Case Title: People v. Colbert

Citation: 

Docket Number: S238954

State: california

Court: California Supreme Court

Date: 2019-01-24T00:00:00Z

Document:
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF  
CALIFORNIA 
 
THE PEOPLE, 
Plaintiff and Respondent, 
v. 
MARK ANTHONY COLBERT, 
Defendant and Appellant. 
 
 
S238954 
 
Sixth Appellate District 
H042499 
 
Santa Clara County Superior Court 
206805 
 
 
January 24, 2019 
 
Justice Kruger authored the opinion of the court, in which 
Chief Justice Cantil-Sakauye and Justices Chin, Corrigan, Liu, 
Cuéllar, and Tangeman* concurred. 
 
 
                                        
* 
Associate Justice of the Court of Appeal, Second Appellate 
District, Division Six, assigned by the Chief Justice pursuant to 
article VI, section 6 of the California Constitution. 
PEOPLE v. COLBERT 
S238954 
 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
 
In approving Proposition 47, the 2014 voter initiative that 
reclassified certain theft-related and drug-related felonies as 
misdemeanors, voters created a new misdemeanor offense called 
“shoplifting.”  (Pen. Code, § 459.5.)  Shoplifting is defined as the 
act of entering a commercial establishment with intent to steal 
property while the establishment is open during regular 
business hours, where the value of the property taken or 
intended to be taken is $950 or less—an act that had formerly 
been punishable as felony burglary.  (Ibid.; see id., § 459.)  This 
case presents a question concerning the line separating 
shoplifting from burglary:  If a person enters a store during 
regular business hours but then proceeds to a private back office 
with intent to steal therefrom, which crime has he or she 
committed?  We conclude that entering an interior room that is 
objectively identifiable as off-limits to the public with intent to 
steal therefrom is not shoplifting, but instead remains 
punishable as burglary.   
I. 
 
On four separate occasions in 1996 and 1997, defendant 
Mark Anthony Colbert, acting with an accomplice, stole money 
from the back offices of various convenience stores and a gas 
station.  On each occasion, defendant and his accomplice 
employed the same modus operandi.  They entered the stores 
during regular business hours, and while one of them distracted 
PEOPLE v. COLBERT 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
2 
 
the store clerk by purchasing or redeeming lottery tickets, the 
other either slipped or broke into the back offices to steal money 
he found there. 
 
Defendant was charged with four counts of second degree 
burglary, an alternative felony-misdemeanor (also known as a 
“wobbler”) (Pen. Code, §§ 459, 460, subd. (b)).  For the first three 
counts, the People alleged that defendant and his accomplice 
took, respectively, $300, $318, and $3,000 in cash; no money was 
taken in count 4, because the accomplice was confronted by an 
employee while in the back office.  A jury found defendant guilty 
and he was sentenced to an aggregate prison term of two years 
and eight months, to run consecutively to a six-year prison term 
for an unrelated robbery.   
 
In 2014, California voters approved Proposition 47, the 
Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act, which reclassified as 
misdemeanors certain drug-related and theft-related offenses 
that had previously been classified as felonies or wobblers.  As 
relevant here, Proposition 47 added a section to the Penal Code 
creating a new offense of misdemeanor shoplifting.  Section 
459.5, 
subdivision 
(a) 
provides, 
in 
pertinent 
part:  
“Notwithstanding Section 459 [the burglary statute], shoplifting 
is defined as entering a commercial establishment with intent 
to commit larceny while that establishment is open during 
regular business hours, where the value of the property that is 
taken or intended to be taken does not exceed nine hundred fifty 
dollars ($950).  Any other entry into a commercial establishment 
with intent to commit larceny is burglary.”  With certain 
exceptions not relevant here, the offense is punishable as a 
PEOPLE v. COLBERT 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
3 
 
misdemeanor.  (Pen. Code, § 459.5, subd. (a).)1  Subdivision (b) 
limits a prosecutor’s discretion in charging:  “Any act of 
shoplifting as defined in subdivision (a) shall be charged as 
shoplifting.  No person who is charged with shoplifting may also 
be charged with burglary or theft of the same property.”  The 
effect of the provision is to reclassify as misdemeanors certain 
crimes that were formerly punishable as felony burglary.   
 
