Court Opinion

ID: 9648300
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 14:12:58.940963+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:58.428522
License: Public Domain

PAUL PRESSLER, Justice,
dissenting.
By overruling the second point of error and sustaining the first one, the majority holds that the appellant committed the act of which he was accused but that that act falls outside of the scope of TEX.PENAL CODE § 30.04. The latter part of that holding is demonstrably wrong for two reasons:
(1) the majority concentrates on the title of the statute rather than the intent of the legislature, and
(2) Texas precedent supports the conviction.
Title 7 of the Penal Code is entitled “Offenses Against Property.” Chapter 30 is entitled “Burglary and Criminal Trespass.” The appellant is guilty of both of the above *251offenses, but the majority seems to hold that the Legislature cannot extend the definition of burglary beyond its traditional boundaries. The Legislature has prohibited “burglary” of coin-operated machines. TEX.PENAL CODE § 30.03. The majority refers to part of the comments in the Practice Commentary following Chapter 30 but ignores the rest of the comments which read as follows:
An entry, in the traditional burglarious sense, into a coin-operated machine is an impossibility, and the interest that has traditionally justified a burglary offense-protection of the sanctity of enclosed, private places — does not attach, even remotely, to coin-operated machines. Thus an offense labeled “burglary of a coin-operated machine” is a misnomer. The offense is really criminal mischief against a coin-operated machine_
Searcy & Patterson, Practice Commentary, TEX.PENAL CODE § 30.03.
The commentary on § 30.04 makes the same point:
Like burglary of coin-operated machines, burglary of vehicles other than habitations protects no interest not already protected by the criminal mischief and theft offenses. It serves only to make felons of thieves, even though the loss they inflict is not otherwise sufficient to justify felony treatment, if they are so unfortunate or uninformed that they steal or attempt to steal from a vehicle.
In other words, a vehicle is more like a vending machine than like a house.
Our lawmakers have chosen to free the prosecution from proceeding under the theft statute and establishing the value of stolen property. (It is elementary, of course, that nothing at all need be stolen for a burglary to be committed). The legislature could have called this offense “arson” without requiring that the perpetrator set fire to the vehicle. In short, the majority opinion has missed the plain meaning of the statute.
Even if it were correct, existing case law shows that reversal is unwarranted. In Alford v. State, 676 S.W.2d 199 (Tex.App.—Corpus Christi 1984, no pet.), the accused merely opened the hood of a pickup truck, yet the finding of burglary stood. Under the majority’s reasoning, that defendant would have been better off if he had simply stolen the hood itself. Presumably the majority would allow a thief to take the hubcaps, the doors, the gas cap, indeed to dismantle the entire vehicle piece by piece. Alford is sufficient to sustain this burglary conviction. Among the cases in agreement with this position are the following: State v. Pierre, 320 So.2d 185 (La.1975) (there is no requirement that the part of the vehicle be habitable); People v. Frey, 126 Ill.App.3d 484, 81 Ill.Dec. 602, 467 N.E.2d 302 (1984) (burglary conviction was proper for taking a hammer from the open bed of a pickup truck). Prying off the hubcaps certainly constitutes an entry under Alford unless the majority believes that the hubcaps all fell off the car.
The majority correctly states the applicable legal principle but it is not applied: “[c]ase law construing § 30.04(b) has consistently required proof that the accused penetrated the interior of a vehicle, or a part of a vehicle, in order to sustain a conviction.” (Emphasis added). A hubcap is part of a vehicle. To pry it off the wheel requires the insertion of a metal object into the cavity between the hubcap and the wheel. If the hubcap were locked, there would have had to have been an inserting into the keyhole.
The only cases cited to support reversal are cases where the evidence was insufficient to show that the accused committed the act at all. No Texas case — not one— stands for the proposition that the act was not prohibited by § 30.04.
I dissent.