Court Opinion

ID: 9606089
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 02:46:43.826814+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:02:32.543016
License: Public Domain

Mowbray, C. J.,
dissenting:
The majority holds, in effect, that a burglar who is gathering his loot is no longer engaged in the commission of a burglary. According to the majority, the burglary had already been “completed”. I doubt if an unsuspecting homeowner, surprised in his own living room by a weapon-wielding burglar, would be able to comprehend or to appreciate the majority’s logic. I know that I do not.
In reaching its conclusion, the majority performs a feat of legerdemain, transforming a legal term of art, “complete”, into a conception of reality. Of course, the crime of burglary is “complete”, in the sense that criminal liability attaches, once an individual enters a house with a felonious intent. See NRS 205.060(1). The commission of that crime, though, is not “complete” in the sense of being terminated.
*691This Court has not always been so swayed by a hypertechnical intrepretation of the word “complete”. In the felony-murder context, this Court has found that the res gestae of a crime embraces the actual facts of the transaction, the matters immediately antecedent to it, and those “acts immediately following it and so closely connected with it to form in reality a part of the occurrence.” State v. Fouquette, 67 Nev. 505, 528, 221 P.2d 404, 417 (1950); accord Payne v. State, 81 Nev. 503, 507, 406 P.2d 922, 924-925 (1965). Thus, we held that a robber who was attempting to secure his stolen possessions or who was attempting to effect his escape was still engaged in the perpetration of a robbery even though the robbery had been technically “completed”. Id. The result should be no different with respect to burglary. See, e.g., United States v. Naples, 192 F.Supp. 23, 33-35 (D.C.D.C. 1961) (and cases cited therein), rev’d on other grounds, 113 App.D.C. 281, 307 F.2d 618 (1962).
Since I believe that the evidence presented at the preliminary examination provided probable cause to believe that appellant used a deadly weapon in the commission of a burglary, I would affirm the district court’s denial of appellant’s writ of habeas corpus.
Respectfully, I dissent.
Thompson, J., concurs.