Proposition 47 also created a mechanism for extending its 
benefits to criminal defendants who, like defendant in this case, 
had been sentenced before the initiative’s passage.  As relevant 
here, Penal Code section 1170.18, subdivision (f) provides:  “A 
person who has completed his or her sentence for a conviction 
. . . of a felony or felonies who would have been guilty of a 
misdemeanor under this act had this act been in effect at the 
time of the offense, may file an application before the trial court 
that entered the judgment of conviction in his or her case to have 
the 
felony 
conviction 
or 
convictions 
designated 
as 
misdemeanors.”  If the offender meets the statutory criteria, 
“the court shall designate the felony offense or offenses as a 
misdemeanor.”  (Id., § 1170.18, subd. (g).)2   
                                        
1  
The statute provides that a person who has one or more 
prior convictions for one of the particularly serious or violent 
felonies colloquially known as “super strikes” (see Pen. Code, 
§ 667, subd. (e)(2)(C)(iv)) or who has been convicted of a crime 
that requires sex offender registration (id., § 290, subd. (c)) is 
subject to the greater penalties set out in Penal Code section 
1170, subdivision (h).  (Id., § 459.5, subd. (a).) 
2  
This provision once again excludes persons convicted of 
one or more “super strikes” (Pen. Code, § 667, subd. (e)(2)(C)(iv)) 
and persons convicted of one or more crimes that require sex 
offender registration (id., § 290, subd. (c)).  (Id., § 1170.18, subd. 
(i).)  Neither exclusion is at issue here.    
PEOPLE v. COLBERT 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
4 
 
 
In 2015, defendant petitioned the superior court to 
redesignate two of his four felony burglary convictions as 
shoplifting misdemeanors under Penal Code section 1170.18, 
subdivision (f).  Defendant failed to specify which two 
convictions, precisely, he sought to redesignate, but the omission 
made no difference; the trial court denied the petition on the 
ground that none of his burglary convictions was eligible for 
redesignation in any event.  The court listed three grounds for 
its conclusion:  (1) the “record reflects that each offense was 
based upon entry into a private area office area [sic] and not a 
commercial establishment that was open during business 
hours”; (2) the amount taken in count 3 exceeded the statutory 
maximum of $9503; and (3) defendant employed the same modus 
operandi in all counts and therefore the theft of more than 
$3,000 in count 3 “strongly suggests that the amount intended 
to be taken in each case exceeded $950.”   
 
The Court of Appeal affirmed on the first ground only.4  
The court held that when defendant entered the private offices 
                                        
3  
The superior court’s order mistakenly identifies count 2 as 
the count in which the value of property taken exceeds $950. 
4  
The Court of Appeal also briefly addressed the trial court’s 
third alternative ground for denial—that is, that the use of the 
same modus operandi in each incident suggested that defendant 
intended to take more than $950 in each theft.  The court 
rejected the argument, explaining that the record neither 
demonstrated that the commercial establishments routinely 
stored more than $950 in their back offices nor that defendant 
held such belief; the court therefore concluded that the amount 
taken in each theft was a matter of circumstance, as opposed to 
intent.  The Attorney General has not asked us to reconsider 
that conclusion. 
 
