Horvath v. State

In this appeal, the trial court gave a jury instruction that possession of recently stolen property, unless satisfactorily explained, gives rise to an inference appellant knew or should have known the property was stolen. We find the trial court gave this instruction in error, and thus, we reverse the two convictions for dealing in stolen property. We affirm the two convictions for false verification of ownership to a pawn broker without further comment.

At trial, the testimony established that appellant was a friend of the victim. Sometime between June 6 and June 9, the victim loaned…