Opinion
CA CR 09-592
Opinion Delivered January 27, 2010
Appeal from the Pulaski County Circuit Court, [No. CR2007-3866], Honorable John Langston, Judge, Affirmed.
A Pulaski County judge found Napoleon Haire guilty of breaking or entering, misdemeanor theft of property, criminal trespass, and criminal mischief in the first degree. These convictions also served as the basis for revoking Haire's probation on other charges. Haire appeals the conviction for breaking or entering and the revocation of his probation, challenging the sufficiency of the evidence to show that he committed the crime of breaking or entering. We affirm.
On February 16, 2007, Haire pleaded guilty to breaking or entering and was sentenced to three years' probation. As part of his probation, he was banned from the Fun Wash Coin Laundry on Baseline Road in Little Rock and required to pay restitution. The State filed a petition to revoke that probation after alleging that he committed the offenses of breaking or entering, theft of property, criminal trespass, and criminal mischief in the first degree. Haire waived his right to a jury trial on these charges, and his trial and the revocation hearing were held simultaneously.
The State's evidence shows the following. On September 8, 2007, the sound alarm went off at the Fun Wash. The alarm is not on the door, as Fun Wash is a twenty-four-hour facility, but the alarm sounds if the volume levels hit a certain peak. General manager Tammy McNew was at home at the time, but she had a live video feed of the Fun Wash. She went to the video upon hearing the alarm, and she saw Haire in the Fun Wash with a crowbar. She immediately secured the store at that time. McNew did not see Haire do anything with the crowbar, but she went to the store the next day to find that someone had pried open the locks on the coin boxes of some of the dryers. During trial, the State introduced a photograph showing Haire in the Fun Wash at 1:17 a.m. He was the only person in the picture. McNew testified that no one else entered the store until she arrived the next morning. The store had been broken into twenty to twenty-five times over the previous two years. According to McNew, Haire was the culprit on at least eight occasions, and on all but one occasion, the damage was similar to the damage that occurred on September 8, 2007. On a previous occasion, Little Rock police responded to a burglary call at the Fun Wash. On April 27, 2008, Officer Ethan Williams was called to the store and was informed that the suspect was in the bathroom. He ordered the suspect out, and Haire came out of the bathroom holding a crowbar and a marker.
Haire moved for dismissal at the conclusion of the State's case, and the motion was denied. The court then found him guilty of the aforementioned crimes and, as a result of the convictions, found that he had violated the terms and conditions of his probation. He was ultimately sentenced to a six-year term in the Arkansas Department of Correction, with two years suspended.
Haire challenges the sufficiency of the evidence to support both the conviction for breaking or entering and the revocation of his probation. He asserts that there was no direct evidence to show that he broke into any of the coin boxes and that there was no way McNew could know whether he was the person who broke into the coin boxes.
When considering a challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence to support a conviction, we consider the evidence in the light most favorable to the State, considering only the evidence in favor of the guilty verdict, and affirm if the conviction is supported by substantial evidence. Mitchem v. State, 96 Ark. App. 78, 238 S.W.3d 623 (2006). Substantial evidence is evidence forceful enough to compel a conclusion one way or the other beyond suspicion or conjecture. Baughman v. State, 353 Ark. 1, 110 S.W.3d 740 (2003). We make no distinction between circumstantial and direct evidence when reviewing for sufficiency of the evidence. Booker v. State, 335 Ark. 316, 320, 984 S.W.2d 16, 19 (1998). However, for circumstantial evidence to be sufficient, it must exclude every other reasonable hypothesis consistent with innocence. Id. Whether the evidence excludes every other reasonable hypothesis is left to the trier of fact to determine. Id.
To prove that Haire committed the offense of breaking or entering, the State had to show that, with the purpose of committing a theft or felony, Haire broke or entered into a coin box or other similar container, apparatus, or equipment. See Ark. Code Ann. § 5-39-202(a)(4), (a)(6) (Supp. 2009). The State presented substantial circumstantial evidence to make such a showing. McNew viewed a live feed of her store upon receiving an alert on the sound alarm, and she saw Haire on the feed. A reasonable trier of fact could conclude that the noise was the result of someone breaking into the coin box. McNew also testified that she secured the store upon seeing Haire and that no one entered the store between the time she saw Haire and the time she went to the store the next morning. Further, a photograph shows Haire to be the only one in the Fun Wash at the time the alarm sounded. A reasonable trier of fact could conclude that Haire was the one that broke into the coin box. Thus, the State presented sufficient evidence to show that Haire broke into the coin box, and we affirm his conviction. A finding of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt of a new offense is itself a sufficient basis to revoke probation. See Gaines v. State, 313 Ark. 561, 855 S.W.2d 956 (1993). Therefore, we affirm the revocation of his probation as well.
Affirmed.
GRUBER and GLOVER, JJ., agree.