The North Dakota Supreme Court has upheld the conviction of a man who robbed a tobacco store last year in Grand Forks.
The state's top court summarily affirmed this week a guilty verdict for David Ryan Tucker, 32, who is serving a five-year prison sentence in the North Dakota State Penitentiary in Bismarck. A jury convicted him in June on a Class B felony count of robbery for his involvement in a February armed robbery at the Discontent Tobacco Shop.
Investigators arrested Tucker after several leads, including witness accounts from Discontent employees, pointed officers to the defendant an hour after the reported crime. Prosecutors said the perpetrator entered the shop at 1429 S. Washington St., pointed a gun at employees and fled with an undisclosed amount of money.
Tucker's attorney, Grand Forks lawyer Kiara Kraus-Parr, argued during oral arguments earlier this month there was insufficient evidence to support his conviction and witnesses in the case were, unable to identify him without a doubt as a suspect. She suggested the witnesses' accounts changed to match Tucker's identifying features once he was in custody.
"They zeroed in on someone in 40 minutes based on damage of a truck and then they worked backwards," she said.
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The state Supreme Court did not write an extended opinion on its ruling.
