Case ID: hill-den_1/html/0063-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Cowen, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

The People vs. Fralick.
    A man entered a flouring mill through an open window without sash, crossed a floor, went up a ladder and raised a trap door not fastened, and then stole some flour. Held, not burglary, either at common law or under the revised statutes ; it was merely a larceny.
    Certiorari from Oswego general sessions. The prisoner, in the night time, entered the flouring mill of Mr. Bumpus in Pulaski, Oswego, and stole flour. The entry was through an open window without sash; whence the prisoner crossed a floor, went up a ladder and raised a trap door, not fastened. 
      This door let him into the room where the flour was. The court charged that this was burglary. Exception. The pri-. saner was found guilty of burglary. Sentence suspended.
   By the Court,

Cowen, J.

At common law, burglary, in

respect to private property, could be committed of' a dwelling house only. As to this, the breaking might be of the outside, or, after entry by an open door or window, it might .be of an inner door. (4 Bl. Com., 224; 1 Hal. P. C., 553.) The 2d R. S., 668, § 14, also makes the breaking of an inner door sufficient; but this too is confined to a dwelling house; and it is the only case in the statute where, after such entry, the breaking of' an inner door is declared sufficient to constitute the crime. Section 20, moreover, declares that the breaking of the inner door of any house, by any person being therein, shall not be deemed such a breaking of a dwelling house, as to constitute burglary, in any case other than such as are therein particularly specified. The entering and breaking of any building, not a dwelling house in which valuable things are kept, is made a burglary by the 17th section; and on that only could a count for burglary in respect to a mill be sustained. With that the common law concerning burglary has nothing to do. The offence is created by the statute ; .and the breaking is, in its terms,, an exterior .one. The breaking of an inner door is not mentioned as sufficient; nay, it is denied to be so by section 20. Admitting, therefore, that the raising of the trap door was a breaking, this was of an inner door, belonging to a building of which the breaking in from the outside is essential to the crime. •

The crime proved in the court below constituted, therefore, a larceny merely; and the conviction under the count for burglary was wrong.

New trial granted.