North Carolina Lawyers Weekly
State v. Griffin (Lawyers Weekly No. 11-07-0737, 8 pp.) (Sanford L. Steelman Jr., J.) Appealed from Forsyth County Superior Court. (W. Erwin Spainhour, J.) N.C. App. Click here for the full-text opinion.
Holding: The state presented sufficient circumstantial evidence that defendant obtained property by false pretense: a surveillance video showed defendant taking a purse containing Kathryn Beckham’s credit card at 9:06 a.m.; that credit card was used at 9:30 a.m. to buy a laptop computer at a Wal-Mart only 3.4 miles from the scene of the theft; and the state presented evidence under N.C. R. Evid. 404(b) showing that defendant was involved in a similar crime.
Even though defendant speculates that it is possible that another person could have used the credit card, we need not rule out every hypothesis of innocence to conclude that the circumstantial evidence is sufficient for a reasonable person to infer that defendant was the person who used the stolen credit card shortly after he stole it.
We affirm the trial court’s denial of defendant’s motion to dismiss the charge of obtaining property by false pretense. We also reject defendant’s contention that the trial court lacked subject matter jurisdiction over the habitual felon indictment.
