People v. Pagán Medina

99 P.R. 731
CourtSupreme Court of Puerto Rico
DecidedMarch 15, 1971
DocketNo. CR-70-37
StatusPublished

This text of 99 P.R. 731 (People v. Pagán Medina) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Puerto Rico primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
People v. Pagán Medina, 99 P.R. 731 (prsupreme 1971).

Opinions

Mr. Justice Rigau

delivered the opinion of the Court.

This is a case of burglary in the first degree committed on February 18, 1967, by stealing an automobile. After the vicissitudes which seem inherent to the judicial proceeding, the transcript of the evidence, five extensions of thirty days each requested by the defense, and the presentation of the briefs by the parties — the Solicitor General presented his brief timely — we have to decide it now.1

[733]*733Appellant was accused and' convicted of burglary in the first degree committed in the night of February 18, 1967, in Vistamar Development, in Carolina, Puerto Rico. The burglary consisted in entering that night the carport of a house whose gate was closed and locked, and in stealing a motor vehicle kept therein, property of the resident of said house.

He assigns three errors, which we shall mention and discuss hereinafter. The first error consists in that, in his opinion, the carport in question was not susceptible of being burglarized. We do not agree. The carport has a roof, an iron gate, which was locked, one of its walls is in common with the rest of the residence, the other wall, up to the top, is made of ornamental blocks, and on the rear part there is a fence. The house is surrounded by a fence.

Section 408 of the Penal Code, 33 L.P.R.A. § 1591, provides that:

“Every person who enters any house, room, apartment, tenement, shop, warehouse, store, barn, stable, outhouse, or other building, tent, vessel or car, with intent to commit grand or petit larceny, or any felony, is guilty of burglary.”

The following section of the same legal body provides that burglary in the first degree is the one committed in the nighttime, and burglary in the second degree, the one committed in the daytime.

The burglarized carport is part of the residence to which it is physically attached. The illegal entering thereinto, breaking the lock and for the purpose of stealing or of committing any felony, constitutes burglary. If it is committed [734]*734during the nighttime, it constitutes burglary in the first degree.

It is generally known that in the Puerto Rican homes we live part of the time in the carports because of our warm weather. There, the children play, the adults sit to chat, and in the nighttime property is kept therein — furniture or vehicles.

We have already stated in People v. Cosme Vargas, 96 P.R.R. 815 (1969), that in the interpretation of said § 408 of the Penal Code, the formalistic juridic views have been overridden because they are unreal and inoperative. The contemporaneous adjudication is not based on archaic and dogmatic preconceptions, but rather that, in order to give life and efficacy to the law, the courts resort to realistic jurisprudential approaches. That is the manner to impart to adjudication the elements of rationality and reasonability which are indispensable for the correct formulation of every juridic principle. Pound, Law Finding Through Experience and Reason 45 etseq. (1960). As Castán has said:

“A jurist, in order to be a true jurist, and not an abstract reasoner, a logical formalist, cannot separate his science from the Law, neither from the sociological investigation of the Law really effective and alive, nor from the philosophical investigation of the spirit and of the principles of the Law.”2

Even under the common law, since a century ago it is considered that burglary is committed not only by penetrating a dwelling, but also the outbuildings near the latter, within its lot or yard. These outbuildings traditionally, included stables, barns, and more recently, garages. Perkins, Criminal Law 160 (1957). Undoubtedly, this includes today the carports, whether or not the latter are physically contiguous to the dwelling of which they are a part. As it is well stated by Clark and Marshall, with the temporary wide compass of [735]*735protection to persons and property, burglary, viewed only as an offense against habitation, is an anachronism. A Treatise on the Law of Crimes 870, 6th rev. ed. (1958). See, also, Burglary: Outbuildings or the like as part of dwelling house, 43 A.L.R.2d 831 and 2 Wharton’s Criminal Law and Procedure, § § 424 and 429. It is understood to be so. As well as the common law did not require that horses, to be protected by law, should be kept at night inside the owner’s house, but it was enough that they be kept in the stable, nowadays it is not required that the automobile be kept in the living room; it suffices that it be kept in the carport. The first error assigned was not committed.

In his second assignment appellant argues that by reason that the evidence did not establish an “exclusive possession” on his part, of the stolen vehicle, we must reverse. In order to discuss this error we must consider the pertinent part of the facts.

In the early hours of February 18,1967, policeman Rafael Pérez was making the rounds in Campo, Rico Avenue, in Carolina, accompanied by another policeman. He noticed that a vehicle was coming, which he considered suspicious, because it was carelessly driven, and he ordered it to stop. Two men were traveling in said vehicle. The latter, instead of stopping, tried to escape, and when they made a U-turn in order to escape, the motor stalled and the car stopped. The policeman saw appellant in the vehicle. The latter and the other person traveling in the car, when the motor- stalled, alighted from the car and ran away. Policeman Pérez arrested one of them, but appellant escaped. Two hours later the police had already arrested him. The policeman testified that he saw appellant in the vehicle when he ordered him to stop and saw him when he ran away. When the corresponding investigation was made the vehicle appeared reported to the police as stolen from the carport of its owner’s house.

[736]*736Appellant and the other fellow who accompanied him had the joint possession of the stolen vehicle. Does this mean that said circumstance by itself necessarily exonerates him? No. Although, generally, in inferring the presumption of guilt as a result of the possession, by a person, of articles recently stolen said possession is exclusive; however, said usual circumstance — because it is generally common in most cases — is not a mandatory rule. It is not, because, since some times larcenies and burglaries are committed by two or more persons acting in mutual agreement, it is acknowledged that the same inference of. guilt may be made when the recently stolen property is in the possession of two or more persons. A leading and quite similar case to the one at bar is the case of Flamer v. State, 227 A.2d 123 (1967). In said case three men were traveling in an automobile. The police chased the car and finally overtook it. Stolen goods were seized in the car. Two of the three defendants entered guilty pleas, but Flamer did not. The latter impeached the proposition in the sense that the joint possession of the stolen goods warranted the inference of their guilt. There, the court stated the following at p. 127:

“The requirement that possession must be ‘exclusive’, in order to incriminate, does not mean that the possession must necessarily be separate from all others.

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99 P.R. 731, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-pagan-medina-prsupreme-1971.