Court Opinion

ID: 9533796
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:34:40.147375+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:29:10.692439
License: Public Domain

DISSENTING
SULLIVAN, P.J.
—Were it not for recent decisions by our Supreme Court in Lisenko v. State (1976), 265 Ind. 488, 355 N.E.2d 841 and in Carter v. State (1976), 265 Ind. 35, 356 N.E.2d 220,1 would find the logic of the majority position appealing if not persuasive. However, if we are to believe Mr. Justice Holmes, “The life of the law has not been logic: it has been experience.” Holmes, Common Law 1 (1881). Thus the “experience” which is reflected in the above-cited decisions prevents, in my estimation, the implementation of the majority’s logic.
The message I draw from Lisenko and Carter, supra, is that from evidence which alone reflects that a defendant forcibly broke and entered late at night or during early morning hours, a trier of fact may reasonably infer that the defendant intended to commit the crime of theft inside the premises which were entered. Concededly, Lisenko and Carter are couched in general terms of “intent to commit a felony” or “felonious intent”, but the fact remains that Lisenko was charged with having the intent to commit the specific felony of theft.1 Thus the mere breaking and entering was sufficient to supply the specific intent to commit theft therein.
Under the majority view here, the reasonableness of that inference disappears if there is evidence to show a different, albeit unlawful, intent, e.g., the burglary of an adjacent store. This approach seems to reject the possibility that the burglar had an intent to commit two felonies: (1) theft therein, i.e., stealing from Goodwill, an intent provided by the Lisenko-Carter inference and *524(2) the burglary of the Coin Shop, a felony which arguably could n'ot be committed within the Goodwill premises.2
The majority result appears to say that if there is evidence of an intent other than theft from the original premises entered, the intent provided by Lisenko-Carter reasoning is rendered unreasonable. It seems to me that if intent to steal from Goodwill could be reasonably inferred if the only evidence concerned the time and manner of the breaking and entering, the evidence of a possible or probable additional intent cannot make the original inference unreasonable. A trier of fact could reasonably conclude from the evidence of record here that defendant’s only intent was to steal from the Coin Shop but a different trier of fact might conclude that Castaneda intended to' steal from' both places. Were it otherwise, the Lisenko-Carter inference resting upon mere evidence of entry and its manner and time, must be viewed unreasonable as a matter of law. I have already noted that our Supreme Court has instructed us to the contrary. They have told us that the inference is reasonable.
For these reasons I am compelled to dissent.
NOTE —Reported at 372 N.E.2d 1191.

. Neither the opinion of the 3d District of the Court of Appeals in Carter v. State, reported at 345 N.E.2d 847, nor the superseding opinion by the Supreme Court on transfer, supra, discloses the particular felony Carter was alleged to have intended when he committed the second degree burglary.

. The second degree burglary statute controlling the instant case required that the breaking and entering be done with intent to commit a felony therein. I.C. 35-13-4-4 (Burns Code Ed. 1975). The present law as contained in I.C. 35-43-2-1 (Burns Code Ed. Supp. 1977) does not eliminate the questions which are before us.
If a person stands physically within premises A, breaks through a common wall and reaches into premises B, he has burglarized premises B if he intends to commit a felony inside premises B. However, it is possible, as stated by the majority opinion here, that he has committed that burglary of premises B while “therein” premises A. But see State v. Watson (1964 Mo.), 383 S.W.2d 753 as directly contra.