Jearl Shane Griffin v. State of Arkansas

── Jearl Shane Griffin v. State of Arkansas ── Court: Court of Appeals of Arkansas Date: March 11, 2026 Category: General Cite as 2026 Ark. App. 174 ARKANSAS COURT OF APPEALS DIVISION IV No. CR-25-312 Opinion Delivered March 11, 2026 APPEAL FROM THE GARLAND JEARL SHANE GRIFFIN COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT APPELLANT [NO. 26CR-23-413] V. HONORABLE RALPH C. OHM, JUDGE STATE OF ARKANSAS APPELLEE AFFIRMED CINDY GRACE THYER, Judge Appellant Jearl Shane Griffin was convicted by a Garland County jury of theft by receiving property and was sentenced to five years’ probation and fined $7,000. On appeal, Griffin challenges the sufficiency of the evidence supporting his conviction. We affirm. In April 2023, Entergy was in the process of removing and replacing its underperforming distribution lines near Hot Springs, Arkansas. This work was being performed by Irby Construction Company (Irby). To facilitate this project, Entergy purchased copper wire and provided it to Irby for use in the project. Irby, per its contract, stored the copper wire in a locked Conex box until needed. The replaced wire and any unused wire were then returned to Entergy for salvage.  On April 13, 2023, an Irby employee discovered some of the copper wire from the Entergy project had been stolen out of one of the Conex containers overnight. Irby contacted law enforcement, who began investigating the theft. As part of the investigation, Garland County Sheriff’s Deputy Thomas Fox1 visited the storage site. He found that someone had cut the lock off one of the Conex containers and had stolen various sizes of copper wire, including approximately one thousand feet of 500 MCM copper wire. Law enforcement officers, including Fox, revisited the Irby storage site later that evening to see if the person responsible for the theft would return. In the early-morning hours of April 14, a pickup truck pulled into the lot, turned off its lights, and drove toward the Conex boxes. Griffin and an unidentified male were in the vehicle. When questioned by officers, they said that they were supposed to meet up with some girls there. The officers waited, and when the girls did not show, the two men were arrested for criminal trespass. Continuing with the investigation, Investigator Charlie Mowery with the Garland County Sheriff’s Office utilized a program called LEADS Online 2 to determine whether any copper wire had recently been sold to area salvage yards or pawn shops. Knowing that Griffin had been arrested at the property for criminal trespass, Mowery searched the database for 1 Fox had been promoted to corporal by the time of trial. 2 LEADS Online is a searchable database in which all pawn shops and scrapyards input information regarding what has been sold or pawned and by whom. 2 Griffin’s name. He discovered that Griffin had sold 502 pounds of pristine 500 MCM copper wire to Cobb Recycling for $1,556.20 the afternoon of the theft. The estimated retail value of that amount of copper wire was approximately $8,774.45. His search did not turn up any other substantial quantities of copper wire. An Irby representative, Larry McGraw, confirmed that the wire sold to Cobb had been stolen from Irby. Griffin later admitted to police that he had removed copper wire from the Irby storage site but claimed that he had removed it from the dumpster. A search of the dumpsters on the Irby site revealed only construction refuse and small one-to-two-inch pieces of copper wire. The Irby representative denied disposin