PEOPLE v. COLBERT 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
5 
 
at issue, he had exited the part of the “commercial 
establishment” covered by Penal Code section 459.5 (section 
459.5) and entered a “discrete area where [his] thefts could not 
be considered shoplifting.”  The court reasoned that the term 
“ ‘commercial 
establishment’ ” 
generally 
refers 
to 
an 
establishment that is “ ‘primarily engaged in commerce, that is, 
the buying and selling of goods or services.’ ”  The court 
concluded that the back offices did not meet this description; by 
contrast to the areas in which the general public is invited to 
peruse the goods on display, the back offices were “not areas in 
which goods were bought and sold” but were rather “areas off-
limits to the general public.”  Defendant’s sole intent, the court 
observed, was to steal from these private rooms; “otherwise he 
and his accomplice would have remained in the area where . . . 
goods were displayed rather than intruding into the private 
areas where the employees were likely to keep their personal 
belongings, such as purses and wallets, and where the business 
was likely to store larger amounts of cash.”   
 
Justice Rushing dissented.  In his view, the statute’s plain 
language compels the conclusion that defendant committed 
shoplifting by entering the stores with intent to commit larceny.  
He opined that nonpublic areas form part of the “commercial 
establishment” covered by the shoplifting statute and thus 
                                        
 
Defendant, for his part, does not dispute that the 
conviction stemming from count 3 involved theft of more than 
$950 and is therefore ineligible for redesignation as a 
misdemeanor under Penal Code sections 459.5 and 1170.18, 
subdivision (f).  We therefore limit our consideration to the 
remaining three burglary convictions. 
 
 
PEOPLE v. COLBERT 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
6 
 
disagreed with the majority that defendant exited the 
establishment by venturing into a nonpublic interior room.   
 
As the dissenting opinion observed, the majority opinion 
created a conflict with another Proposition 47 case, People v. 
Hallam (2016) 3 Cal.App.5th 905.  In that case, the defendant 
had been convicted of second degree burglary after he entered a 
computer store through a back door and stole an air compressor 
from an employee restroom.  (Although the defendant had 
previously used the restroom with the permission of store 
employees, he later returned, uninvited.)  The Court of Appeal 
held the defendant’s conduct constituted shoplifting under 
section 459.5 and the trial court therefore should have granted 
the defendant’s petition to redesignate the burglary conviction 
as a misdemeanor.  (Hallam, at p. 908; see id. at p. 913.) 
 
We granted defendant’s petition for review to resolve the 
conflict about the application of section 459.5 to offenses 
involving entries into interior rooms that are off-limits to the 
public with intent to steal therefrom. 
II. 
A. 
 
For more than a century before Proposition 47, entry into 
a store with intent to steal was understood to constitute 
burglary under California law, regardless of whether the 
defendant entered the store during its regular business hours.  
(People v. Gonzales (2017) 2 Cal.5th 858, 872 (Gonzales); see 
People v. Barry (1892) 94 Cal. 481, 483 (Barry).)  The reasons for 
this understanding lie in the early history of California’s 
burglary law.  At common law, the crime of burglary had been 
understood to require (among other things) a breaking and 
entering with intent to commit larceny or any felony.  When the 
PEOPLE v. COLBERT 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
7 
 
California Legislature enacted the present-day burglary statute 
in 1872, however, it dispensed with the common law 
requirement of a breaking, instead defining burglary simply as 
entry into a specified structure (including a “store”), a room, or 
a vehicle with intent to commit larceny or any felony.  (Pen. 
Code, § 459; see People v. Gauze (1975) 15 Cal.3d 709, 713.)  Of 
course, as this court would later confirm, the burglary statute 
did preserve the basic principle underlying the common law 
breaking requirement:  “that in order for burglary to occur, ‘The 
entry must be without consent.’ ”  (Gauze, at p. 713; see id. at 
pp. 713–714 [“ ‘If the possessor actually invites the defendant, 
or actively assists in the entrance, e.g., by opening a door, there 
is no burglary.’ ”].)  But in Barry, at page 483, this court 
interpreted the burglary statute to apply to a thief’s entry into 
a store during regular business hours, despite the fact the owner 
had opened the door to the general consuming public.  The court 
reasoned:  “[A] party who enters with the intention to commit a 
felony enters without an invitation.  He is not one of the public 
invited, nor is he entitled to enter.”  (Ibid.)  The effect of this 
holding was to extend the coverage of the burglary statute to a 
class of offenses that might colloquially be described as “simple 
shoplifting” (Descamps v. United States (2013) 570 U.S. 254, 
264), rendering them punishable as felonies (Pen. Code, §§ 459, 
460, 461, subd. (b)). 
 
