Opinion ID: 852652
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Damaging Property of Multiple Owners

Text: A fire damaging properties owned by multiple persons can however produce multiple crimes. Thus, one who sets fire to a shop in a mall which spreads and destroys five other businesses in the mall commits five arsons. Williamson, 798 N.E.2d at 451. Because the arson statute defines the crime in terms of damage to property, not injury to people, the result in Williamson is correct. The person who knowingly or intentionally damages multiple properties, each in an amount in excess of $5,000, in a manner that is forbidden by the arson statute has committed multiple crimes. One who, with the requisite mens rea, shoots two people with the same shot commits two murders. This result is consistent with the holdings in other jurisdictions. See, e.g., State v. Orr, 149 Ill. App.3d 348, 102 Ill.Dec. 772, 500 N.E.2d 665, 678 (1986) (multiple arson convictions and sentences were appropriate for single act of setting fire to one residence which spread and damaged neighboring residences); People v. Barber, 255 Mich.App. 288, 659 N.W.2d 674, 679 (2003); State v. Jackson, 2003 Mich.App. LEXIS 2522, at  (Oct. 7, 2003) (defendant properly convicted of forty-one counts of arson based on a single fire that destroyed forty-one apartment units); State v. Brown, 1986 Ohio App. LEXIS 5885, at -6 (Mar. 12, 1986) (defendant guilty of three arsons when she set fire to a bowling alley and the fire spread and ignited two adjacent buildings). Here, the enhancing factor is not damaging multiple properties, but damage to one property which also endangered human life.