Background
On August 2, 2025, Winona Keplin entered a Minot, North Dakota residence without permission while a resident was sleeping. When confronted, she emptied her pockets at the resident’s direction, revealing a roommate’s prescription medication and other items. She then fled on foot before police could be called. Shortly after the burglary, residents discovered that $1,600 in cash kept in a hidden drawer compartment, along with a gold necklace, a gold bracelet, and two gold rings, were missing. A pair of mismatched Adidas shoes belonging to a female roommate was also taken.
Approximately seventy-five minutes after the burglary, police located Keplin at a nearby business, wearing the distinctive mismatched shoes. She admitted entering the house and taking a gold ring and the shoes. She was charged with burglary and theft of property; pursuant to a plea agreement, she pled guilty to burglary and the theft charge was dismissed. The district court reserved jurisdiction on restitution and held a hearing in November 2025.
At the restitution hearing, two residents testified that the cash and jewelry were present the night before and discovered missing immediately after Keplin fled. Keplin’s care coordinator testified that a search of Keplin’s apartment turned up no jewelry and only $29 in cash, and that Keplin could not have returned to her apartment on foot before her arrest given the distance. The district court credited the State’s witnesses, found the missing items were directly connected to the burglary, and ordered restitution of $5,882. Keplin appealed, arguing the court abused its discretion by including items not found on her person at the time of arrest.
The Court’s Holding
The North Dakota Supreme Court affirmed the restitution order, holding that the district court did not abuse its discretion. The court found the evidence sufficient to establish the required direct causal connection between Keplin’s criminal conduct and the unrecovered cash and jewelry. The approximately seventy-five minutes between her flight from the residence and her arrest provided ample time to hide or discard the stolen property, and the district court was entitled to draw that reasonable inference from the evidence.
The court distinguished two cases Keplin relied upon — State v. Harstad, 2020 ND 151, and State v. Pippin, 496 N.W.2d 50 (N.D. 1993) — on the ground that in both of those cases the defendants were not convicted of the underlying theft that caused the victims’ losses. Harstad had pled guilty to possession of a stolen vehicle and was arrested seven days after the theft; Pippin had pled guilty to possession of stolen property while her former husband was convicted of the burglary itself. In contrast, Keplin pled guilty to the burglary during which the items went missing, establishing the immediate and intimate causal link required under N.D.C.C. § 12.1-32-08(4).
The court further held that the district court’s factual findings — including that Keplin took the cash and jewelry and later hid or discarded them — were not clearly erroneous, as they rested on the undisputed testimony of two credible witnesses and reasonable inferences drawn from the circumstances. Because the restitution award compensated losses directly resulting from Keplin’s own criminal act, it fell within statutory limits.
Key Takeaways
- Restitution for unrecovered stolen items is permissible when the defendant is convicted of the offense during which the items disappeared and circumstantial evidence supports a reasonable inference the defendant took them.
- The absence of stolen property on a defendant’s person at arrest does not break the causal chain if there was sufficient time and opportunity to conceal or discard the items before apprehension.
- Harstad and Pippin are limited to situations where the defendant was not convicted of the theft itself; those decisions do not bar restitution when the defendant’s conviction directly encompasses the taking.
- A district court’s factual finding that losses are directly related to a defendant’s criminal conduct will stand on appeal unless clearly erroneous — a challenging standard the defendant here failed to meet.
Why It Matters
This decision clarifies the scope of restitution available upon a burglary conviction in North Dakota. Defense arguments that unrecovered property cannot support a restitution award — absent proof the items were on the defendant at arrest — will face an uphill battle where the defendant is convicted of the underlying offense and the items were provably present before and missing immediately after the crime. The ruling reinforces that trial courts may draw common-sense inferences about disposal of stolen goods in the gap between a defendant’s flight and arrest.
Practitioners on both sides should note the court’s careful line-drawing between cases like Harstad, where an attenuated possession conviction could not anchor restitution for a theft committed by someone else, and cases like this one, where the burglary conviction itself encompasses the taking. The decision signals that North Dakota courts will look to the nature of the conviction — not just what was physically recovered — when assessing the directness of the causal connection required for restitution.