Mr. Buckley Case Summary

Mr. Buckley was charged and convicted in the trial court with theft under the Offenses Against Property Act, unlawful use of a credit card, and uttering a forged document. Upon conviction, he appealed to the Court of Appeals of Indiana, Second District claiming insufficient evidence.
The first charge of theft under the Offenses Against Property Act requires one to acquire and/or use someone else’s property without permission. Since Mr. Phipps did not give Mr. Buckley permission to use his credit card for any purchases the burden of proof has been met for this charge to stand. Mr. Buckley was fully aware that the credit card was not his when he was aware enough to sign Mr. Phipps name to the credit card slip.
The second charge of unlawful use of a credit card covers a fraud on the credit card company, the department store that sold the merchandise, as well as the person whose name is on the card. The Appellate Court also upheld this since he in fact did purchase an item from the store with another’s credit card, signing the holders name. With the testimony of Mr. McKeans verifying that Mr. Buckley was in fact the customer he sold the merchandise to and turned over to Ms. Cox to complete the sale was sufficient evidence that Mr. …show more content…
While, Ms. Cox did not witness Mr. Buckley sign the forged name on the slip, she did testify that the signature line was blank when she handed the slip to Mr. Buckley and was signed when he handed it back to her. Since the signature was not his own, but the owner of the credit card, a forgery charge was found to be warranted.
I agree with the ruling of the trial court and the Appeals court upholding the ruling. The years that this crime was committed, video surveillance was not normal and witness accounts were usually the only evidence to placing a person at the scene of the crime. Without any reason to not believe the witnesses there is no reason to overturn the lower court’s