State v. Butler

665 S.W.2d 41, 1984 Mo. App. LEXIS 4460
CourtMissouri Court of Appeals
DecidedJanuary 10, 1984
DocketNo. WD 34436
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 665 S.W.2d 41 (State v. Butler) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Missouri Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Butler, 665 S.W.2d 41, 1984 Mo. App. LEXIS 4460 (Mo. Ct. App. 1984).

Opinion

SHANGLER, Judge.

The defendant was found guilty by a jury of the crime of burglary in the second degree [§ 569.170, RSMo 1978], was found to be a prior offender [§ 558.016], and was sentenced by the court to a term of seven years imprisonment. The defendant contends there was no sufficient evidence to convict, and that the instructions to the jury were faulty.

On October 29, 1981, Howard, a foreman at National Byproducts, drove by the premises of employment at about 5:30 p.m., after work, and saw a truck backed up to a door of one of the storage buildings. The structures were some 400 feet off the highway and accessible by a private road. Howard drove down the road and to the plant office and told manager Riley. The manager and one Kard drove to the storage building and Howard followed. Riley dispatched Howard to the plant to call the sheriff. Howard returned to the storage building and then, in the company of Riley and Kard, he saw two other persons: the defendant Butler and one Wright. Howard then heard the defendant say to manager Riley: “I’m not going back to the joint for that junk” — or words to that effect. Howard also identified some items kept in the storage building which were loaded into the back of the truck.

The general manager Riley testified that when he arrived at the storage building he identified the property in the truck as goods which had been stored in the building, and some of the property — a trunk— belonged to him. When he first arrived at the storage building, Riley saw a single person — one Wright — a former employee dismissed by National Byproducts. There was nothing in the building that belonged to Wright, nor was he given authority to enter the building for any reason, nor to take any of the Riley personal property. In minutes after Riley arrived, Riley saw the defendant Butler — whom he did not know — hiding behind the truck in the building. Riley testified that he had issued no authority to defendant Butler to enter the building or to remove any property from the building. A conversation between Riley and former employee Wright ensued, in the course of which Riley indicated that [43]*43there was theft from the premises the week before and that he was determined to learn who that was. In the course of that conversation, the defendant Butler remarked [as reported by Riley]: “He had no question with what was going on here and was not — he was not going to do time for the junk that was in the truck.” The defendant suggested [as reported by Riley]: “[W]e should just forget the whole thing and that he would go on his way and I would go on mine.” Riley refused.

Kard, the fleet supervisor, testified that he also saw the defendant Butler inside the building on that night, and also the pickup parked halfway into the structure. He heard the defendant tell the manager Riley that “he wasn’t going to do any time for taking some junk.” Kard testified also that the building was then normally closed and locked. When he arrived at the storage building .that night, the lights on the pickup truck were not illuminated, but there were lights on in the interior of the building.

The defendant Butler gave testimony. He drove to the Wright residence on the afternoon of the event to visit his girlfriend, sister-in-law to Wright. A short time thereafter, Wright, was then in a state of semi-inebriation, asked Butler to drive him “to get a sawhorse and some stuff” to take to the home of an uncle. Butler complied without questions and drove to a building by means of a private road some hundred yards off the highway. Butler stopped the vehicle — a pickup truck — and then backed it up to the building. Wright opened the doors, and Butler backed the truck into the building. Butler got out to look around, and Wright commenced to load a ladder, sawhorses and other things onto the truck. When they arrived at the premises, it was still daylight. Butler never inquired of Wright whether or not he had permission to enter the premises and cart the property away. When they arrived, the doors to the building were two to three feet ajar. He saw no signs to warn not to trespass or that they were upon private property. He had no indication anything was amiss and the first indication that he had no right to be there was when Riley gave instructions to summon the sheriff. Butler admitted the remark: “I aint going to do no time for taking junk.”

A person who knowingly enters or remains unlawfully in a building or inhabitable structure for the purpose of committing crime is guilty of burglary in the second degree. § 569.170. A person who knowingly enters or remains unlawfully in a building or inhabitable structure or upon real property is guilty of the crime of trespass in the first degree. § 569.140. Thus, burglary in the second degree presupposes an incursion into a building or inhabitable structure, whereas trespass in the first degree presupposes either incursion into a building or inhabitable structure or upon real estate. It is self-evident, therefore, that burglary in the second degree encompasses that species of trespass in the first degree which proscribes the unlawful and knowing entry or remainder in a building or inhabitable structure. State v. Neighbors, 613 S.W.2d 143, 146[1] (Mo.App.1980).

The defendant argues that since burglary second degree encompasses trespass in the first degree and since there was no evidence that either he or participant Wright knowingly entered the building unlawfully — that is, committed a trespass— the offense charged [burglary second degree] was not proved.

To sustain argument that there was no trespass and hence no burglary, the defendant argues the effect of § 569.140.2. The full text of trespass in the first degree § 569.140 provides:

1. A person commits the crime of trespass in the first degree if he knowingly enters unlawfully or knowingly remains unlawfully in a building or inhabitable structure or upon real property.
2. A person does not commit the crime of trespass in the first degree by entering or remaining upon real property unless the real property is [44]*44fenced or otherwise enclosed in a manner designed to exclude intruders or as to which notice against trespass is given by:
(1) Actual communication to the actor; or
(2) Posting in a manner reasonably likely to come to the attention of intruders.
3. Trespass in the first degree is a class B misdemeanor, [emphasis added].

It is the sense of this argument that since there was no evidence of personal communication to either the defendant or to Wright not to enter, or that the property was private, or of a posted notice against trespassers, the crime of trespass in the first degree was not proven, and perforce neither was the inclusive charge of burglary in the second degree.

That argument miscegenates disparate definitions of offense and so misdirects inquiry. A trespass in the first degree, as we note and as the statute declares, is committed either when the actor either knowingly enters or remains unlawfully in a building or inhabitable structure or upon real property. The crime of burglary requires proof of incursion into a structure; an unlicensed entry upon open real property for whatever unlawful purpose does not constitute burglary.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
665 S.W.2d 41, 1984 Mo. App. LEXIS 4460, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-butler-moctapp-1984.