Repeating the understatement, ” ‘Proposition 47 has generated many interpretive issues for this court’ ” (see here), the Supreme Court today holds in People v. Lopez that one provision of the 2014 initiative prohibits charging a defendant with theft “when there is probable cause that a defendant has committed shoplifting of the same property.” But there are some nuanced rulings beyond that.
The court’s unanimous opinion by Justice Ming Chin says although the prosecution can’t charge shoplifting and theft of the same property, even in the alternative, it “may charge shoplifting with an allegation stating that ‘the value of the property taken does not exceed $950,’ such that petty theft is an uncharged lesser included offense” and a jury must “return an acquittal on shoplifting before it may return a verdict on petty theft.” The court also carves out an exception to the rule barring a theft charge: “even when there is probable cause that a defendant has committed shoplifting, a prosecutor may charge theft instead of shoplifting if the prosecutor can articulate a theory supported by the evidence under which the defendant would be guilty of theft but not shoplifting.”
The case involves the stealing of less than $500 in merchandise from a Walmart.
The court reverses the Fifth District Court of Appeal.
