Lawrenz v. State
| Decision Date | 05 March 1990 |
| Docket Number | No. A90A0244,A90A0244 |
| Citation | 391 S.E.2d 703,194 Ga.App. 724 |
| Parties | LAWRENZ v. The STATE. |
| Court | Georgia Court of Appeals |
Lee R. Taylor, Ellijay, for appellant.
Roger G. Queen, Dist. Atty., for appellee.
Appellant Lawrenz pled guilty to a charge of theft by taking after having been apprehended for falsifying cash register receipts in the grocery store where she worked. The record reveals that the trial court determined, after a hearing and on the basis of the evidence before him, that the amount stolen, upon conservative calculation, was $44,000. The transcript shows that the trial court determined that the maximum amount the appellant would realistically be able to repay was $24,000 and, accordingly, set the amount of restitution at $24,000. Appellant, having been granted an out-of-time appeal, contends that there was insufficient evidence to authorize recovery of $44,000 in damages if the action below were a civil case, and therefore the trial court erred in requiring restitution in an amount ($24,000) derived from $44,000. Held:
1. As the State concedes in its brief, appellant is correct in stating that the maximum amount of restitution recoverable in a criminal case is that which would be recoverable in a civil action. OCGA § 17-14-9; Garrett v. State, 175 Ga.App. 400, 401, 333 S.E.2d 432 (1985). OCGA § 17-14-10 further prescribes the factors that the trial court must consider in determining the "nature and amount of restitution"; see also Williams v. State, 180 Ga.App. 854, 856, 350 S.E.2d 837 (1986).
Scrutiny of the record in the instant case indicates that, even had appellant not pled guilty, there was ample evidence, both direct and indirect, attesting to appellant's guilt and indicating the approximate amount taken. Her employer had videotaped her at her work station for three days prior to arrest, and the videotapes clearly showed her in the act of writing in "forgotten" items on at least one-third of the individual customers' printed receipts; a similar percentage of the receipts recovered from her trash basket at the end of each of these days showed such alterations. A comparison of the store's gross receipts during the period of appellant's employment with gross receipts during the corresponding period for the previous year, as indicated by bank deposits, revealed a decrease corresponding to the amounts of daily and weekly losses extrapolated from the evidence of the videotapes and the altered printed receipts. Moreover, there was evidence of sizable personal expenditures by appellant in excess of those which she and her husband had formerly made, with no demonstrable source of the additional sums of money represented by those additional expenditures. Thus the evidence was sufficient to authorize the reasonable trier of...
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Juliano v. State
...the amount of restitution is on the State, and the amount must be proved by a preponderance of the evidence"); Lawrenz v. State, 194 Ga.App. 724, 391 S.E.2d 703, 704 (1990) (concluding that "the sufficiency of evidence to support an order of restitution should be measured by the civil stand......
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State v. DeMello, CAAP–10–0000173.
...the offense and the loss and the amount of the loss."); Winborn v. State, 625 So.2d 977, 977 (Fla.Dist.Ct.App.1993) ; Lawrenz v. State, 194 Ga.App. 724, 724, 391 S.E.2d 703, 704 (1990) ; Commonwealth v. Palmer, 61 Mass.App.Ct. 230, 233, 808 N.E.2d 848, 850 (2004) ; State v. Kleppe, 800 N.W.......
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Cheeks v. State, A95A0478
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