Court Opinion

ID: 9709457
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 03:48:14.885388+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:49.114828
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE CAHILL, dissenting: I do not believe the record before us can be read to find that Juan Ybarra intended to burgle Ahmed Awad’s Queen Wash Launderette. The record I reviewed fully supports Ybarra’s explanation that when the police observed him pull back the boarded-up bottom of a broken glass door and scramble inside the launderette, he was intent on finding a urinal, nothing more. Gaylord Richardson, upon whose case the majority relies, is a different character altogether in the history of Illinois criminal law. Though Richardson’s beer and cigarettes were in plain view in the Eagles Club bar, tending to support a theory that he had lingered unnoticed after closing hours, Richardson could not explain hiding in a supply closet where the police, in response to a silent alarm, found him. Nor could he overcome evidence that the boards blocking a window had been removed — a window the supreme court noted was hidden from view from the street. Evidence of surreptitious entry and subsequent stealth were fatal to Richardson’s innocent explanation of his behavior. Juan Ybarra, on the other hand, undertook the first steps of his alleged burglary on North Avenue in Chicago, in full view of two police officers and with an alarm ringing in his ears. The cunning and guile of burglars is overrated, or the police would not catch so many of them. But some evidence of cunning and guile are hallmarks of intent of even the most hapless burglar. Juan Ybarra was hapless, but I do not believe he was a burglar. I respectfully dissent.