Proposition 47 changed the law by defining a new crime of 
misdemeanor shoplifting and, in effect, “carving out” this “lesser 
crime” from the “preexisting felony.”  (People v. Martinez (2018) 
4 Cal.5th 647, 651.)  The statute provides that any act involving 
“entering a commercial establishment with intent to commit 
larceny while that establishment is open during regular 
business hours, where the value of the property that is taken or 
PEOPLE v. COLBERT 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
8 
 
intended to be taken does not exceed [$950]” is punishable only 
as misdemeanor shoplifting, not burglary.  (§ 459.5, subds. (a) & 
(b); see Gonzales, supra, 2 Cal.5th at p. 876 [“A defendant must 
be charged only with shoplifting when the statute applies.  It 
expressly prohibits alternate charging and ensures only 
misdemeanor 
treatment 
for 
the 
underlying 
described 
conduct.”].)  “Any other entry into a commercial establishment 
with intent to commit larceny” remains punishable as burglary.  
(§ 459.5, subd. (a).) 
 
Both parties in this case agree that defendant entered a 
“commercial establishment” when he first entered the stores 
from which he stole.  Defendant argues that is the end of the 
story, because the shoplifting statute draws no distinction 
between entering a store with intent to steal property from 
areas open to the public and entering a private back office with 
intent to steal property therefrom.  The Attorney General 
argues, and the Court of Appeal agreed, that the shoplifting 
statute applies to entries with intent to steal from commercial 
establishments open to the public during regular business hours 
only to the extent the establishments are open to the public 
during those hours.  In the Attorney General’s view, if a 
defendant enters a commercial establishment open during 
regular business hours, but then proceeds to enter an interior 
room that is off-limits to the public with intent to steal property 
there, the crime is punishable as burglary and not shoplifting.  
B. 
 
This question concerning the meaning of Proposition 47 is 
a matter of statutory interpretation, and we employ familiar 
principles to resolve it.  (See Robert L. v. Superior Court (2003) 
30 Cal.4th 894, 900–901.)  We begin by examining the words of 
PEOPLE v. COLBERT 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
9 
 
the statute, affording them “their ordinary and usual meaning 
and viewing them in their statutory context” (Fluor Corp. v. 
Superior Court (2015) 61 Cal.4th 1175, 1198), for “ ‘if the 
statutory language is not ambiguous, then . . . the plain 
meaning of the language governs’ ” (People v. Montes (2003) 31 
Cal.4th 350, 356).  Defendant argues that the statutory text 
clearly resolves this question in his favor—and indeed, suggests 
we have already said as much in a prior case.  He is wrong on 
both counts. 
 
The notion that our precedent resolves the question here 
is easily disposed of.  Defendant points to our decision in 
Gonzales, in which we interpreted section 459.5 to apply to an 
entry into a commercial establishment with intent to commit 
forms of theft other than larceny, including theft by false 
pretenses.  (Gonzales, supra, 2 Cal.5th at p. 862.)  In so holding, 
we rejected the Attorney General’s argument that it “would be 
absurd for the shoplifting statute to encompass any form of theft 
other than larceny of openly displayed merchandise” because, if 
it did, the statute “would require a person to be prosecuted for 
shoplifting even if he enters a commercial establishment to 
commit a theft from an area of the store closed to the public, ‘like 
a back office or a private locker room . . . .’ ”  (Id. at p. 873.)  Our 
rejection of the Attorney General’s argument, however, was 
cabined to the issue before us.  Without addressing the premise 
of the Attorney General’s argument about the statute’s 
application to back offices, we explained that section 459.5, by 
its text, is not limited to theft of openly displayed merchandise.  
While another statute, Penal Code section 490.5, prescribes 
penalties for “petty theft involving merchandise taken from a 
merchant’s premises” (id., subd. (a)), section 459.5 applies to 
entries with intent to commit theft of “property” more broadly.  
PEOPLE v. COLBERT 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
10 
 
(See Gonzales, at p. 874.)  We had no occasion to decide whether 
and how section 459.5 applies to entries into back offices or other 
private interior rooms with intent to steal property therefrom.  
 
