Morris v. State

• Docket Number: A-14072,2807
• Decision Date: 13 June 2025
• Citation: Morris v. State, 2807, A-14072 (Alaska App. Jun 13, 2025)
• Parties: DANIEL J. MORRIS, Appellant, v. STATE OF ALASKA, Appellee.
• Court: Alaska Court of Appeals

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DANIEL J. MORRIS, Appellant, v. STATE OF ALASKA, Appellee.

No. A-14072

No. 2807

Court of Appeals of Alaska

June 13, 2025

Appeal from the Superior Court, First Judicial DistrictNo 1KE-20-00426 CR, Ketchikan, Trevor Stephens, Judge.

Julia Bedell, Assistant Public Defender, and Terrence Haas, Public Defender, Anchorage, for the Appellant.

Scott Crawford(briefing) and Kayla Doyle(oral argument) Assistant Attorneys General, Office of Criminal Appeals Anchorage, and Treg R. Taylor, Attorney General, Juneau, for the Appellee.

Before: Allard, Chief Judge, and Wollenberg and Terrell, Judges.

OPINION

ALLARD JUDGE

Daniel J. Morris was convicted, following a jury trial, of one count of second-degree theft for stealing an inflatable raft from a creek bed in Ketchikan.Morris raises multiple arguments on appeal, including that the State presented insufficient evidence as to both his intent and the raft's value.For the reasons explained in this opinion, we reject Morris's argument that the State presented insufficient evidence as to his intent, but we agree that the State presented insufficient evidence that the raft's value was $750 or more.We therefore reverse Morris's conviction for second-degree theft, but we remand this case to the superior court to enter a conviction for third-degree theft and to resentence Morris on that crime.

Background facts

Morris moved to Ketchikan in late May 2020 to work on a fishing boat.Shortly after arriving, Morris went hiking and spotted an inflatable raft on the creek bed near Signal Creek Campground.A few days later, Morris went hiking again and saw the raft still sitting on the creek bed.At trial, Morris testified that he thought the raft had been abandoned.

Morris took a picture of the raft and showed it to a local restaurant owner he had befriended, Lesly Trelfa.Trelfa testified that she also believed the raft was abandoned, and she paid her son, James Burge, to help Morris retrieve the raft.

A few days later, Morris and Burge drove to Signal Creek in Burge's truck and picked up the raft.A local resident observed Morris and Burge removing the raft while she was on a walk with her family.She testified that Morris was friendly and waved to her as she walked by.

After collecting the supposedly abandoned raft, Morris and Burge dropped it off at Trelfa's property - a vacant lot on the outskirts of town.They placed it near the back of the property where it was not visible from the road.

As it turned out, however, the raft had not been abandoned.It belonged to the Signal Creek Campground host, Stephen Kirkland, who testified at trial that he used the raft to paddle out onto the lake every morning and afternoon to get cell phone service.

A few hours after Morris took the raft, Kirkland noticed it was missing and reported it stolen.Forest Service Captain William Elsner investigated the case and quickly determined that Burge had been involved.Burge told Elsner where they had stored the raft and helped Elsner recover it.

Elsner then met with Morris and interviewed him.Morris told Elsner that he thought the raft was abandoned, but Morris also said that he had not talked to anybody at the campground prior to taking the raft, and that he had not made any efforts to find the owner since he took it.Later that day, Morris sent a message to Kirkland apologizing for taking the raft, but also blaming Kirkland for leaving his raft out on the creek bed.

Based on this conduct, Morris was indicted on one count of second-degree theft.^[1] His case proceeded to a jury trial.Although Morris originally told Elsner he believed the raft was abandoned, Morris told a different story at trial: he testified that he"intended to take [the] raft, clean it up, and give it back to the owner."

The jury convicted Morris of second-degree theft.This appeal followed.

Why we reverse Morris's conviction for second-degree theft

To prove that Morris was guilty of theft in any degree, the State was required to prove that Morris acted "with intent to deprive another of property or to appropriate property of another to [him]self."^[2] To prove that Morris was guilty of theft in the second degree, the State was also required to prove that the value of the raft was at least $750.^[3] On appeal, Morris argues that the State presented insufficient evidence as to both his intent and the value of the raft.For the reasons we are about to explain, we conclude that the evidence as to Morris's intent was sufficient, but we agree with Morris that the State presented insufficient evidence to establish that the value of the raft was at least $750.

