Court Opinion

ID: 9746835
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 14:40:17.947762+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:17.466605
License: Public Domain

ORME, Judge
(concurring in the result):
¶ 17 I reject Defendant’s basic premise that because he was acquitted of attempted rape, his intent to rape the victim, when he entered or remained in the residence, could not support the burglary conviction. Just the opposite is true.
¶ 18 An attempt is committed when a defendant, intending to commit a particular crime, takes a substantial step toward its completion. See Utah Code Ann. § 76^á-101(1) (2008). All that is required for burglary, however, is that a defendant enter or remain in a building intending to commit a crime of the statutorily enumerated sort — ■ there is no requirement that a substantial step be taken to that end in order to sustain a burglary conviction. See id. § 76-6-202. Thus, a jury can properly convict a defendant of burglary when that defendant enters a building intending to commit a theft but, once inside, wholly fails in his mission. See, e.g., State v. Sisneros, 631 P.2d 856, 857-59 (Utah 1981) (affirming a burglary conviction when the defendant unlawfully entered a building and noting “[t]he fact that nothing was missing when defendant was apprehended is no defense to the burglary charge[,] nor does it destroy the inference of intent to steal at the time of entry”) (footnotes omitted).
¶ 19 This appeal readily turns on the realization that there is no disconnect between the jury’s concluding that Defendant entered, or at least lingered, in the residence, intending to rape the victim — thus sustaining his burglary conviction — while at the same time concluding he did not take a substantial step toward actual commission of the crime of rape — thus necessitating his acquittal on the charge of attempted rape.1 As the lead opinion seems to recognize in its footnote 1, the jury’s verdict is completely logical, given the evidence before it, and readily supports a burglary conviction. On this straightforward basis, alone, I would affirm. I see no need to wrestle with the more convoluted issues dealt with at length in the body of the lead opinion.

. The words Defendant spoke were sufficient evidence of his intention to rape the victim, but the jury could easily have concluded that his actions in struggling with the victim were with the purpose of quieting her and facilitating his escape rather than to implement his quickly abandoned intention to rape her and, thus, did not amount to a substantial step toward commission of the crime of rape.