Opinion
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS
APPEAL from the Superior Court of Riverside County. Super.Ct.No. RIF132796, Patrick F. Magers, Judge.
Guillermo Cabrera, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.
Edmund G. Brown, Jr., Attorney General, Dane R. Gillette, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Gary W. Schons, Assistant Attorney General, Rhonda Cartwright-Ladendorf and Christine Levingston Bergman, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
OPINION
RAMIREZ, P. J.
INTRODUCTION
Stacey Lamont McClellan (defendant) challenges the sufficiency of the evidence supporting his conviction for grand theft. We will affirm.
FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY
On October 18, 2006, defendant stole a used, diesel, Volvo radiator from the T.M. Cobb Company (Cobb) in Riverside. As he attempted to leave the property with the stolen radiator in the back of his pickup truck, Cobb employees obstructed his exit by closing the gate. Defendant tried, unsuccessfully, to ram the gate; the employees responded by lifting his truck off the ground with a forklift. Defendant then fled the premises on foot but was apprehended by police about 15 to 20 minutes later.
Defendant was charged by information with grand theft (Pen. Code, § 487, subd. (a)), resisting arrest (§ 148, subd. (a)(1)), and vandalism (§ 594, subd. (b)(2)(A)). The information also alleged that defendant had served prison terms for three prior felony convictions and had not remained free of custody for five years following his release. (§ 667.5, subd. (b).)
All further statutory references are to the Penal Code unless otherwise indicated.
Jury trial began on May 3, 2007. Gary Smith (Smith), a maintenance manager who had worked at Cobb for 43 years, testified that the stolen radiator had been removed from a truck that was being used for parts to repair other trucks. The truck being used for parts had been taken out of commission because of a problem with its transmission or engine, not because of any problem with the radiator. To the best of Smith’s knowledge, the radiator was functioning at the time it was removed. It had been out of the truck for one or two months. Smith would have had it pressure-tested before he used it to repair another truck.
Mursal Vafai-Parvane (Parvane) testified as an expert about the value of the radiator. Parvane had worked for the past 15 years in a family business, V & L Repair, a licensed Rancho Cucamonga shop that repairs and salvages parts from big diesel trucks. Parvane testified that a new radiator of the kind stolen would sell for $1,322.47, including sales tax. So long as the radiator could pass a pressure test—a gravity test in which it is filled with water and observed for leaks—it would sell for anywhere from 40 to 80 percent of the “new” part price. The price of such a radiator would otherwise depend on the condition of the core and the radiator’s usability, wear and tear, and visual appeal. The lowest price of a radiator that passed the pressure test, but that was not “the most visually appealing” would be $507.39, based on 40 percent of the value of a new part. A middle price, based on 60 percent of the value of a new part, would be $761.08. The highest price, for an “immaculate” radiator, would be $1,014.78. If a radiator could not pass a pressure test, it would be worth somewhere between $200 and $300, depending on the current price of its component metals.
Parvane’s testimony, although somewhat confusing, appeared to be that “new” really means that the part has been rebuilt to original equipment manufacturer (OEM) standards.
The prosecutor showed Parvane a photograph, which the witness described as a “[n]ice picture,” of the stolen radiator. Assuming it passed the pressure test, Parvane thought the pictured radiator would sell for about 60 percent of the new part price. “[T]he core fins are in very good shape. There’s almost no damage to the core fins.” The radiator, Parvane said, looked like it had been “worked on” and possibly acid washed by a licensed radiator repair shop. And it appeared to have been recored and rebuilt: “It’s the same thing that the OEM manufacturer would do.” In response to a question from the prosecutor about whether the radiator on a truck whose transmission had died would be affected, Parvane noted that the radiator and the transmission are at opposite ends of the drive train. If the radiator had come out of a truck whose transmission had died but which was otherwise working and still on the road, “. . . my conclusion would be it was in real good condition.” Parvane had not done a pressure test on the stolen radiator and could not be “100 percent” sure if it was good without doing the test.
On May 7, 2007, a jury convicted defendant of all charges. On February 8, 2008, the court found the prison-prior allegations true. Defendant was sentenced to six years in state prison: three years for the grand theft plus one consecutive year for each of the three prison priors.