Turning back to the statutory text, defendant points to 
section 459.5’s unadorned reference to entering a “commercial 
establishment” during regular business hours to argue that the 
plain language of section 459.5 applies to his criminal conduct.  
He argues that the shoplifting crime was complete once he first 
entered the stores in question with intent to steal money from 
the private back offices; in his view, the later entry into these 
interior offices to steal the money has no legal significance other 
than supplying evidence that he entered the stores with an 
intent to steal. 
 
We agree it is possible to read the text of section 459.5, in 
isolation, as broadly applying to an entry into a commercial 
establishment with intent to steal from a private back office or 
other off-limits interior room.  In ordinary speech, as defendant 
emphasizes, we would generally refer to a private interior room 
as part of the overarching “commercial establishment.”  And 
while intruding into a back office to steal an employee’s personal 
belongings is no one’s idea of “shoplifting,” that alone cannot be 
dispositive, as Gonzales makes clear.  We there explained:  
“[S]ection 459.5 provides a specific definition of the term 
‘shoplifting’ ” that clearly deviates in certain respects from the 
colloquial understanding of the term; where the two diverge, it 
is the statutory definition, not the colloquial understanding, 
that must control.  (Gonzales, supra, 2 Cal.5th at p. 871; see id. 
at pp. 873–874.)   
 
Still, defendant’s proposed interpretation of section 459.5 
is not clearly correct.  While it may be more consistent with 
PEOPLE v. COLBERT 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
11 
 
casual usage to read “commercial establishment” to refer to a 
store’s entire physical plant, it is also possible to read section 
459.5, in context, in the more specialized way the Attorney 
General proposes.  Under that reading, the term “commercial 
establishment” would refer only to that portion of the physical 
plant that is used for “commerce”—a term both parties 
understand to mean the buying and selling of goods—and to 
exclude private interior rooms in which no goods or services are 
sold to the public. 
 
The Attorney General’s narrower reading has several 
points in its favor.  It is certainly more consistent with the 
ordinary understanding of “shoplifting.”  (Cf., e.g., Leocal v. 
Ashcroft (2004) 543 U.S. 1, 11 [resolving interpretive dispute 
about defined term by reference to the term’s ordinary 
meaning].)  But more importantly, the reading fits with the 
surrounding language of section 459.5.  The statute limits 
shoplifting to those entries into a commercial establishment 
made “while that establishment is open during regular business 
hours.”  (§ 459.5, subd. (a).)  As the Attorney General notes, this 
language evinces some intent to limit the scope of shoplifting 
based on the extent to which the establishment is “open” to the 
public—which is to say, to the parameters of a commercial 
establishment’s invitation to enter to peruse the goods and 
services on offer. 
 
And perhaps more importantly yet, this reading makes 
sense given the history of the burglary statute and its judicial 
construction.  (See Gonzales, supra, 2 Cal.5th at p. 869 
[interpreting section 459.5 in light of similar considerations].)  
The burglary statute, by its terms, applies both to entries to 
structures, including stores, and to entries to rooms within those 
structures.  (Pen. Code, § 459.)  Interpreting that language, 
PEOPLE v. COLBERT 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
12 
 
