Court Opinion

ID: 9718855
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 07:36:27.087259+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:03.216227
License: Public Domain

MACK, Associate Judge,
dissenting:
Burglary requires unlawful entry with intent to commit a crime at the time of such entry. The government has not proved intent. The majority’s recitation of evidence bearing on intent to burglarize amounts to nothing more than the fact that appellant (who along with a codefendant had the lawful right to be present at the site of the crime) had signed a pawn ticket for a camera taken from one of the rooms. The majority implicitly recognizes, as it must, that these facts are in no way comparable to those presented in other cases in which we found sufficient evidence to have been presented to support a reasonable inference that an appellant possessed the requisite intent at the time of entry to support a conviction of burglary. See Massey v. United States, D.C.App., 320 A.2d 296 (1974) (evidence presented of an unauthorized 3 a. m. forcible entry into a bar and grill coupled with the suspect’s apparent willingness to carry away items of value (clothes) and his attempt to conceal his actions); Valentino v. United States, D.C.App., 296 A.2d 173 (1972) (arresting officer, several hours after a midnight check of the common wall of a building from which bricks had been removed, returned to find a larger hole in the common wall, dirt and tools on the floor and the defendant whose pants were dirty with dust which matched that found in the building); Franklin v. United States, D.C.App., 293 A.2d 278 (1972) (accused observed wearing a department store clerk’s jacket, walking in an area used by store personnel and carrying an inflatable shopping bag normally used by shoplifters); Hebble v. United States, D.C.App., 257 A.2d 483 (1969) (suspect found in a warehouse at 2:15 a. m. amidst open desk drawers and scattered papers as well as typewriters and an adding machine which had been moved out into a hallway); Washington v. United States, 105 U.S.App.D.C. 58, 263 F.2d 742, cert. denied, 359 U.S. 1002, 79 S.Ct. 1139, 3 L.Ed.2d 1030 (1959) (government proffered evidence of the defendant’s unexplained midnight presence in a darkened house, that presence having been accomplished by forcing open a window).
Recognizing the weakness of its position, the majority seeks out “other evidence” to justify its conclusion that there was sufficient circumstantial evidence to show intent to burglarize. It reasons that since there were two larcenies committed, the government proved conduct sufficient to show an intent to engage in a “theft pattern.” It is worth noting, although appellant has not urged it here, that on the evidence adduced, appellant could properly have been convicted of only one larceny — and that, only upon the “possession of recently stolen property” inference — an inference flowing from proof that he signed a pawn ticket for one of the cameras taken from one of the burglarized rooms. This circumstantial evidence is sufficient to support post-taking intent to “permanently deprive” necessary for this one larceny conviction. It is not sufficient to support a conviction for larceny of the other camera from another room because there is no basis on which possession of that camera by appellant can be predicated. There is thus no pattern of larceny attributable to appellant, and even if there were, this proof of intent to steal could not be further bootstrapped to impute an intent to steal at the time of entry. Cf. White v. United States, D.C.App., 300 A.2d 716, 719-20 (1973) (government’s inability to prove a breaking or to place appellant in the “burglarized” restaurant defeated burglary conviction while conviction of larceny based on unexplained or unsatisfactorily explained possession of recently stolen property was affirmed).
While the possession of recently stolen goods gives rise to an inference that the possessor has stolen the goods, it is not ordinarily proof or prima facie evidence of burglary. There should be some evidence of guilty conduct besides the bare possession of the stolen property, before *1079the presumption of burglary is superad-ded to that of larceny. [Id. at 719-20 (footnote omitted).]
The majority’s position is particularly disquieting in view of the trial testimony. Appellant’s codefendant (in exonerating appellant from responsibility) testified that the cameras were seen when the two lawfully entered the room, but that he alone returned later to the rooms, took the cameras and gave one to a stranger who helped him find a suitable pawnshop. This was the only direct testimony at trial bearing on entry and intent. To merely suggest, as does the majority, that the jury was “free to disbelieve [this testimony]” is no answer. True, the jury could have disbelieved the codefendant’s testimony that he gave one of the cameras to a stranger to pawn. To say, however, that the jury could have disbelieved the codefendant’s testimony that he stole both cameras is to say that a jury can reach a verdict contrary to the evidence. I respectfully dissent.