State v. Keys

419 P.2d 943, 244 Or. 606, 1966 Ore. LEXIS 499
CourtOregon Supreme Court
DecidedNovember 10, 1966
StatusPublished
Cited by35 cases

This text of 419 P.2d 943 (State v. Keys) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Oregon Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Keys, 419 P.2d 943, 244 Or. 606, 1966 Ore. LEXIS 499 (Or. 1966).

Opinions

PERRY, J.

The defendant was convicted of two separate burglaries not in a dwelling house and appeals from each judgment. Since the same issues are raised on each appeal, they have been consolidated.

The evidence in each case discloses that the defendant with others entered pay telephone booths in Pendleton, Oregon, broke open the coin boxes attached to the telephones, and removed the money therefrom.

The defendant’s principal contention is that, “since the telephone booths which defendant broke into were open to the public 24 hours a day” there was no unlawful entry as required to constitute the crime of burglary under ORS 164.240, and, therefore, the trial court erred in overruling his motion for a directed verdict of not guilty.

The question thus presented by this appeal is whether the entry of a building to which the public is invited for the purpose of transacting business becomes a burglarious entry when there is evidence from which a reasonable conclusion may be drawn that the entry made was not in response to the invitation extended to the general public, but was made in response to an intent formed prior to entry to enter and commit a felony or steal therein.

At common law an actual physical breaking of the structure was required to constitute a burglarious entry, except that the common law did recognize, as a constructive burglarious breaking, entries obtained by fraud, threats, trickery, artifice or pretense.

[609]*609In Cooley Blackstone, Book IV, ch-16, p 226-227, it is stated:

a* * * (£) There must in general be an actual breaking: not a mere legal clausum fregit (breaking the close) (by leaping over invisible ideal boundaries, which may constitute a civil trespass), but a substantial and forcible irruption. As at least by breaking, or taking out the glass of, or otherwise opening, a window; picking a lock, or opening it with a key; nay, by lifting up the latch of a door, or unloosing any other fastening which the owner has provided. * * * (g) But to come down a chimney is held a burglarious entry; for that is as much closed as the nature of things will permit, (h) So also to knock at the door, and upon opening it to rush in, with a felonious intent: or under pretence of taldng lodgings, to fall upon the landlord and rob him; or to procure a constable to gain admittance, in order to search for traitors, and then to bind the constable and rob the house; all these entries have been adjudged burglarious, though there was no actual breaking; for the law will not suffer itself to be trifled with by such evasions, especially under the cloak of legal process.” See also to the same effect Hawkins’ Pleas of the Crown, Vol I, p. 130.

OHS 164.240 reads as follows:

“Any person who breaks and enters any building within the curtilage of any dwelling house, but not forming a part thereof, or breaks and enters any building or part thereof, booth, tent, railroad car, vessel, boat, or other structure or erection in which any property is kept and which is not a dwelling house, with intent to steal or to commit any felony therein, is guilty of burglary and shall be punished upon conviction by imprisonment in the penitentiary for not more than 10 years.”

Since the word “breaking” as used in the common law with reference to the crime of burglary had a [610]*610definite and fixed meaning which included fraudulent and surreptitious entries, it is the established rule that the legislature used the term “breaking” in its common-law sense with reference to the statutory crime of burglary. State v. Tauscher, 227 Or 1, 360 P2d 764, 88 ALR 2d 674.

The legislature also enacted OES 164.220, which reads as follows:

“* * * Every unlawful entry of any building, booth, tent, railroad car, vessel, boat, or other structure or erection mentioned in OES 164.240, with intent to steal or commit any felony therein, is a breaking and entering of the same within the meaning of OES 164.240.”

The only purpose of the enactment of OES 164.220 then was to enlarge the scope of constructive breaking as known to the common law' to include “[e]very unlawful entry.”

■ This purpose was well stated by this court in an opinion by Mr. Justice Robert S. Bean in State v. Huntley, 25 Or 349, 351, 35 P 1065, where he adopted the language of the Supreme Court of Wisconsin in construing a statute similar to- OES 164.220:

“ ‘This -section merely establishes a rule of evidence whereby the scope of constructive breaking is enlarged so as to take in any imlawful entry of a dwelling-house or other building with intent to commit a felony.' Nichols v. State, 68 Wis 416, 60 Am. Rep. 870, 32 N.W. 543.” (Emphasis ours.)

The defendant contends, however, that since the booth was open to the public there could be no unlawful entry since the entry made was consented to. Defendant relies upon Smith v. State, Alaska, 1961, 362 P2d 1071, 93 ALR2d 525.

[611]*611The case relied upon has no application to the issue here presented. The facts in the Smith case disclose that one Jack Sexton, an employee of the owner of an auto parts store, became intoxicated and wrote several checks. Later he was contacted by Anaruma (a co-defendant in the Smith case) who said he could get the checks back for Sexton if Sexton would arrange for Anaruma to enter the store so he could destroy certain records kept by the owner, Joe Columbus. Sexton then notified Columbus of the plan. The police were notified of the plan and arranged a stakeout. Anaruma called Smith and they were let into the building by Sexton, who had the owner Columbus’s permission to open the building and let them enter for the purpose of entrapment.

Thus, the holding in the Smith case deals not one iota with the question posed in this case — of a trespass in violation of an implied consent to enter — for, as the court held, each defendant in the Smith case entered with the unlimited consent of the owner. The-holding in Smith is in keeping with the decisions of other jurisdictions based on almost identical circumstances, Allen v. The State, 40 Ala 334, 91 Am Dec 477, Spieden v. The State, 3 Tex App 156, 30 Am Rep 126, where the courts held that an entry with unlimited permission of the owner “is not even a trespass.”

The Smith case does give some comfort to the defendant as in a footnote in 93 ALR2d 530, it is stated:

“8. There is authority to the contrary. In Arkansas the burglary statute also required an unlawful entry, but the Supreme Court of that state has held that any entry, regardless of its character, is unlawful if accompanied by the necessary criminal intent. Pinson v. State, 1909, 91 [612]*612Ark 434, 121 SW 751, 753. We.disagree with that interpretation. It results in a nullification of the statutory requirement. See 51 Colum L Bev 1009, 1051 (1951).”

and on the basis of this observation it is stated in the opinion:

“The Alaska statute does not say or suggest that a simple entry is presumed to be unlawful if the requisite intent is present.

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Bluebook (online)
419 P.2d 943, 244 Or. 606, 1966 Ore. LEXIS 499, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-keys-or-1966.