California courts have long held that a burglary conviction may 
be based on the entry into a room within a structure, even 
though the defendant’s initial entry into the structure may not 
itself have been punishable as burglary.  In People v. Young 
(1884) 65 Cal. 225, for example, the defendant entered a public 
railway station, then, from the public waiting room, proceeded 
to enter a ticket office with intent to steal therefrom.  We 
rejected the theory that section 459 applied only if the defendant 
formed the intent to steal when he first entered the railway 
station; it was enough if the defendant formed an intent to steal 
before he crossed from the waiting room into the ticket office.  
This holding, as we would later explain, “reflected the prevailing 
common law understanding that entry from inside a structure 
into a room within that structure could constitute a burglary.”  
(People v. Sparks (2002) 28 Cal.4th 71, 80.)  For support, Young 
cited Blackstone, who had explained that a person who entered 
a room through an open door ordinarily could not be convicted 
of a burglary—but the same person could be convicted of 
burglary if, once inside, that person broke into an interior room 
within the structure.  (Young, at p. 226, citing 4 Blackstone, 
Commentaries 226 (Blackstone); see Sparks, at p. 80, fn. 14.) 
 
Applying the same set of principles, a long line of 
California cases have upheld burglary convictions based on 
entries with the requisite intent into interior rooms within 
larger structures, including stores and restaurants.  (See, e.g., 
People v. Sparks, supra, 28 Cal.4th at pp. 87–88 [trial court 
correctly instructed jury that entry into victim’s bedroom with 
intent to commit rape constituted burglary]; People v. Davis 
(1959) 175 Cal.App.2d 365 [burglary conviction may be based on 
entry into closed office within a service station]; People v. 
Gaytan (1940) 38 Cal.App.2d 83, 87 [burglary conviction may be 
PEOPLE v. COLBERT 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
13 
 
based on entry into a storage room of a cafe with requisite 
felonious intent].) 
 
This history supports a reading of section 459.5 that 
distinguishes between initial entries into stores and subsequent 
entries into certain interior rooms.  But that is not all; the 
history also lends support to the specific distinction we are 
asked here to adopt, between entering a store while it is open 
during regular business hours and entering an interior room 
within the store that is off-limits to the public.  The reason for 
this particular distinction lies in the same general principle 
articulated by Blackstone and reflected in Young:  Just as the 
common law of burglary was not prepared to punish a person 
who walked through an open door, neither was it prepared to 
punish a person who walked through a door at the express 
invitation of the owner or occupant.  (See People v. Gauze, supra, 
15 Cal.3d at pp. 713–714; LaFave, Substantive Criminal Law 
(3d ed. 2018) § 21.1(a), p. 269.)  But the law was prepared to 
punish the person who exceeded the scope of his or her invitation 
by entering an internal room without consent.  A person might 
be authorized to enter a building, but “[w]hen the authority 
granted was restricted to certain portions of the structure or 
times of day, there was a breaking”—and hence a burglary—
“when the structure was opened in violation of these 
restrictions.”  (LaFave, at p. 269; see 4 Blackstone, supra, at 
pp. 226–227 [explaining that servant commits burglary if he 
enters his master’s chamber without authorization and with 
felonious design]; see also, e.g., State v. Rio (1951) 38 Wn.2d 446 
[citing authorities for proposition that at common law burglary 
may be committed by house guest or invitee who, with the 
requisite intent, enters a room that he has no right to enter].)  
As translated to this context, the common law approach would 
PEOPLE v. COLBERT 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
14 
 
mean that (1) a customer invited to enter a store or other place 
where goods and services are sold could not be convicted of 
burglary, but (2) a person who exceeded the scope of the 
invitation by venturing into off-limits interior rooms would 
commit burglary if he or she did so with the requisite unlawful 
intent. 
 
California law departed from this common law approach 
in certain respects in Barry, supra, 94 Cal. at page 483, which 
held that a customer who enters a public place with intent to 
steal can, in effect, consider himself uninvited.  But our cases 
have nevertheless reaffirmed the continuing validity of the 
underlying principles.  A burglary under Penal Code section 459 
occurs when a defendant with the requisite intent enters a 
structure where he or she has no right to be, and a person has 
no right to be in a structure—or in a room within the structure 
(People v. Sparks, supra, 28 Cal.4th at pp. 81, 87)—without the 
effective consent of the owner or occupant.  (See People v. Gauze, 
supra, 15 Cal.3d at p. 714.) 
 
