It May Hit Close To Home When the Diamonds Are Stolen From a Law Office, But You Still Have to Prove Their Value.

Anthony Council v. State, 1D15-4382, Dec. 12, 2016.

Held:  Value of stolen property cannot be proven by testimony of one who did not purchase property or have independent knowledge of replacement value.

Discussion:  In a truly dastardly crime, scoundrels broke into that most sacred of spaces, a law office, and stole cash and jewelry, including rings.  The rings were apparently owned by the victim's mother, who had been gifted them by her late husband.  She did not know about diamonds and she did not know what the late husband had paid for the rings.  Thus, she was not competent to testify as to the rings' value.  Value still could have been determined by testimony as to the replacement cost for the rings, but here the owner simply testified that she had looked on a computer with a prosecutor and found an apparently comparable ring, and it was selling for a certain amount.  This was inadmissible because it was hearsay, and no appropriate exception (such as the business record exception) had been established.  The prosecutor apparently failed to lay the record to establish the computer records he relied on were business records.  Thus, defendant could not be sentenced for grand theft over $20,000, because the value of the ring was necessary to get the value of the stolen property over the $20,000 threshold, and the case was remanded for resentencing for theft between $10,000 and $20,000.

My thoughts:  Proving value can be tricky, but come on prosecutors, you can't just Google "diamond rings" with your victim, find the ring they say looks like the one taken from them, and then have them testify to what they saw listed as the price on the website.  Restitution/proof of value seems like one of those things that trial judges and prosecutors constantly screw up, not sure why that is.  Also, if you're gonna keep over $20,000 in your law office, you might want to invest in a good safe.