Court Opinion

ID: 9662458
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 23:09:35.201448+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:39.646719
License: Public Domain

Robert W. Hansen, J.
(dissenting). The plaintiff in error (hereinafter defendant) challenges his conviction on a charge of unlawful entry, without consent of the owner, with intent to commit a felony.1 The sole ground for such challenge is that the evidence, together with reasonable inferences drawn therefrom, was not sufficient to establish beyond reasonable doubt that he entered the generator room of the paper mill with intent to commit the felony offense of criminal damage to property *600in excess of $1,000.2 The issue raised is not whether he did in fact commit criminal damage in such amount, but whether, at the time he entered the building without consent of the owner, he intended so to do. The defendant did not take the witness stand at the time of trial, so the evidence as to his intent at the time of entry is circumstantial, but circumstantial evidence can establish intent at the time of entry.3
While intent to steal or commit a felony will not be inferred from the fact of entry alone,4 proof of “additional circumstances” may be sufficient to permit the trier of fact to find an intent to steal or commit a felony.5 Our court has held that: “Such additional circumstances include the type, manner, place and time of entry; type of building; the identity of the accused; and defendant’s conduct when interrupted.” 6
In the case before us, as to “type, manner, place and time of entry,” we have the defendant entering the gen*601erator building late in the evening, long after the regular employees had left for the day. The night watchman and security guard was elsewhere on the premises making his regular patrol.7 Thus the building was empty and unguarded when the defendant made his illegal entry. As to the “type of building,” the generator building contained, at the time of entry, a $100,000 generator and the following items of personal property: Fire extinguisher, bench, small stool, snow scraper, three rakes, pipe and pick, a “half-moon” rake and a shovel. As to the “identity of the accused,” the testimony of the paper mill manager, was that the defendant was not an employee of the paper mill on the date involved and did not have permission to enter the paper mill property.
However, in this ease, it is the “conduct of the defendant when interrupted,” and prior thereto that is completely persuasive as to his intent at time of illegal entry. The night watchman testified that, late in the evening, he came near the building housing the generator to take a river level reading. He thought he saw something move near the generator building. He went over to the building and saw the defendant through the window. When he went in one door, the defendant ran out of another door. The watchman pursued him and caught up to him at a small bridge. Defendant told the watchman to drop a stick he was carrying or defendant would take it from him and break his head open with it. The night watchman asked defendant, “Why the hell did you do this?” The defendant made no response. The defendant and the watchman “tussled” on the bridge for five or six minutes. The struggle ended, the watchman said, “The damage is done,” and asked defendant to “give a hand in cleaning up the mess.” Defendant did begin to help the watchman retrieve from the river the equipment that had *602been thrown into the flume from the generator room. However, when left alone at the river, the defendant fled.
The pieces of equipment which the watchman and defendant “fished out” of the river were from the generator room. They had been tossed into the flume leading from the room to the river. The night watchman testified that thus thrown into the flume were the fire extinguisher, bench, stool, snow scraper, rakes, pipe and pick. In fact, all pieces of equipment, except one, were thus disposed of. The one exception was the shovel. When the watchman entered the generator room, he noticed that the wooden-handled shovel was pushed into the generator. He pulled it out of the generator and threw it on the floor and left to pursue the defendant.
It is from these “additional circumstances,” plus the fact of illegal entry, that the trier of fact was to draw a reasonable inference as to the intent of defendant at the time of entry. As this court has said: “While intent is a state of mind, it is not to be determined apart from the actions of the person involved.” 8 Thus, the state of mind or intent may “. . . reasonably be ascertained from the acts and conduct of a defendant, and the inferences fairly deducible from the circumstances.” 9
Defense counsel suggests two inferences as to intent upon entry as reasonably based on these surrounding circumstances, plus the fact of illegal entry. The first, as stated in defendant’s brief, is that: “It might well have been that the defendant was simply looking for a dry place to sleep.” That would hardly explain tossing down the flume the fire extinguisher, bench, stool, snow scraper, rakes, pipe and pick. The night watchman testified that the generator room had been “cleaned out” of everything that “wasn’t bolted down” — except of course for the *603shovel shoved into the generator. That goes well beyond conceivably likely or reasonable preparations for slumber. The second possible inference, also set forth in defendant’s brief, is that: “. . . if he [the defendant] did place the shovel in the generator, that he had the intent to damage it [the shovel].” But, if the defendant desired to destroy the shovel, as he had disposed of all other movable items in the room, he could and would simply have tossed it into the flume, along with the other pieces of furniture and equipment. When he jammed the wooden-handled shovel into the $100,000 generator, it is not reasonable, under these circumstances, to infer that he intended to damage a $10 shovel. It is certainly a more reasonable inference that, when he put the shovel into the generator and left it there, he intended to damage or destroy the $100,000 generator.
Given the fact of illegal entry, and these additional circumstances, the trial court drew the inference that the defendant, in placing the shovel in the generator and leaving it there, intended to damage or destroy the $100,000 generator, and determined that his intent at time of his illegal entry was to commit criminal damage in an amount in excess of $1,000. The plant engineer, who had installed the generator, testified that a shovel placed in a generator, and left there, could cause damage by “tearing out windings of the generator, causing possible mechanical damage in addition.” The question here is not whether damage in excess of $1,000 was actually done to the generator, particularly not where the predictable result of leaving a shovel in a generator was interrupted by the arrival of the night watchman who removed the shovel from the generator. Eather the question is solely as to what the defendant intended to do. Defendant submits that, even with a shovel left in a generator, there is no proof here that the cost of replacing torn out windings and repairing mechanical damage would be in excess of $1,000. However, the question at issue *604remains that of what the defendant intended to accomplish, not what he did accomplish by what he did. It is an entirely reasonable inference on this record that, when the defendant entered the generator room, he intended to destroy everything in it, insofar as he was able to do so. He executed this intent by taking every disposable or movable item of equipment or furniture and throwing it into the flume leading to the river — except for the shovel. This one item of movable property he shoved into the generator and left there. Having disposed of the movable properties, he attacked the one immovable object within the room. It is an entirely reasonable inference, as the trier of fact determined, that, as to this second phase of this project of total destruction of things of value in the room, the defendant, at the time of his illegal entry, intended to totally damage or destroy the $100,000 generator to the outer limit of his ability so to do. Reasonable inferences drawn from the evidence can support a finding of fact, and, in reviewing such evidence to challenge a finding of fact, we view the evidence in the light most favorable to the finding, with the inference that supports the finding the one that must be adopted.10 In the case before us, the writer would find it an entirely reasonable inference from the evidence and circumstances here that this defendant illegally entered these premises with intent to commit a felony, that of criminal damage to property in excess of $1,000. In fact, that appears to be the only reasonable inference to be drawn and the only reasonable conclusion to be reached. The writer would affirm.
I am authorized to state that Mr. Justice Leo B. Hanley and Mr. Justice Connor T. Hansen join in this dissent.

