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Supreme Court of Alabama • 1879

Walker v. State

63 Ala. 49

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Takeaway

In short, this case holds that a tool's intrusion is a burglary entry when the tool does more than break in: it also directly enables the intended theft.

Background

Walker was indicted for burglarizing a corn crib owned by Noadiah Woodruff and Robert B. Peeples. The indictment alleged that he broke into and entered the crib, where corn was kept for use, sale, or deposit, intending to steal it.

After the owners learned that the crib had been entered and corn taken, they kept it under watch. Walker was later found beneath the crib. He voluntarily admitted that about three weeks earlier he had gone under it with a large auger, bored a hole through its floor, and allowed shelled corn to run through the hole into a sack. He took about three pecks of corn and plugged the hole with a cob.

The City Court instructed the jury that these facts established a breaking and entry for burglary and refused Walker's contrary requested instructions. The jury convicted Walker, and he appealed.

Issues

Issue #1

Whether the statutory words “breaks into and enters” carry their common-law meaning in a burglary prosecution.

Holding

Yes. Alabama's burglary statute retained the common-law requirements of both an actual breaking and an entry.

Reasoning

Although the statute broadened common-law burglary by allowing the offense in daytime, covering additional structures, and treating an intent to steal as sufficient even when the contemplated larceny would be only a misdemeanor, it used the common-law phrase “breaks into and enters.” The Court therefore read those words in their established common-law sense.

An actual breaking requires a substantial, forcible intrusion, but the force may be slight. Opening a latched door, picking a lock, removing a pane of glass, or displacing another security fastening is enough. Boring a hole through the floor of the corn crib likewise constituted an actual breaking.

Breaking alone does not complete burglary. Entry is an independent required element, just as entry through an already open door would not establish burglary without a breaking. A person makes an entry by putting any part of the body inside, and may also make one by inserting a tool or instrument under the proper circumstances.

Issue #2

Whether inserting an auger through the floor of a corn crib to create an opening through which corn falls into a sack constitutes an entry.

Holding

Yes. The auger's intrusion was an entry because it both created the opening and enabled Walker to carry out the intended theft.

Reasoning

When the only object introduced is a tool, the relevant distinction is between a tool used solely to make an opening and a tool that also helps accomplish the intended crime. An instrument that merely breaks a barrier, without any capacity to further the criminal objective, does not by its intrusion alone supply the required entry.

Walker's auger was not used merely to bore the floor. Once it penetrated the crib, it created the means by which Walker obtained dominion over the corn. After he withdrew the auger, the shelled corn ran through the newly made hole into the sack he held below, requiring no further intrusion or instrument to complete the intended larceny.

Because the auger both effected the breaking and made possible the theft for which Walker acted, its insertion into the crib was a sufficient entry. The breaking and entry were therefore complete, and the City Court correctly instructed the jury and refused Walker's contrary requests.