Court Opinion

ID: 9628175
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 09:10:13.257486+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:06:58.905677
License: Public Domain

GILLETTE, J.,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I concur in all of the majority opinion save for its ruling on the question of whether a burglary was committed. To commit a burglary, one must enter or remain "unlawfully” in a building. ORS 164.215. I would hold that the entry here was not "unlawful.”
As the majority opinion discloses, entry in this case was made by means of a key given to the defendant and his accomplice by an "agent” by the majority but in fact an was entitled to have the key and, so far as the record here shows, would himself have been entitled to enter the building at the time the defendant did. Under such circumstances, I cannot see how the defendant’s enopposed to what he did once he was be called "unlawful.” The anomaly of this result is highlighted by the fact that, instead of giving the other two the key, the man who had the key might have gone there and taken the two inside himself or even gone in alone and set the fire. Those acts, I submit, cannot be burglary. Yet, we here hold that the legal equivalent of them is burglary.
The majority relies upon State v. Keys, 244 Or 606, 419 P2d 943 (1966). In that strange case, the Oregon Supreme Court, by a 4-3 vote, held that one who entered into a telephone booth with the intent to break open its coin box was not only a thief, but a burglar. I am persuaded that, were the same issue raised today, the Supreme Court would have better sense.
I respectfully dissent.