Corona v. City of S.F.

• Decision Date: 21 June 2021
• Docket Number: A161369
• Citation: 65 Cal.App.5th 950,280 Cal.Rptr.3d 285
• Parties: Leonardo CORONA, Petitioner, v. SUPERIOR COURT FOR the CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO, Respondent; The People, Real Party in Interest.
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

65 Cal.App.5th 950

280 Cal.Rptr.3d 285

Leonardo CORONA, Petitioner,

v. SUPERIOR COURT FOR the CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO, Respondent;The People, Real Party in Interest.

A161369

Court of Appeal, First District, Division 5, California.

Filed June 21, 2021

Manohar Raju, Public Defender, Matt Gonzalez, Chief Attorney, Herman J. Holland, III and Oliver Kroll, Deputy Public Defenders, San Francisco Public Defender's Office, for Petitioner.

Chesa Boudin, District Attorney, Maria Shih, Assistant District Attorney, San Francisco District Attorney's Office, for Real Party in Interest

BURNS, J.

San Francisco police arrested Leonardo Corona after he entered a freestanding garage located on the same property as a house. The People charged him with first degree burglary, which applies to the burglary of "an inhabited dwelling house."

( Pen. Code, § 460, subd. (a).)¹ Corona argues that an uninhabited outbuilding, such as a detached garage, is not an inhabited dwelling house. We agree. Corona's position is consistent with the text and history of the relevant statutes, over six decades of case law, and our Legislature's acquiescence in longstanding precedent.

BACKGROUND

A.

The garage at issue faces the street. The house is behind the garage. The garage is detached from the house; an unroofed courtyard separates the two structures. To access the house from the garage, a visitor must exit the garage, walk across the courtyard, and enter the house through a separate, locked door. A visitor could also access the house without passing through the garage by walking through a locked gate to the side of the garage. At the time of the incident, the garage contained two vehicles, laundry machines, and other items (e.g., a bicycle, camp chairs, a rolled up rug) belonging to the residents.

B.

At the preliminary hearing, Corona argued that the first degree burglary charge is improper because the detached garage is not part of the house. Corona also made a motion under section 17, subdivision (b), requesting that the magistrate reduce the lesser included offense of second degree burglary to a misdemeanor. The magistrate concluded that the first degree burglary charge is supported by probable cause because "the garage was in fact part of the house." The magistrate did not rule on the section 17, subdivision (b) motion, reasoning that the first degree burglary charge could not be reduced to a misdemeanor.

After the People filed an information charging Corona with first degree residential burglary under section 459, Corona filed a motion under section 995 to set aside the burglary charge. He argued that there is insufficient evidence to support the first degree burglary charge because he entered an uninhabited, detached garage and that the magistrate denied him a substantial right by refusing to rule on his section 17, subdivision (b) motion. The superior court indicated that, if it were to set aside the first degree burglary charge, it would also set aside the lesser-included second degree burglary charge because "the case law is pretty clear it is a substantial right" to obtain a ruling on a section 17, subdivision (b) motion before the information is filed. However, the court denied Corona's motion to set aside the first degree burglary charge and did not rule on the section 17, subdivision (b) issue.

C.

Corona filed the instant petition for writ of prohibition. We have determined that Corona's motion below and his petition in this court were timely filed for purposes of obtaining writ review ( §§ 999a, 1510 ) and that he presented facts persuasively demonstrating the necessity for writ review. Given the novel issue presented and the likelihood that it would recur, we decided to address the issue in a published decision. Accordingly, we issued an order to show cause rather than an alternative writ because the latter procedure would have allowed the trial court to reverse the order, potentially making the issue moot. ( Paul Blanco's Good Car Co. Auto Group v. Superior Court (2020) 56 Cal.App.5th 86, 98-99, 270 Cal.Rptr.3d 164.)

DISCUSSION

A.

We agree with Corona that the burglary of an uninhabited outbuilding, such as a detached garage, is not first degree burglary. Our review is de novo. (See People v. Tran (2015) 61 Cal.4th 1160, 1166, 191 Cal.Rptr.3d 251, 354 P.3d 148 [statutory construction questions are reviewed de novo]; People v. Watson (1981) 30 Cal.3d 290, 300, 179 Cal.Rptr. 43, 637 P.2d 279 [when facts are undisputed, determination of probable cause to support an information is reviewed independently], disapproved on another ground by People v. Sanchez (2001) 24 Cal.4th 983, 991, fn. 3, 103 Cal.Rptr.2d 698, 16 P.3d 118.)

1.

We first examine the language of the relevant statutes.

