Technical question about Grand larceny.

Factual Questions
1

I served as the foreman of a jury last month, hearing a Grand larceny case.

As many of you will not be surprised to hear, we voted quickly and 11 jurors voted to find him not guilty and I voted to find him otherwise on the GL charge (Othere chrges we quickly found him guilty on.) We stayed deadlocked for several hours on the GL charge, as I benignly remained unswayed by all arguments. (Imagine that!)

The reason for our disagreement was that they were willing to let him go (they found him guilty on other related charges easily, so you know that they felt he had been on the snene, had burglarized the house, etc–ths is not in doubt) because the definition of “Grand Lareny” had been explained to us as being the theft of over $3000 worth of money or property, and they maintained that the prosecution hadn’t provided evidence that the theft had been over 3000 dollars worth of stuff. No receipts, no photgraphs of the jewelry that the prosecution witnesses claimed had been stolen, no insurance reports, etc, so they said “How do we know that $3000 worth of stuff had been taken?”

I answered, “Because the defense had him [the owner of the house] up on the stand for cross examination, and they never asked him to show the monetary value. If they had asked, and he had claimed he had no corroborating evidence, well, maybe I’d concede a little doubt. But he testified that he had had over 37,000 dollars worth of goods stolen and they never challenged him on any of that. Besides if someone ransacked your house and got away clean, don;t you think its obvious that they could easily take well over $3000 worth of stuff? Does anyone here NOT have $3000 worth of stuff lying around your house? Use your common sense, folks, if he’s guilty, then he’s guilty of stealing at least one-tenth the stuff the prosecution witness, who wasn’t impeached on the monetary value, claims he did.”

These stubborn folks stuck to their claim, and kept us there for hours and hours, before I could persuade any of them that I was right.

What say you? Was the prosecution required to prove the loss had been over 3000 dollars, or could we use our common sense? (“Common sense” was one of the things the judge instructed us to use, but they claimed that it didn’t apply here.) I agree that the prosecution SHOULD have introduced receipts etc. into evidence, but I mantain that if the GL charge had specified $300 worth of goods or $30 worth of goods, then no one would have a problem, and I had no problem finding $3000 worth of goods as more than reasonable.

2

Well, you are the jury, so YOU are the finder of fact. If I had been on that jury, I probably would have said that the $3000 sum was not proven beyond reasonable doubt. It seems to me that a few people reasonably doubted the charge. Not proven BRD=not guilty.

BTW, I’m a law student and I’m told that I’m rather “defense minded” so keep that in mind for my answer.

3

I’m sorry, I don’t think I was clear. If the $3,000 sum is a required element of the charge, and the prosecution has not proven ALL elements of the charge including the “amount stolen” element Beyond Reasonable Doubt, then not guilty (of that charge).

4

That testimony, if believed, is sufficient to find him guilty. The owner testified as to the value of the goods stolen.

Now, the jury is certainly entitled to disregard that testimony if they do not find it credible. But the record contains evidence to convict on grand larceny.

(From a tactical perspective, the prosecution may simply not have thought anyone would question, “Was it over $3,000?” when the owner testified it was over $37,000. And the defense had no reason to explore the issue. This is why I always tried to talk to the jury after a case, if they were willing, and even after years of jury trials I would sometimes learn something new, something that both I and the prosecution considered irrelevant or obvious and which the jury had focused on…)

5

What was the verdict?

6

I think that’s correct. The prosecutor was a young guy whom the judge admonished several times for all sorts of rookie mistakes.

And I hung around the court house for a few minutes, thinking he might want to ask me a question or two, but he never did. I wondered if he had any idea what we were deadlocked for hours over. I’d estimate that most of the reasons for deciding issues of fact boiled down to which attorney did we think was the bigger jerk. The defense attorney had badgered every witness, usually to no point at all, which persuaded me that he didn’t have much real evidence to dispute and was trying (and failing) to catch witness after witness in immaterial mistatements. Other people thought he was Perry Mason.