Court Upholds Probation Condition Barring San Jose Shoplifter from All Home Depot Stores

SAN FRANCISCO, CA — The California Supreme Court in San Francisco Thursday unanimously upheld a probation condition that prohibited a San Jose shoplifter from entering any Home Depot store or adjacent parking lot in California. The seven members of the court said the condition wasn't too broad and didn't impinge on Jeffrey Moran's constitutional right to travel.

Justice Kathryn Werdegar wrote, "Given the minimal restriction the condition places on defendant's movement, the condition does not implicate his right to travel and is thus constitutionally permissible."

Moran was caught hiding $128 worth of batteries and a marker pen in his backpack at a Home Depot store in San Jose and walking out without paying on Oct. 19, 2012. He pleaded no contest to a charge of second-degree burglary and a Santa Clara County Superior Court judge placed him on three years of probation, with a condition prohibiting him from entering "the premises, parking lot adjacent or any store of Home Depot in the state of California" during those three years.

Lawyers in the California Attorney General's Office, representing prosecutors, appealed to the high court after a state appeals court in San Jose said the condition was overly broad and violated the right to travel.

Today's decision reverses the appeals court. Werdegar, writing for the panel, said that granting probation
instead of a jail term "is an act of clemency or grace" and that trial judges have wide discretion to impose probation conditions.

Moran's lawyers, arguing that the stay-away condition was unfairly restrictive, noted in court filings that there were 232 Home Depot stores in California at the time of the appeal. State lawyers contended there was no real impact on Moran's right to travel because the total area of Home Depot stores and parking lots was
"minuscule," less than 0.002 percent of California's total acreage.

By Bay City News

Photo via Shutterstock