In the definition of burglary ( § 459 ), the Legislature listed "house" separately from outbuildings, indicating that the Legislature did not consider an outbuilding merely to be part of a house. "Every person who enters any house, room, apartment, tenement, shop, warehouse, store, mill, barn, stable, outhouse or other building ... with intent to commit grand or petit larceny or any felony is guilty of burglary." ( § 459.) The statute includes both "house" and common outbuildings like "barn" and "stable." (See Ruprecht v. Nicholson (1928) 88 Cal.App. 762, 765, 264 P. 332 ( Ruprecht ) [outbuildings commonly include barns, sheds, stables, storehouses, and garages].) The statute's reference to "outhouse" is particularly significant because it is a synonym for outbuilding . ( Ibid . ["The definition of ... an outhouse is, ‘A small house or building separate from the main house; an outbuilding[.]’ "]; see also People v. Stickman (1867) 34 Cal. 242, 244-245 ( Stickman ) [using the terms outhouse and outbuilding interchangeably].) Under section 459, Corona may have burgled the garage, but he did not burgle the house.²

But section 460, which defines the degrees of burglary, adds a wrinkle to this analysis by using the peculiar term "inhabited dwelling house": "Every burglary of an inhabited dwelling house , vessel ... which is inhabited and designed for habitation, floating home ... or trailer coach ... or the inhabited portion of any other building, is burglary of the first degree." ( § 460, subd. (a), italics added.) All other burglaries are second degree. ( § 460, subd. (b).) " ‘[I]nhabited’ " means "being used for dwelling purposes, whether occupied or not." ( § 459.) "Dwelling house" is not defined.

The People do not argue that the garage itself was inhabited. They argue that the dwelling house included both the house (which was undisputedly inhabited) and the garage. So Corona's entry into the garage was a first degree burglary of an inhabited dwelling house.

Because the meaning of dwelling house is unclear, we consider the history of the burglary statutes.

2.

Under English common law, outbuildings were generally part of the associated residence—called a dwelling house or mansion house—provided they were within the curtilage. As an early Supreme Court case explained: "The dwelling house ... includes the privy, barn, stables, cow houses, [and] dairy houses, if they are parcel of the messuage, though they are not under the same roof or joining contiguous to it. (1 Hale P.C. 558.) And when a burglary is committed in one of these outbuildings the indictment may charge the offense as done in the mansion house. (1 Hale P.C. 557.)" ( Stickman , supra , 34 Cal. at p. 244.) The court observed, however, that this view was not universally accepted by American courts, some of which "limit[ed] the dwelling house to the building actually inhabited, to the exclusion of outhouses, though within the same inclosure." ( Id. at pp. 244-245.) The court did not say which definition of dwelling house prevailed in California.

California's first burglary statute, enacted in 1850, applied to a "dwelling house" and also "any other house whatever." (Stats. 1850, ch. 99, § 58, p. 235; Stickman , supra , 34 Cal. at p. 245.) Stickman explained that "house" means " ‘housed in,’ " that is, any building with walls and a roof, regardless of its use. ( Stickman , supra , 34 Cal. at p. 245.) Obviously, this could include outbuildings or any other standalone structures, but the statute did not specify whether a dwelling house includes outbuildings. In 1858, the Legislature replaced "dwelling house" with "any house, room, apartment or tenement" to clarify a point unrelated to our issue. ( Ibid . ; Stats. 1858, ch. 245, § 1, p. 206.)

Not long after, however, the Legislature enacted a housebreaking statute that listed both dwelling house and outbuildings separately, indicating that the term dwelling house does not include outbuildings. (Stats. 1864, ch. 114, § 1, p.104 [prohibiting breaking and entering, in the daytime, of "any dwelling house, shop, warehouse, store, mill, barn, stable, outhouse, or other building"]; see also 1872 Pen. Code, § 461 [defining housebreaking by reference to entering "any dwelling house, shop, warehouse, store, mill, barn, stable, outhouse, other building, vessel, or railroad car"].) Likewise, in 1875, the Legislature expanded the list of structures in the definition of burglary so that it covered not only houses but also the same outbuildings included in both the housebreaking statute and the present section 459. (Code Amends. 1875-1876, ch. 56, § 1, p. 111 [adding "shop, warehouse, store, mill, barn, stable, outhouse, or other building"].)

Thereafter, the term dwelling house did not reappear in the burglary statutes until 1923, when the Legislature added "inhabited dwelling house" to the first degree burglary statute, section 460. (Stats. 1923, ch. 362, § 1, p. 747 [defining first degree burglary to include "[e]very burglary of an inhabited dwelling house or building committed in the night time"].) In the decades before and after the 1923 amendment, the Legislature periodically refined the text of the burglary statutes, but none of the changes sheds additional light on...