Court Opinion

ID: 9696488
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 18:49:10.494588+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:22.738620
License: Public Domain

R. M. Maher, J.
(dissenting). I dissent because I find that the trial court improperly instructed the jury on when the defendant must have possessed the intent to commit larceny. The trial court’s instructions are set forth in the footnote.1 The *487dispute centers on the meaning to be assigned to the phrase "the alleged act”. To be a proper instruction, this phrase must refer to the act of breaking and entering a dwelling.
The majority concludes that this phrase is not ambiguous if read in context. Because the phrase appears after the trial court listed six offenses, the majority concludes that the "time of doing the alleged act” means "at the time he committed any one of the six offenses”. The jury may have so understood. If it did, however, the jury misapprehended the law. At what time does one "commit” an offense? I suppose it is the time that the last element of the offense is in place. Thus, the trial court informed the jury, according to the majority, that the intent to commit larceny must be the last element of the offense the defendant completed. But this still does not tell the jury when, in relation to defendant’s act of breaking and entering, the defendant had to have the intent.
The trial court failed to properly instruct the jury on the element of intent. Instead, it misled the jury into thinking that the requisite intent only needed to be formed last. As such, the jury may have inferred that they could convict defendant if they found he formed the intent to commit larceny after the breaking and entering. A "defendant’s right to a fair trial entails the principle that the jury may not be instructed in a manner either erroneous or misleading”. People v Maliskey, 77 Mich App 444, 454; 258 NW2d 512 (1977). Accordingly, I would reverse.

 “There can be no crime of breaking and entering an occupied dwelling with the intent to commit the crime of larceny therein; attempted breaking and entering of an occupied dwelling with the intent to commit the crime of larceny therein; breaking and entering of an unoccupied dwelling with the intent to commit the crime of larceny therein; attempted breaking and entering an unoccupied dwelling with the intent to commit the crime of larceny therein; entry without breaking of a house with intent to commit the crime of larceny therein; attempted entry without breaking of a house with intent to commit the crime of larceny therein — under our law where there is no intent to commit the crime of larceny therein. And the burden rests upon the prosecution to show beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant at the time of doing the alleged act had that wrongful intent.”