, a member of his crew. Most of the yellow paint had been sanded or scraped off the pipe cutters but remnants remained in some of the rivets. The victim asked Mr. Robles where he had gotten the pipe cutters, and he said that a "gringo guy" with a green van had given them to him.
When police arrived, they asked the victim to prepare a list of missing tools and their approximate value, and he did so. The police then contacted appellant, and asked for and received permission to search his van. Inside the van were two ice chests containing tools. The victim identified a number of tools as belonging to him, although none were marked with yellow paint because they were relatively new. Police then arrested appellant.
Police later searched appellants apartment and did not find any stolen tools. A drill set belonging to another worker that was also stolen from the shed was never recovered. Police did not test the shed or tools for fingerprints because they were unsuitable surfaces for using the "basic fingerprint kits" provided to patrol officers. Another employee of the plumbing contractor had been fired recently and was not at work on Friday or Monday.
Appellant presented detailed testimony describing his whereabouts from Friday afternoon to Monday morning. The only time periods during which he was not with his daughter or friend were: a one-hour period Saturday morning during which he apparently took recyclable materials to a salvage center; a two-hour period Saturday afternoon during which he apparently went to a plumbing supply company and purchased a welding torch accessory; late Saturday night to Sunday morning around 10:00 a.m.; and Sunday night after 10:00 p.m. through Monday morning.
The prosecution charged appellant with theft, burglary and receiving stolen property. The jury acquitted him of theft and burglary, but convicted him of receiving stolen property.
DISCUSSION
Appellant contends there was insufficient evidence to support the conviction because there was insufficient evidence that he knew the tools were stolen.
Our review of any claim of insufficiency of the evidence is limited. It is the exclusive function of the trier of fact to assess the credibility of witnesses and draw reasonable inferences from the evidence. (People v. Barnes (1986) 42 Cal.3d 284, 303; see also People v. Hale (1999) 75 Cal.App.4th 94, 105.) If the evidence presented below is subject to differing inferences, the reviewing court must assume that the trier of fact resolved all conflicting inferences in favor of the prosecution. (Jackson v. Virginia (1979) 443 U.S. 307, 326.) A reviewing court is precluded from making its own subjective determination of guilt. (Id. at p. 319, fn. 13.)
"`In assessing the sufficiency of the evidence, we review the entire record in the light most favorable to the judgment to determine whether it discloses evidence that is reasonable, credible, and of solid value such that a reasonable trier of fact could find the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. [Citations.] Reversal on this ground is unwarranted unless it appears "that upon no hypothesis whatever is there sufficient
substantial evidence to support [the conviction]." [Citations.] [Citation.]" (People v. Parra (1999) 70 Cal.App.4th 222, 225, quoting People v. Bolin (1998) 18 Cal.4th 297, 331.)
"Proof of the crime of receiving stolen property requires establishing that the property in question was stolen, that the defendant was in possession of it, and that the defendant knew the property to be stolen. [Citations.]" (People v. Anderson (1989) 210 Cal.App.3d 414, 420.) Furthermore, it is well settled that possession of stolen property in itself raises a strong inference that all other elements of the crime are also present, and only slight additional corroboration is necessary to sustain a conviction for possession of stolen property. (Id. at p. 421.) For example, possession of stolen property, coupled with the fact that defendant either could not explain at all how he acquired the property or provided an unsatisfactory explanation, is sufficient to support the conviction. (People v. Shope (1982) 128 Cal.App.3d 816, 821; accord, People v. Peters (1982) 128 Cal.App.3d 75, 82-83.) Finally, the slight corroboration can be in the form of an inference from circumstantial evidence. (People v. Alvarado (1982) 133 Cal.App.3d. 1003, 1019.)
Here, tools were stolen from a fenced construction site over the weekend. On Monday, appellant possessed a number of the stolen tools in his van and tried to sell one of them. Appellant did not present any evidence at trial to explain how he had come to possess the tools, either in the form of his own testimony or by asking the police witness whether he had offered an explanation at the time of his arrest. Under People v. Shope, supra, 128 Cal.App.3d 816, this possession of the stolen tools so soon after the theft and the lack of any explanation as to how he came to possess them provides sufficient evidence from which the jury could have concluded beyond a reasonable doubt that he knew the tools were stolen and was in fact guilty of receiving stolen property.
DISPOSITION
The judgment is affirmed.
We concur: Hollenhorst J. and Gaut J. --------------- Notes: All further section references are to the Penal code unless otherwise specified.