Because the whole point of section 459.5 is to redefine a 
class of burglary offenses as shoplifting, the history of the 
burglary statute and its judicial construction alone cannot be 
dispositive of the question here:  whether an offense involving 
an entry into an off-limits room within a store remains 
punishable as burglary.  The history does, however, leave us 
with two possible conclusions about the meaning of section 
459.5.  It is possible that section 459.5 does not speak more 
clearly to the problem of entries into off-limits interior rooms 
because it is designed to revoke the traditional distinction 
between structures into which a defendant has been invited and 
internal rooms to which he or she has not been invited.  
Alternatively, it is possible that section 459.5 does not speak 
PEOPLE v. COLBERT 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
15 
 
more clearly to the issue because it simply presumes the 
continuing validity of the traditional distinction.  A closer 
examination of the purposes underlying the burglary statute 
and the changes made by section 459.5 persuades us that the 
second option is the correct one. 
 
A primary purpose of the burglary law is “ ‘ “to forestall 
the germination of a situation dangerous to personal safety” ’ ” 
by punishing entries into one of the structures listed in Penal 
Code section 459 with felonious intent.  (People v. Garcia (2016) 
62 Cal.4th 1116, 1138, quoting People v. Gauze, supra, 15 Cal.3d 
at p. 715.)  Such unauthorized entries present “ ‘ “the danger 
that the intruder will harm the occupants in attempting to 
perpetrate the intended crime or to escape and the danger that 
the occupants will in anger or panic react violently to the 
invasion, thereby inviting more violence.” ’ ”  (Garcia, at 
p. 1138.)  The burglary statute is thus designed “to protect 
against the increased risk to personal safety that attends the 
commission of a felony” in such locations, as well as “to prevent 
the invasion of an owner’s or occupant’s possessory interest in a 
space against ‘a person who has no right to be in the building.’ ”  
(Id. at p. 1125.)  
 
In enacting the shoplifting statute as part of Proposition 
47, the electorate signaled that these interests do not apply in 
the same way when a person intends to steal property in a place 
where he or she has been invited to peruse the goods and 
services that are on offer.  Store owners and employees do not, 
of course, consent to the theft of property.  But the core of the 
crime of burglary is not theft but physical intrusion, and owners 
and employees have every reason to expect that members of the 
public will enter where they have been invited.   
PEOPLE v. COLBERT 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
16 
 
 
But it is different when members of the public venture into 
private back offices, employee locker rooms, or other interior 
rooms that are objectively identifiable as off-limits.  The nature 
of the intrusion, and the potential risk to personal safety, when 
a person exceeds the physical scope of his or her invitation to 
enter are not dissimilar from those associated with exceeding 
the temporal scope of the invitation by entering after regular 
business hours—conduct that clearly remains punishable as 
burglary after the enactment of section 459.5.  (§ 459.5, subd. 
(a).)   
 
In instituting reduced penalties for less serious theft 
offenses under Proposition 47, the electorate evinced no intent 
to alter the burglary law’s protection against this sort of 
invasion of security and property interests.5  The ballot 
materials, which we may consider as part of our inquiry (People 
v. Mentch (2008) 45 Cal.4th 274, 282), described shoplifting 
simply as “a type of petty theft.”  (Voter Information Guide, Gen. 
Elec. (Nov. 4, 2014) analysis of Prop. 47 by Legis. Analyst, p. 35.)  
The materials made no mention of either of the recognized 
harms of burglary:  the element of intrusion and the 
accompanying risks to personal safety.  Nothing in the ballot 
materials—much less the enacted text of the statute—provides 
any indication that the voters who passed Proposition 47 
intended to roll back the law’s protection for employees in off-
limits interior rooms, such as private back offices, where they 
are likely to be “at their most vulnerable.”  (People v. Garcia, 
supra, 62 Cal.4th at p. 1125.) 
                                        
