Opinion ID: 2570681
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Sufficiency of Evidence on Aggravated Burglary

Text: The State's complaint charged Vasquez with aggravated burglary through the alternative means of entering into or remaining within Robin's house without authority; the jury instructions allowed conviction only on the entering into alternative. Vasquez argues the State failed to present evidence that he lacked authority to enter the house, which he and Robin had shared as husband and wife before his extended stay in Mexico. When the sufficiency of evidence is challenged in a criminal case, the standard of review is whether, after review of all the evidence, examined in the light most favorable to the prosecution, the appellate court is convinced that a rational factfinder could have found the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. State v. Morton, 283 Kan. 464, 474, 153 P.3d 532 (2007) (quoting State v. Kesselring, 279 Kan. 671, 679, 112 P.3d 175 [2005]; State v. Beach, 275 Kan. 603, Syl. ¶ 2, 67 P.3d 121 [2003]). Aggravated burglary is defined in K.S.A. 21-3716 as knowingly and without authority entering into or remaining within any building . . . in which there is a human being, with intent to commit a felony . . . therein. Entering into refers to the situation where a defendant enters without authorization. State v. Williams, 220 Kan. 610, 612-13, 556 P.2d 184 (1976); State v. Brown, 6 Kan.App.2d 556, Syl. ¶ 4, 630 P.2d 731 (1981). Our opinion in State v. Franklin, 280 Kan. 337, 345-46, 121 P.3d 447 (2005), is helpful in deciding this issue. In that case, a majority of this court reversed the aggravated burglary conviction of a former live-in girlfriend who entered her former boyfriend's residence and attacked his current paramour. 280 Kan. at 346-48, 121 P.3d 447. Evidence of lack of authority was insufficient when the defendant had testified that she had permission to be in the residence, and that she had clothes in the residence and a car in its garage. In response, the State had relied on the timing of the attack, 1:54 a.m., as well as the defendant's lack of conversation with residents on the night of the attack, her estrangement from the boyfriend, and her failure to visit the residence in the previous several weeks. Viewing all of the evidence in this case in the light most favorable to the prosecution, the State certainly demonstrated that Robin wanted nothing to do with Vasquez. She had asked him to stay in or go back to Mexico; and she had moved at least some of his belongings out of their house and into his sister's. Yet the State did not prove that on December 11, 1998, Vasquez was legally unauthorized to enter the house he and Robin had lived in together. Robin may have obtained a restraining order or may have planned to file a PFA action, as she told Starks, but there was no evidence that Vasquez had been served with any order of this type. He was still married to Robin. Although Starks' discouragement of contact with Vasquez' wife was good advice, it lacked the force of law. In keeping with our Franklin decision, we hold that the evidence at trial was insufficient to show Vasquez lacked authority to enter Robin's house. His conviction on aggravated burglary must therefore be reversed and its corresponding sentence vacated.