Kristina S. Luff, Appellant-Defendant v. State of Indiana, Appellee-Plaintiff (2025)

MEMORANDUM DECISION

Case Summary

[1] Kristina Luff was convicted of Level 6 felony theft after leaving a grocery store with a cart full of several unpaid items. Luff raises one issue on appeal: whether the State presented sufficient evidence to support her theft conviction. We affirm.

Facts and Procedural History

[2] On January 24, 2023, Luff parked her vehicle in a disability parking spot in front of a grocery store in Whitestown, Indiana. She proceeded to head inside and shop. Luff filled the top and bottom baskets of her shopping cart with several items and then began using a self-checkout machine. An employee of the grocery store, Penni Winslow, noticed Luff had several items on the bottom of her cart. Winslow informed Luff she would “be right with her” and “would scan everything that was on the bottom of her basket” after Winslow finished assisting another customer. Tr. Vol. II p. 39. Luff did not respond and continued using the self-checkout machine.

[3] Overhead surveillance footage shows Luff only scanning a few items, individually bagging each scanned item, then placing the bags on top of the unscanned items in the top basket of her cart. Luff repeatedly rearranged the items in her cart, covering the unscanned items with grocery bags. Luff never scanned any of the items on the bottom of her cart.

[4] While Luff was inside the grocery store, Whitestown Police Department Officer David Sellers noticed Luff's vehicle while he was patrolling the parking lot. Officer Sellers observed that the vehicle did not have a visible disability parking spot placard—he later testified that shoplifting suspects often park near the entrance to quickly enter and exit the store. Officer Sellers waited by the vehicle until Luff returned to the vehicle. The officer approached Luff and informed her that the vehicle did not have a visible placard. Luff responded that she had one that was not visible, and she retrieved a placard from the interior of the vehicle. Officer Sellers learned Luff was from Lafayette, which further aroused his suspicion given his knowledge that suspects often travel outside of their home area before shoplifting to avoid potential identification.

[5] Officer Sellers asked Luff about the bagged and unbagged items in her shopping cart. At the same time, another officer went inside the store to speak with grocery store staff. The officer spoke with Winslow, who informed the officer about her encounter with Luff. Winslow also shared her suspicions that “something wasn't right” and that Luff left without paying for some items. Id. at 39. Officer Sellers reviewed a receipt to calculate the total value of the unpaid items; Luff offered to pay the outstanding amount with cash she had on hand.

[6] The State charged Luff with Class A misdemeanor theft and subsequently enhanced the charge to a Level 6 felony, on the basis of Luff's prior theft conviction. The trial court held a bifurcated bench trial. In the first phase, Officer Sellers, Winslow, and Luff all testified. Luff testified that she did not intentionally fail to pay for every item and stated her mind was “going a hundred miles an hour” when she was using the self-checkout machine. Id. at 51. She further testified that she was struggling with mental health issues. However, Luff later testified that she was not under “a lot” of stress that day. Id. at 55. Officer Sellers testified that he observed Luff to be “confrontational” and “very coherent” during their encounter. Id. at 31, 37.

[7] The trial court reviewed the grocery store's surveillance footage and found it “totally incomprehensible” that Luff did not remember to pay for all the items in her cart, given the number of items and the large packages in the bottom basket of her cart. Id. at 59. Luff was found guilty of Class A misdemeanor theft. At the second phase of the bench trial, the trial court found that Luff had a prior conviction for theft warranting the enhancement of her sentence to a Level 6 felony. Luff was sentenced to 545 days in the Indiana Department of Correction, with all but thirty days suspended to probation. Luff now appeals.

Discussion and Decision

[8] Luff argues the State presented insufficient evidence to support her conviction for theft—specifically, that the State presented insufficient evidence to prove she intentionally deprived the grocery store of the value and use of its property. Our sufficiency of evidence standard is well-settled:

Sufficiency-of-the-evidence claims trigger a deferential standard of review in which we neither reweigh the evidence nor judge witness credibility, instead reserving those matters to the province of the jury. A conviction is supported by sufficient evidence if there is substantial evidence of probative value supporting each element of the offense such that a reasonable trier of fact could have found the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. In conducting that review, we consider only the evidence that supports the jury's determination, not evidence that might undermine it.

Hancz-Barron v. State, 235 N.E.3d 1237, 1244 (Ind. 2024) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted).

[9] A person commits theft if she “knowingly or intentionally exerts unauthorized control over property of another person, with intent to deprive the other person of any part of its value or use[.]” Ind. Code § 35-43-4-2(a) (2022). Intent may be inferred from a defendant's conduct and the “natural and usual sequence to which such conduct logically and reasonably points.” Long v. State, 935 N.E.2d 194, 197 (Ind. Ct. App. 2010) (citation omitted), trans. denied.

[10] Here, the State presented sufficient evidence to prove she intentionally took the unscanned items without paying for them. Luff traveled from Lafayette to Whitestown to shop, an act Sellers described as a common tactic for shoplifters to avoid identification. Surveillance footage evidence shows Luff only scanning a few items, individually bagging each scanned item, and then covering several unscanned items with grocery bags. Winslow, who noticed Luff and thought “something wasn't right[,]” offered to help Luff scan the items in the bottom basket of the shopping cart. Tr. Vol. II p. 39. Luff did not respond to Winslow, and she left the store with several unpaid items. Upon leaving the store, Luff encountered Sellers, who described Luff as “confrontational” and appearing “very coherent.” Id. at pp. 31, 37. Based on the above, sufficient evidence exists to support Luff's theft conviction.

[11] Luff attempts to persuade us otherwise in two ways. First, Luff argues that her testimony about her mental health issues and nervousness demonstrates that she did not have the requisite intent to commit theft. In doing so, Luff merely invites us to reweigh the evidence, which we will not do. See Hancz-Barron, 235 N.E.3d at 1244. Second, Luff attempts to analogize her case to Young v. State, wherein our Supreme Court held there was insufficient evidence to support Young's theft conviction because there was no evidence that Young was aware that a box in the backseat of his vehicle contained a stolen coat. 332 N.E.2d 103, 104-05 (Ind. 1975). Young is easily distinguished from the case at hand. Here, the evidence shows Luff was the person who filled her shopping cart, failed to scan several items, hid them underneath grocery bags, and left the store with the unpaid items. The evidence presented is sufficient to infer Luff's intent to steal. See Long, 935 N.E.2d at 197. Thus, we affirm Luff's conviction for theft.

[12] We affirm.

Scheele, Judge.

Judges May and Weissmann concur. May, J., and Weissmann, J., concur.