Brothers Jose and Orlando Portillo were caught red-handed at 1:30 a.m. stealing 15 boxes of adjustable dumbbells from a warehouse in the City of Industry. For some inexplicable reason, there wasn't a plea bargain or guilty plea, and at trial, they were convicted of grand theft and sentenced to formal probation (after 180 days in jail).
For grand theft, the value of the stolen property needs to be $950 or more. There's no real dispute that each box of adjustable dumbbells goes for $300 or so at WalMart or $500 or so on Amazon, so we all know full well that the value of the stolen 15 boxes was well over the $950 limit. But Mssrs. Portillo claim that at the trial, the only evidence of this fact came from nonadmissible hearsay, when the warehouse manager testified at trial that these were the prices he saw when he looked up the dumbbells online.
Resulting, today, in a 45-page opinion that an evidence professor would drool over, in which Justice Feuer thinks that the testimony was admissible nonhearsay for one reason, whereas Justice Segal believes that it is admissible nonhearsay for a different reason. Both reasons involving incredibly detailed and esoteric inquiries into not only what constitutes hearsay, but also the different alleged testimonial purposes of the evidence at issue here.
Which is all well and good. I like sophisticated thought. Even where, as here, everyone ultimately agrees on the outcome -- one which certainly isn't unjust in any global sense (since, in truth, the Portillo brothers were clearly guilty), and doesn't have especially severe consequences for even the Portillos in any event. I suspect they didn't serve that much actual time at all.
Still, it's an issue, and matters, so it's go to be resolved. As it is today.
In an opinion that's lots and lots of fancy analysis for something that a regular old person might well think is silly. Since, after all, everyone and their mother would know that, yeah, if you steal 15 boxes of a thing that's listed on Amazon for $500 a box, you've pretty much obviously stolen something worth $950 or more.
