Court Opinion

ID: 9782727
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 19:08:27.185282+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:35:08.750105
License: Public Domain

Smith, J.
(concurring). I agree with the result the majority reaches, but do not join its opinion, because the rule it states seems to me less clear than it should be. I would simply reaffirm what we said in People v Roby (39 NY2d 69, 70-71 [1976]), summarizing our holding in People v McCaleb (25 NY2d 394 [1969]): “the statute proscribing unauthorized use of a vehicle (Penal Law, § 165.05, subd 1) makes criminal the unauthorized occupation of another person’s vehicle, without his consent, irrespective of whether or not the vehicle is in motion” (footnote omitted).
Under McCaleb and Roby, someone who enters and occupies someone else’s vehicle “uses” that vehicle within the meaning of Penal Law § 165.05 (1), and if he does so “[k]nowing that he does not have the consent of the owner” he violates the statute. This is not the only possible interpretation of the word “uses” — it could, as the dissent argues, be read to require the “ability” or “means” to operate the vehicle (dissenting op at 66) — but it is the interpretation we chose several decades ago, and I see no reason to change our mind.
*66The majority seeks a middle ground, saying that “the ability and intent to operate” the vehicle is not required but that “entry alone is not enough” (majority op at 64). The majority would insist on “some degree of control or use,” which it defines as “actions that interfere with or are detrimental to the owner’s possession or use of the vehicle” (id. at 64). But what unauthorized occupancy of a car does not so “interfere”? Does an intruder manifest “control or use” if he talks to a friend while sitting in the car? Smokes a cigarette? Looks out the window for the time it would take to smoke a cigarette? The only example the majority gives of something that would not be prohibited is “inadvertent entry into a vehicle mistaken for one’s own” (id. at 64), but an entry without mens rea is excluded on the face of the statute, which applies only to someone who acts “[k]nowing that he does not have the consent of the owner.”
Perhaps the majority’s “control or use” test is no different in substance from the simple “unauthorized occupation . . . without . . . consent” test of McCaleb and Roby. But if that is what we mean, I think we should say so.