Introduction
Leonard Slocum (Defendant) appeals the judgment of conviction the trial court entered after finding Defendant guilty of felony receiving stolen property in excess of $500. Defendant claims the trial court erred in overruling his motion for judgment of acquittal and convicting him of felony receiving stolen property because the State presented insufficient evidence to establish beyond a reasonable doubt the value of the stolen item. We affirm.
Factual and Procedural Background
On November 26, 2011, Defendant sold a mandolin, which he knew to be stolen, to a pawn store. The State charged Defendant with felony receiving stolen property.
The trial court found Defendant guilty of felony receiving stolen property and sentenced him, as a prior and persistent offender, to five years’ imprisonment. Defendant appeals. As Defendant disputes the sufficiency of the evidence, we discuss the facts in greater detail below.
Standard of Review
“The standard of review in a court-tried case is the same as in a jury-tried case.” State v. Craig,
Discussion
In his sole point on appeal, Defendant claims the trial court erred in overruling his motion for judgment of acquittal and convicting him of felony receiving stolen property because the evidence was insufficient to support the conviction. More specifically, Defendant contends “the State failed to establish beyond a reasonable
“To convict a defendant of a criminal offense, the State is required, as a matter of due process, to prove beyond a reasonable doubt each and every element of the offense charged.” State v. Hall,
Section 570.020 defines “value” as “the market value of the property at the time and place of the crime.... ” Mo.Rev.Stat. 570.020(1): see also Hall,
After reviewing the record on appeal, we find that the State presented sufficient evidence from which a reasonable trier of fact could have found beyond a reasonable doubt that the mandolin was worth more than $500. At trial, the State presented the testimony of Knez Jakovac, the mandolin’s owner. Mr. Jakovac stated that he had been a musician for thirty-five years, and his father and uncle were also musicians. Mr. Jakovac played a particular type of Eastern European mandolin and “toured all over the world playing it.” On October 29, 2011, Mr. Jakovac returned to his apartment and discovered that his custom-made mandolin was missing.
In regard to the mandolin’s value, Mr. Jakovac testified, “It’s the one I had made for myself, it’s handmade, it’s the one worth about four or five-thousand [dollars].” Mr. Jakovac explained that the mandolin was built in 1998 by Milan Opa-cich, “one of the best makers in the country, perhaps the world.” Mr. Jakovac stated that the value of this type of mandolin “absolutely appreciate^]” over time. The trial court asked Mr. Jakovac, “Do you have any conclusions that you can base as the owner of it and [as a] person[ ] who deal[s] with other people who use and play and sell mandolins as to what the value might have been at the time that it was stolen from your home?” Mr. Jakovac answered, “[I]t would be an educated guess, but — I would say that it might have gone up to around 6,000 or so.” An owner’s opinion may constitute sufficient evidence of an item’s worth, and we defer to the trial court’s superior position to assess the probative value and competence of
Defendant argues that Mr. Jakovac’s “emotional attachment to the mandolin ... affected his opinion of its value” and that Mr. Jakovac’s valuation of the instrument was undermined by testimony of the pawnbroker, who paid only thirty dollars for the mandolin.
Defendant also contends that the State “should have had the mandolin appraised in order to sufficiently prove its fair market value.” In support of this proposition, Defendant cites State v. Foster,
Defendant also asserts that under State v. Wilkes,
Considering all the evidence and inferences favorable to the verdict, we find the State presented sufficient evidence to establish the mandolin’s value and the trial court did not err in overruling Defendant’s motion for judgment of acquittal. See, e.g., Hall,
Conclusion
The judgment of the trial court is affirmed.
Notes
. The State charged Defendant with an additional charge of felony receiving stolen property, alleging that, on October 7, 2011, Defendant sold to a pawn shop four electric guitars, which he knew to be stolen. Prior to the bench trial, Defendant stipulated to the fact that he sold the guitars to the pawn shop, but argued at trial that the value of the guitars was less than $500. The trial court found Defendant guilty of one count of misdemean- or receiving stolen property of less than $500 and sentenced him to one-year confinement, to run concurrently with his sentence for felony receiving property. Defendant does not appeal this sentence or conviction.
. All statutory references are to RSMo 2000, as supplemented.
. Mr. Jakovac testified that "two of [his] best mandolins were gone,” but this case deals only with the custom-made mandolin.
. We note that, at the time of the sale, the pawnbroker believed the mandolin was a guitar. The pawnbroker testified that he paid Defendant thirty dollars for the instrument because "we don’t have a lot of people who play guitars in that location, so we tend not to offer a lot on those kinds of items.” He stated that the amount of thirty dollars “would have just been a number that pretty much came off the top of [his] head,” it "wouldn’t be the actual value of the actual item,” and it was "fair to say that [he] didn't know the value of that instrument.”