5 
People v. Hallam, supra, 3 Cal.App.5th 905 is disapproved 
insofar as it is inconsistent with this opinion.  
PEOPLE v. COLBERT 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
17 
 
 
For these reasons, we conclude that entering an interior 
room that is objectively identifiable as off-limits to the public 
with intent to steal therefrom is not punishable as shoplifting 
under section 459.5, but instead remains punishable as 
burglary.  This interpretation of section 459.5 makes it 
unnecessary for us to consider the Attorney General’s 
alternative argument that defendant’s entries into the back 
offices at issue are punishable as burglary under the rule of 
People v. Garcia, supra, 62 Cal.4th 1116.  In that case, we 
interpreted Penal Code section 459 to permit multiple burglary 
convictions based on a defendant’s initial entry into a structure 
and a subsequent entry into a room within the structure if “the 
subsequently entered room provides a separate and objectively 
reasonable expectation of protection from intrusion relative to 
the larger structure.”  (Garcia, at p. 1120.)  For purposes of 
identifying the line dividing shoplifting from burglary after 
Proposition 47, we conclude it is enough that defendant entered 
an interior room objectively identifiable as off-limits to the 
public.  We need not decide whether entries into these rooms 
would also have supported multiple burglary convictions under 
the distinct test articulated in Garcia.  
C. 
 
In this case it is undisputed that defendant’s burglary 
convictions were based on entries into back offices that were 
objectively identifiable as off-limits to the public, with an intent 
to steal therefrom.  Had Proposition 47 been in effect at the time 
of defendant’s offenses, it would have made no difference; he 
would still be guilty of burglary and not shoplifting.  (See Pen. 
Code, §§ 459.5, 1170.18, subd. (f).)  We conclude that defendant 
therefore is not entitled to redesignate his burglary convictions 
as misdemeanors under Proposition 47. 
PEOPLE v. COLBERT 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
18 
 
III. 
 
The judgment of the Court of Appeal is affirmed.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
KRUGER, J.  
 
We Concur: 
CANTIL-SAKAUYE , C. J.  
CHIN, J.  
CORRIGAN, J. 
LIU, J.  
CUÉLLAR, J. 
TANGEMAN, J.* 
                                        
* 
Associate Justice of the Court of Appeal, Second Appellate 
District, Division Six, assigned by the Chief Justice pursuant to 
article VI, section 6 of the California Constitution. 
 
 
 
See next page for addresses and telephone numbers for counsel who argued in Supreme Court. 
 
Name of Opinion People v. Colbert 
__________________________________________________________________________________ 
 
Unpublished Opinion 
Original Appeal 
Original Proceeding 
Review Granted XXX 5 Cal.App.5th 385 
Rehearing Granted 
 
__________________________________________________________________________________ 
 
Opinion No. S238954 
Date Filed: January 24, 2019 
__________________________________________________________________________________ 
 
Court: Superior 
County: Santa Clara 
Judge: Linda R. Clark 
 
__________________________________________________________________________________ 
 
Counsel: 
 
Kimberly Taylor, under appointment by the Supreme Court, for Defendant and Appellant. 
 
Kamala D. Harris and Xavier Becerra, Attorneys General, Gerald A. Engler, Chief Assistant Attorney 
General, Jeffrey M. Laurence, Assistant Attorney General, René A. Chacón, Seth K. Schalit and Victoria 
Ratnikova, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Counsel who argued in Supreme Court (not intended for publication with opinion): 
 
Kimberly Taylor 
P.O. Box 1123 
Alameda, CA  94501 
(510) 747-8488 
 
Victoria Ratnikova 
Deputy Attorney General 
455 Golden Gate Avenue, Suite 11000 
San Francisco, CA  94102-7004 
(415) 703-5830