DISCUSSION
Defendant argues that because no one, including expert witness Parvane, had done a pressure test on the radiator there was insufficient evidence to support the jury’s conclusion that the stolen property was worth more than $400 and that defendant was therefore guilty of grand theft. We disagree.
Standard of Review for Sufficiency of the Evidence
When the sufficiency of the evidence to support a judgment is challenged on appeal, this court reviews the evidence in a light most favorable to the respondent and presumes the existence of every fact the trier of fact could reasonably deduce from the evidence. The test on appeal is whether substantial evidence supports the conclusion of the trier of fact, not whether the evidence proves guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. (People v. Hicks (1982) 128 Cal.App.3d 423, 429.) Before the judgment can be set aside for insufficiency of the evidence, it must be clear that on no hypothesis whatever is there sufficient evidence to support the jury’s verdict. (People v. Cuellar (2008) 165 Cal.App.4th 833, 838.)
Grand Theft
Grand theft is the taking of personal property whose fair market value exceeds $400. (§§ 484, 487, subd. (a).) Fair market value is not the lowest value that can be put on the stolen article. It is the highest price that can be obtained by a willing seller from a willing buyer. (People v. Pena (1977) 68 Cal.App.3d 100, 104.)
Here, there was substantial evidence from which the jury could reasonably conclude that the fair market value of the stolen radiator was more than $400. First, Smith testified that the radiator had been removed from a truck which was being used as an organ donor (our metaphor, not his) because its transmission had died, not because there was anything wrong with the radiator itself. Although it had been out of the truck for one or two months and Smith would have had it pressure-tested before he used it, to the best of his knowledge the radiator had been functioning at the time it was removed. Second, expert witness Parvane made it clear that the transmission and the radiator are at opposite ends of the drive train and a radiator removed from a truck that was running and on the road at the time would likely be in “real good condition.” Such a radiator would sell for about $761.08. Third, although he had not actually examined or pressure-tested the radiator, Parvane described the photograph he was shown as a “[n]ice picture.” The pictured radiator appeared to have been worked on, to have been acid-washed in a licensed radiator shop, and to have been rebuilt and recored to OEM standards. From this testimony, the jury could reasonably have deduced that the photograph was an accurate representation of the stolen radiator and that in fact it had been worked on and rebuilt as the expert opined. Fourth, from the fact that the item had been rebuilt, the jury could also have reasonably concluded that its owner considered it worth the effort and expense of the reconditioning and that this was true only because the radiator had passed or could pass the pressure test.
Defendant places much emphasis on similarities between this case and People v. Simpson (1938) 26 Cal.App.2d 223 (Simpson), insisting that the two are on “all fours” with each other. Not so. In Simpson, 12 magnetos were stolen from used tractors belonging to the California Tractor and Equipment Company. (Id. at p. 224.) At trial, expert witnesses for both sides testified as to the value of the stolen magnetos. None of the witnesses had actually examined the magnetos, which would have had to be disassembled to determine whether they were in working condition; each expert witness estimated their value solely from the outward appearance of the items. However, there was also no testimony as to the condition of the tractors from which the magnetos were stolen. (Ibid.)
This last fact is a critical difference between Simpson and the current case. Here, there was testimony about the condition of the used truck from which the radiator had been removed and about the relationship between the truck’s condition and the likely condition of the stolen part. Smith testified that before the demise of its transmission, the donor truck had been on the road and in working order. Parvane testified that the transmission and the radiator were at opposite ends of the drive train and that he would expect a radiator from a truck that had been running before the transmission went out to be in good condition.
It is true that Parvane also testified that without a pressure test he could not be “100 percent” certain of the radiator’s condition. But the question is not whether the expert, or the jury, was 100 percent certain that the radiator would have passed a pressure test. The question is whether the trier of fact could have deduced, from all the evidence before it and beyond a reasonable doubt, that the radiator had passed or would have passed the test and that as a result, it was worth more than $400. We see no reason why the jury could not have so concluded.
DISPOSITION
The judgment is affirmed.
We concur: McKINSTER, J., MILLER, J.