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Merritt v. State

The state failed to prove that defendant was indicted for stealing his first victim's money within the applicable 4-year statute of limitation.

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Hope Merritt was indicted on three counts of felony theft by taking. After a bench trial on stipulated facts, the trial court found Merritt guilty on two of the counts.1 Merritt appeals, asserting that the evidence was insufficient to support his convictions and that the trial court erred in denying both his motion to quash the indictment and his plea of former jeopardy. Finding the evidence sufficient to support Merritt’s conviction on only one of the two counts, but no error in the trial court’s denial of his motions, we affirm in part and reverse in part.

1. Viewed in a light most favorable to the trial court’s judgment,2 the stipulated facts3 show that Merritt was an accountant for the two victims, Reginald Johnson and Jeffrey Brown, and he offered to invest money for them. Johnson began investing money through Merritt in 1989, when Merritt told Johnson that he would invest Johnson’s money, along with money from other investors, in a jumbo certificate of deposit yielding 12 percent annual interest. Merritt informed Johnson that, because there was a group of investors, he would not receive an individual statement from the bank. From 1989 to 1995, Johnson gave Merritt approximately $194,865 to invest. In October 1995, Merritt sent Johnson a memorandum stating that Johnson’s investment, with accrued interest, had matured to $314,852.38.

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