When we review the sufficiency of the evidence to support a conviction, we are required to view the evidence, and all reasonable inferences to be drawn from that evidence, in the light most favorable to upholding the verdict.^[4] Viewing the evidence in that light, we then determine whether "a reasonable fact-finder could have concluded that the State's case was proved beyond a reasonable doubt."^[5]

As to Morris's claim that the State presented insufficient evidence of his intent to steal, it is certainly true that there was evidence that Morris believed the raft was abandoned: the raft had been left unattended on a creek bed; Morris showed a picture of the raft to a local restaurant owner who agreed that it was likely abandoned; and Morris readily admitted to taking the raft and apologized to the owner.

But we are required to view the evidence in the light most favorable to the jury's guilty verdict, not in the light most favorable to Morris.Interpreted in that light, the evidence paints a different picture.Morris asked Trelfa if she believed the raft was abandoned, but he made no attempt to ask anyone at Signal Creek Campground the same question, even though they would have been in a much better position to know the answer.Morris also changed his story: he told Captain Elsner that he believed the raft was abandoned, but he testified at trial that he intended to clean up the raft and then return it to the owner.And finally, Morris moved the raft to a vacant lot on the outskirts of town, stored the raft in a location that was not visible from the road, and made no efforts to restore the raft or identify the owner.

Taken together, and viewed in the light most favorable to the jury's verdict, this evidence suggests that Morris did not actually believe the raft was abandoned, and that he did not intend to return it to its rightful owner.We note that this case turns at least in part on local customs and practice.Morris's story that he believed the raft had been abandoned might seem plausible to residents of a city like Anchorage, where it is unlikely a person would leave a boat unattended in a public place for an extended period of time.But this same story might - and apparently did - ring false to a Ketchikan jury more familiar with life in rural Alaska.Our deferential review of a jury's verdict is designed to ensure that appellate courts do not substitute our judgment for the wisdom and experience of local community members.

For these reasons, we conclude that the evidence was sufficient for a reasonable juror to find that Morris acted with intent to deprive another of property or to appropriate that property to himself.

As to the raft's value, however, we conclude that the State presented insufficient evidence to establish that the value of the raft was at least $750.Alaska law provides two methods for calculating the value of stolen property.The default method is "the market value of the property at the time and place of the crime."^[6]"Market value" refers to "the price a willing buyer would pay to a willing seller in the open market."^[7]If, however, "the market value cannot reasonably be ascertained," the value of the property is "the cost of replacement of the property within a reasonable time after the crime."^[8] At trial, the State presented two critical pieces of evidence as to the value of the raft.The first was Kirkland's testimony that he purchased the raft new six years earlier (in 2014) for $899.The second was Kirkland's statement to Captain Elsner that a replacement raft would cost $1,750.

Both of these numbers, of course, are over the $750 threshold required to prove second-degree theft.But neither provided sufficient evidence for the jury to determine that the value of the raft was at least $750 under the law for calculating value we have just described.

"Market value" - i.e., the default mechanism for calculating value - refers to the value of the property at the time and place of the crime.The original price the owner paid for the property may serve as evidence of the property's market value at the time of the crime.In fact, we have previously found that the original price may be sufficient, standing on its own, for a reasonable juror to conclude that the market value of the property exceeds the statutory threshold.But that is not true in all cases, and it is not true in Morris's case.To see why, it is helpful to compare the facts of this case to the facts in our unpublished decision in McCue v. State.^[9]

In McCue, the State was required to prove that the market value of the stolen property (a vehicle) was at least $1,000.^[10]The State's primary evidence on this point was that the victim had purchased the vehicle for $2,500 two years earlier.^[11] The owner also testified that the vehicle remained in good condition, was not his primary mode of transportation, and usually remained parked at his apartment complex.^[12] Given these facts, we concluded that a reasonable juror could conclude that the value of the vehicle was still at least $1,000.^[13] In other words, we concluded that a reasonable juror,...