Caseflicks

Washington Supreme Court • 1980

State v. Delmarter

618 P.2d 99 | 94 Wash. 2d 634 | 1980 Wash. LEXIS 1397

Full access

Unlock the video and quiz

The written brief is free to read below. Subscribe to watch the video explainer and take the quiz.

Create an account Log in

Takeaway

In short, this case holds that attempted first-degree theft does not require knowledge of value, and that circumstantial evidence may establish an intent to steal high-value property when a rational jury can draw that inference beyond a reasonable doubt.

Background

Rodney Delmarter entered Warren's Drug Store and went into the pharmacy area, a customer-restricted space reached through a swinging door and an eight-inch step up. The pharmacist saw Delmarter walking among shelves near the prescription counter and looking behind the counter. He later found Delmarter crouched on the pharmacy floor, facing away from a camouflaged cash drawer located about seventeen feet inside the restricted area. The drawer held approximately $1,800 in cash and some controlled substances. When the pharmacist confronted him, Delmarter struggled, assaulted the pharmacist, and fled.

Delmarter testified that he had entered to buy cough syrup and went behind the counter only because change had rolled into the pharmacy area and because he was looking for the pharmacist. A jury convicted him of simple assault and attempted first-degree theft. The trial court denied his request for a new trial or reduction of the theft conviction to attempted third-degree theft, and the Court of Appeals affirmed. Delmarter sought review only of the attempted first-degree-theft conviction.

Issues

Issue #1

Whether attempted first-degree theft requires proof that the defendant knew the property he intended to steal was worth more than $1,500.

Holding

No. The theft statutes do not make knowledge of the property's value an element of attempted first-degree theft.

Reasoning

Washington's attempt statute requires an intent to commit a specific crime and a substantial step toward committing it. Theft requires an intent to deprive another of property, while first-degree theft applies when the property stolen exceeds $1,500 in value. Nothing in those provisions requires the defendant to know the property's value.

Delmarter's argument treated knowledge of value as part of the required mental state. The court distinguished knowledge from intent: the relevant question was not whether he knew the cash drawer contained more than $1,500, but whether the evidence supported an inference that he intended to steal from that drawer.

Issue #2

Whether the evidence was sufficient to permit a rational jury to find beyond a reasonable doubt that Delmarter attempted to steal property worth more than $1,500.

Holding

Yes. Viewed in the State's favor, the circumstantial evidence permitted a rational jury to find that Delmarter intended to take the contents of the cash drawer, which contained more than $1,500.

Reasoning

The court applied the federal sufficiency-of-the-evidence standard from Jackson v. Virginia: after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, the question is whether any rational trier of fact could find every essential element beyond a reasonable doubt. This standard displaced Washington's earlier formulation requiring substantial evidence, and the court had recently adopted it in State v. Green.

Circumstantial evidence is not inherently less reliable than direct evidence. A jury may infer specific criminal intent from conduct when that inference follows as a matter of logical probability.

Several facts supported the inference that Delmarter was targeting the cash drawer rather than merely entering the pharmacy by mistake. He was unauthorized in an obviously restricted area, was crouching directly in front of the drawer, and had moved seventeen feet into the pharmacy and nine feet beyond the ordinary cash register.

The jury could also infer that Delmarter knew the camouflaged drawer existed and served as a cash drawer. Customers could observe employees using it from parts of the store, and employees had obtained money from it shortly before this incident. Because the drawer held about $1,800, an intended theft from it supported the attempted first-degree-theft conviction.

Dissents

Justice Williams

Reasoning

Justice Williams agreed that Jackson supplies the governing test, but concluded that the majority applied it too generously. In his view, the record readily supported attempted third-degree theft because Delmarter was unauthorized in the restricted pharmacy area and was near property of value, but it did not establish beyond a reasonable doubt which property he intended to take.

The evidence did not show that Delmarter had ever seen an employee use the camouflaged drawer, including just before the incident. Thus, the inference that he knew the drawer existed and intended to steal its contents was speculative rather than proof sufficient for a rational jury.

An equally plausible, and in Justice Williams's view more likely, inference was that Delmarter intended to take controlled substances displayed on shelves near the drawer. Because the State failed to prove an intent to steal property exceeding $1,500, he would have remanded with instructions to reduce the conviction to attempted third-degree theft.