 Sec. 948.10 (1), Stats., provides: “(1) Whoever intentionally enters any of the following places without the consent of the person in lawful possession and with intent to steal or commit a felony therein may be imprisoned not more than 10 years:
“(a) Any building or dwelling; . . .”

 Sec. 948.01, Stats., provides: “(1) Whoever intentionally causes damage to any physical property of another without his consent may be fined not more than $200 or imprisoned not more than 6 months or both.
“(8) If the total property damaged in violation of this section is reduced in value by more than $1,000, the person may be fined not more than $1,000 or imprisoned not more than 5 years or both. For the purposes of this subsection, property is reduced in value by the amount which it would cost either to repair or replace it, whichever is less.”

 Raymond v. State (1972), 55 Wis. 2d 482, 486, 198 N. W. 2d 351, this court holding: “Most of the above evidence is circumstantial insofar as it relates- to proof of intent to steal. However, it frequently has been held that circumstantial evidence can be sufficient to support a finding of guilt.” (Citing State v. Heidelbach (1971), 49 Wis. 2d 350, 360, 182 N. W. 2d 497.)

 Id. at page 487, citing Strait v. State (1969), 41 Wis. 2d 552, 164 N. W. 2d 505.

 Id. at page 487.

 Id. at page 487, citing State v. Barclay (1972), 54 Wis. 2d 651, 654, 196 N. W. 2d 745.

 The night watchman testified that he had 15 stations in his round, including the various buildings, and that he made his round every hour during his shift.

 Jacobs v. State (1971), 50 Wis. 2d 361, 865, 866, 184 N. W. 2d 113. (Citing Le Barron v. State (1966), 32 Wis. 2d 294, 145 N. W. 2d 79.)

 Id. at page 366, citing Strait v. State, supra, footnote 4.

 Bautista v. State (1971), 53 Wis. 2d 218, 223, 191 N. W. 2d 725. (Cited and quoted in State ex rel. Kanieski v. Gagnon (1972), 54 Wis. 2d 108, 116, 194 N. W. 2d 808.)