Court Opinion

ID: 9770265
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 15:56:23.746467+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:37:16.408592
License: Public Domain

LEIBSON, Justice,
dissenting.
Respectfully, I dissent from the portion of the Opinion affirming the burglary conviction.
The Majority Opinion finds Emergency Protective Orders (EPO) “are relevant as evidence of motive or state of mind, and also as part of the immediate circumstances bearing on the crimes charged,” and I agree. But after this evidence had been admitted, the appellant was then entitled to his requested admonition to the effect that the existence of an outstanding EPO does not prove that the appellant had previously committed a crime.
In Matthews v. Commonwealth, 709 S.W.2d 414 (1985), we held that a “sexual abuse warrant had a direct bearing on the appellant’s state of mind at the time” the victims were killed. However, the appellant in Matthews did not offer an instruction to the jury, as was done by defense counsel in this case, that the warrant “could be considered only as bearing on the accused’s state of mind and not as proof of guilt of the offense charged.” Since none was requested, in Matthews we perceived no error in the lack of such an instruction. This appellant did request such an instruction and was entitled to his requested admonition.
There is another far more significant reason why the burglary conviction should be reversed. The trial court’s answer to the question the jury submitted during its deliberation was not “a correct statement of the law,” as the Majority Opinion states. On the contrary, it was seriously misleading. The jury had been instructed on first-degree burglary as well as first-degree criminal trespass. The jury then asked this question:
“Under Instruction # 1, section a [the burglary instruction] the phrase “with intent to commit a crime,” can you tell us if this refers to the crime of coming onto the property or the crime of assault?”
The trial court responded to their question:. “To commit any crime.” This response could be fairly understood by the jury to mean the same evidence introduced to prove criminal trespass, without any additional facts, would prove the intent element in the burglary charge. Such is not the ease, and these circumstances render unreliable the jury’s verdict on the burglary charge.
The burglary statute, KRS 511.020, reads in pertinent part: “A person is guilty of burglary in the first degree when, with the intent to commit a crime, he knowingly enters or remains unlawfully in a building....” The trial court’s response to the jury’s question implies that either knowing it was a crime to come onto the property, because to do so violated the EPO, or intending to commit the crime of assault would satisfy the intent requirement.
For the “intent” element of the burglary statute to have been satisfied in this case, “with the intent to commit any crime” must be understood to refer to intent to commit a crime in addition to criminal trespass. Criminal trespass is committed by “knowingly entering or remaining unlawfully in a building,” the first element in the burglary statute. Since anytime someone “knowingly enters or remains unlawfully in a dwelling” that person would necessarily have the intent to commit the crime of coming onto the property, the Majority Opinion has effective*473ly written the intent requirement out of the burglary statute by declaring the trial court’s answer “to be a correct statement of the law”.
Further, if the intent requirement is written out of the burglary statute in this fashion, any time there is a criminal trespass and the trespasser happens to be armed, or causes physical injury to someone who is not a participant in the crime, or uses or threatens to use a dangerous instrument on a nonparticipant, that person would be guilty of first-degree burglary without the Commonwealth having to prove “the intent to commit a crime” otherwise required as the first element for burglary.
The Majority further opines that it is immaterial whether the jury’s question indicated they considered the violation of an EPO as evidence sufficient to prove the element of intent to commit a crime, because “even if one believes that appellant did not have the requisite intent as he entered the house, one could surely believe he subsequently formed the intent necessary to be guilty of the crime of burglary.” The Majority believes the appellant “may be convicted of the crime of burglary providing the jury finds that he knowingly entered the building with the intent to commit a crime or that he remained unlawfully in the building with intent to commit a crime.” While this last quoted statement is true as an abstraction, it has no concrete application to present circumstances.
As stated in 12A C.J.S. Burglary § 41 (1980):
“To constitute burglary the requisite specific intent must exist at the time of the breaking and entry, or entry, or remaining
According to the Model Penal Code, § 221.1 (1980), from which our burglary statute (KRS 511.020) is taken, the phrase encompassing one who unlawfully remains upon property is included in burglary statutes to reach those situations where the person enters lawfully (i.e., with license to do so) but then remains after it is lawful to do so in order to commit a crime. Examples given in the Model Penal Code include someone who enters a bank lawfully but hides until it closes, or someone who comes into a home as a guest and then hides in a closet until after the host thinks all the guests are gone. The Commentary to KRS 511.020 bears this out:
It [the requirement that a burglar must knowingly enter or remain unlawfully] expands the traditional burglary offense through a provision that any person who enters property under privilege may still commit an offense of burglary if he remains on that property beyond the termination of his privilege. (Emphasis added). KRS 511.020, Commentary (iii) (1974).
In Tribbett v. Commonwealth, Ky., 561 S.W.2d 662 (1978), we correctly interpreted this statute. The defendant was invited into the victim’s home where he killed the victim and then made off with his property. The defendant was in the victim’s home lawfully, and the jury was correctly instructed to find him guilty of burglary only if thereafter he remained in the victim’s dwelling without permission, in order to commit a crime. Upon the death of the licensor/victim, the defendant’s license to be on the premises ceased. “Therefore, when [he] failed to leave, [he] remained unlawfully upon the premises within the meaning of the burglary statute. KRS 511.020, Commentary (iii) (1974).” Id. at 664. When the defendant then made off with the victim’s property, he committed a burglary.
If someone enters lawfully but remains unlawfully, like the defendant did in Tribbett, the “intent to commit a crime,” as an element of burglary, must be determined at the time that person unlawfully remains. If the initial entry is unlawful, as it was in this case, the “intent to commit a crime” element must be determined as of the time of entry. To hold otherwise would mean every crime committed in a building is a burglary as well as the offense committed, since in every case “intent to commit a crime” exists at the instant when the crime occurs.
The jury asked whether the phrase “with intent to commit a crime” referred to the crime of coming onto the property or the crime of assault. Since the appellant’s intent to commit a crime must be determined at the time he unlawfully entered the building, this *474question, by its nature, discloses that the jury was debating whether the violation of the EPO was evidence which in and of itself established a crime rendering the defendant guilty of burglary. In answer to the jury’s question, they should have been instructed: “with intent to commit a crime, as used in the burglary instruction, refers to the crime of assault and not to any offense committed by unlawfully coming onto the property.”
Although violation of an EPO of which the appellant was aware indicated he “knowingly” entered the building “unlawfully,” appellant was not guilty of burglary unless the jury believed that, at the time he entered unlawfully, he intended to commit a crime after he got inside.
For these reasons, I would reverse the burglary conviction and remand this part of the case.