Title: S.L. 1977-978

General Assembly of North Carolina	1977

NORTH CAROLINA GENERAL ASSEMBLY
1977 SESSION

CHAPTER 978
HOUSE BILL 795

AN ACT TO AMEND G.S. 14-71 AND G.S. 14-72 TO MAKE POSSESSION OF STOLEN GOODS UNLAWFUL.

The General Assembly of North Carolina enacts:

Section 1.  Chapter 14 of the General Statutes is amended by adding a new section to follow G.S. 14-71 to read as follows:
"§ 14-71.1.  Possessing stolen goods. — If any person shall possess any chattel, property, money, valuable security or other thing whatsoever, the stealing or taking whereof amounts to larceny or a felony, either at common law or by virtue of any statute made or hereafter to be made, such person knowing or having reasonable grounds to believe the same to have been feloniously stolen or taken, he shall be guilty of a criminal offense, and may be indicted and convicted, whether the felon stealing and taking such chattels, property, money, valuable security or other thing, shall or shall not have been previously convicted, or shall or shall not be amenable to justice; and any such possessor may be dealt with, indicted, tried and punished in any county in which he shall have, or shall have had, any such property in his possession or in any county in which the thief may be tried, in the same manner as such possessor may be dealt with, indicted, tried and punished in the county where he actually possessed such chattel, money, security, or other thing; and such possessor shall be punished as one convicted of larceny."
Sec. 2.  G.S. 14-72(a) is rewritten to read as follows:
"§ 14-72.  Larceny of property; receiving stolen goods or possessing stolen goods not exeeding two hundred dollars in value. — (a) Except as provided in subsections (b) and (c) below, the larceny of property, the receiving of stolen goods knowing them to be stolen or or the possessing of stolen goods knowing them to be stolen, of the value of not more than two hundred dollars ($200.00) is a misdemeanor punishable under G.S. 14-3(a). In all cases of doubt, the jury shall, in the verdict, fix the value of the property stolen."
Sec. 3.  G.S. 14-72(c) is rewritten to read as follows:
"(c)	The crime of possessing stolen goods knowing or having reasonable grounds to believe them to be stolen in the circumstances described in subsection (b) is a felony or the crime of receiving stolen goods knowing or having reasonable grounds to believe them to be stolen in the circumstances described in subsection (b) is a felony, without regard to the value of the property in question."
Sec. 4.  This act shall become effective on October 1, 1977.
In the General Assembly read three times and ratified, this the 1st day of July, 1977.

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Introduced Bill	Page