Court Opinion

ID: 9683025
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 13:21:06.87146+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:44.206671
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing
In our original opinion, after discussing some of the refused charges, we concluded our review by stating that the remaining charge* refused to appellant were either abstract or covered by given written instructions or the oral charge of the court.
On application for rehearing insistence is made that refused charge No. 19 cannot be logically and correctly classified among those instructions which were abstract or covered as indicated above.
The charge is: “I charge you gentlemen of the jury that the breaking out of a dwelling house is not a sufficient breaking but you must find from the evidence in the case that the 'defendant actually broke and entered the individual room of Willie Sue Wright and Nellie Ruth Suddith.”
The court charged orally on this aspect of the law as follows:
“And the next element, are you gentlemen convinced beyond all reasonable doubt and to a moral certainty from the evidence, and the evidence alone, that this defendant broke into an inhabited dwelling house. Did he break in? That is one of the necessary and indispensable elements of burglary in the first degree — that there must be a *26breaking. I charge you gentlemen of the jury that by way of illustration and example that if a door be shut in legal contemplation and if anyone, someone in any given case should open that door or open that window even though they don’t hurt the door or break a lock or even unlock the door but if they open it and walk into some place where they have no right to be that in legal contemplation would be a breaking in the eyes of the law.
“Now, do you believe from the evidence in this case, gentlemen of the jury, beyond all reasonable doubt and to a moral certainty, that the defendant did break into the dwelling house referred to in the indictment and if you so believe, are you, do you believe beyond all reasonable doubt and to a moral certainty that if he did break that he made entry into the dwelling house, an inhabited dwelling house referred to in the indictment. That is actually went on in there. Did he go in there? Are you reasonably convinced beyond all reasonable doubt and to a moral certainty from the evidence, gentlemen of the jury, for you to solve is what is an inhabited dwelling house in the eyes of the law.”
We'take the view that charge No. 19 was substantially covered by this oral instruction. This is in accord with the conclusion we reached when the original opinion was prepared and published.
The application for rehearing is overruled.