Stephen Comstock v. Stefanie Humphries

In March 2004, a Nevada jury found Stephen Comstock guilty of possessing stolen property — a ring commemorating Randy Street’s 1991-1992 national college wrestling championship. The State’s theory at trial was that Comstock or Danny Carter, a known burglar, stole the ring from Street’s apartment, and then Com-stock pawned it. Comstock’s trial counsel argued that the ring was not stolen, but found outside Street’s apartment, where Street likely had lost it. The jury rejected that defense.

This seemingly trivial case had tragic results: Comstock received a 10-25 year sentence under Nevada’s habitual offender statute even though the “victim” of this crime, Randy Street, had serious doubts about whether his ring was actually stolen. In a pre-senteneing statement, Street wrote that, prior to trial, he told the prosecutor and the investigating detective that he remembered a time he had taken the ring off outside his apartment, placing it either on the ground or on an air conditioner, and did not recall putting it back on, meaning that the ring might have been lost outside, not stolen, just as Comstock’s lawyer had argued to the jury. ' Yet neither the prosecutor nor the…