People v. Hoyt CA1/2

BACKGROUND

The Scooter Theft On March 15, 2024, Shaun Mitschrich was at home in his apartment on Market Street. Mitschrich’s apartment was the upper unit on the third floor;

1 the building also contained a lower unit on the first floor, a shared kitchen and living room on the second floor, and a garage at street level to which both units had access. Around 5:00 p.m., Mitschrich was making tea when he heard his roommate “storming down the stairs.” He followed down the stairs, where he found his roommates “congregating” and “talking about a person”— later identified as Hoyt—who had stolen the electric scooter that Mitschrich kept in the garage.1 Mitschrich checked and discovered that his scooter “was indeed no longer [in the garage] where [he] had left it previously.” Earlier that day, Mitschrich’s downstairs neighbor, Colin McIntosh, had propped open a door to the garage while cleaning up his unit and taking items into the garage. Mitschrich’s scooter was visible from the doorway to the garage. Around 5:00 p.m., McIntosh was in his office when he received a notification from one of his security cameras that “there was somebody in the backyard.” He “immediately went to [his]…