Blair v. State

• Decision Date: 23 November 1977
• Docket Number: No. 54403,No. 2,54403,2
• Citation: 240 S.E.2d 319,144 Ga.App. 118
• Parties: Rufus BLAIR v. The STATE
• Court: Georgia Court of Appeals

Page 319

240 S.E.2d 319

144 Ga.App. 118

Rufus BLAIR v. The STATE.

No. 54403.

Court of Appeals of Georgia, Division No. 2.

Nov. 23, 1977.

Wilson & Wallace, Hugh Q. Wallace, Macon, for appellant.

Walker P. Johnson, Dist. Atty., Willis B. Sparks, III, Asst. Dist. Atty., Macon, for appellee.

BANKE, Judge.

The defendant was convicted of theft by receiving stolen property in an amount greater than $100 and of criminal possession of an article with an altered identification mark. He appeals from the denial of his motion for new trial.

1. The defendant contends that the evidence did not authorize a finding that the property was worth more than $100. The stolen items consisted of a car radio-tape player, two speakers, and a table model tape player. They were stolen from a pawn shop and subsequently located on display in the defendant's store.

Two state's witnesses, the daughter of the pawn shop owner and a dealer in electronics equipment, offered opinions on the value of the stolen items. Both testified that it was worth slightly more than $100. However, the electronics dealer qualified his opinion by stating that he would place no value on the equipment unless it were functional and that he had no idea whether or not it was functional.

" If there is any evidence to support the jury finding, no error of law appearing, we will not disturb the verdict. Marlow v. Burns, 209 Ga. 255, 71 S.E.2d 520." Lawson v. State, 234 Ga. 136, 138, 214 S.E.2d 559, 561 (1975). The pawn shop owner's daughter testified that, except for the speakers, she had tested the equipment for customers before it was stolen and that the items she had tested had worked. Furthermore, she did not qualify her opinion on value, as did the electronics dealer, by stating that it was based on the assumption that the equipment was functional. Her testimony alone was sufficient to support the jury's finding on value.

2. The evidence did not authorize a conviction for criminal use of an article with an altered identification mark. One of the essential elements of this crime is that the defendant must know that the "identification mark has been removed for the purpose of concealing or destroying the identity of such article." Code Ann. § 26-1506(a). Evidence that the mark has been removed may, under certain circumstances, authorize an inference of guilty knowledge. See Rogers v. State, 139 Ga.App. 656, 229 S.E.2d 132 (1976). However, in this case, there is no evidence that an identification mark was ever removed. The testimony established only that a wooden strip bearing an identification number would normally have been glued to the unit at the time it was manufactured and that this strip was no longer affixed when the stereo was recovered from the defendant's store. There was no evidence that a number was affixed to the stereo at the time it was stolen from the pawn shop. When questioned about this, the owner's daughter could only state, "I feel like it was." Furthermore, although she testified that the identification numbers of all the items in the shop were routinely recorded, she did not produce a number for the stereo.

In the absence of any clear indication that the...