Caseflicks

Supreme Court of Colorado • 1939

Stowell v. People

90 P.2d 520 | 104 Colo. 255 | 1939 Colo. LEXIS 278

Full access

Unlock the video and quiz

The written brief is free to read below. Subscribe to watch the video explainer and take the quiz.

Create an account Log in

Takeaway

In short, this case holds that authorized entry with an employer-provided key does not become burglary solely because the entrant intends to steal; the conduct may be larceny, but without an unauthorized entry it is not burglary.

Background

Stowell, a Rock Island Railway freight conductor, was convicted of burglary and sentenced to three to seven years in the penitentiary. He sought review after he had already begun serving the sentence, so the Supreme Court treated his application as a final submission rather than merely deciding whether to stay the judgment.

The railway had issued Stowell a switch key for his work. The key opened depot and freight-room doors throughout his division, and the record identified no regulations limiting its use. Using that key, Stowell entered the company freight warehouse in Genoa and took a carton of meat worth $3 and an automobile battery worth $7. The information charged that he had forcibly broken and entered with intent to steal.

Stowell argued through a requested instruction and a motion for a directed verdict that the evidence did not support burglary. The trial court refused the instruction, denied the motion, and the jury returned a guilty verdict after extended and difficult deliberations. The jury initially split 3 to 9, later 10 to 2, and ultimately convicted after repeated judicial requests to continue deliberating.

Issues

Issue #1

Whether evidence that Stowell entered the warehouse with a company-issued key, when he had a right to use it for lawful purposes, could support a burglary conviction under an information charging forcible breaking and entering.

Holding

No. A person who has a right to enter a building does not commit burglary merely because he enters with an unlawful intent, even if the method of entry would constitute a breaking for someone without that right.

Reasoning

Colorado's burglary statute covered both forcible breaking and entering and nonforcible unlawful entry into specified buildings with intent to commit a felony or misdemeanor. But the Court read the statute against the common-law history of burglary and the rule that statutes extending the common law must be strictly construed.

The decisive fact was that the railway had supplied Stowell with the switch key and that he was authorized, under his employment, to enter the warehouse at that time and in that manner when his purpose was lawful. Thus, his physical entry was authorized; only his intent made the entry wrongful.

The Court adopted the established rule that there is no burglary when the entrant has a right to enter, even if the entrant intends to commit, or actually commits, a felony inside. Unlawful intent alone cannot convert an otherwise authorized entry into burglary.

The Court illustrated the limiting principle with a schoolteacher who uses a district-provided key to reenter a schoolhouse and steal a pupil's pencil. Without the right-to-enter rule, statutory burglary could transform such conduct into a penitentiary offense, an expansion the Court would not attribute to the legislature without clear language.

The prosecution's own evidence established Stowell's lawful possession of the key and his authority to use it for a lawful purpose. Because his plea of not guilty put all available defenses at issue, he did not bear a separate burden to prove that authority. At most, the evidence established petit larceny rather than burglary.

Issue #2

Whether the trial court's refusal to direct a verdict of acquittal on the burglary charge was prejudicial error requiring reversal.

Holding

Yes. The directed-verdict motion should have been granted, and the burglary judgment was reversed.

Reasoning

Because the evidence did not establish a necessary element of burglary—an unauthorized breaking or entry—the trial court should have taken the burglary charge from the jury rather than permit a conviction on it.

The Court found the error especially consequential in light of the record. Stowell was 54 years old, had worked for the railway for 33 years with a clear record, and there was evidence that illness and intoxication affected his mental condition at the time of the offense.

The circumstances also suggested possible entrapment: Stowell had been picked up and supplied whiskey by a man known as Bill, who drove him to the warehouse, departed immediately upon the arrest, and was never apprehended. Meanwhile, railway special officers and peace officers had surrounded the warehouse despite no explained basis for knowing a crime would occur.

The jury's prolonged deliberations and shifting divisions showed that the conviction was far from certain. Given that a legally unsupported burglary charge was submitted to a closely divided jury, the Court concluded that the error was probably prejudicial.