Rolland v. Commonwealth
| Decision Date | 01 October 1877 |
| Citation | 85 Pa. 66 |
| Parties | Rolland <I>versus</I> The Commonwealth. |
| Court | Pennsylvania Supreme Court |
Before AGNEW, C. J., SHARSWOOD, MERCUR, GORDON, PAXSON, WOODWARD and STERRETT, JJ.
Error to the Court of Oyer and Terminer of Franklin county: Of May Term 1877, No. 149.
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Duncan & McGowan and J. McDowell Sharpe, for the plaintiff in error.—A careful examination of the authorities shows conclusively that in every case where the opening of an inner door and passing through it have been held a sufficient breaking in law to constitute burglary, the intention to commit a felony in the very room into which such entrance was effected was clearly present, and constituted the very essence of the offence: Edmond's case, Hutton 20; 1 Hawk. P. C. 102; Rex v. Gray, 1 Strange 481, 2 East P. C. 488; State v. Wilson, 1 Coxe (N. J. L.) 441; U. S. v. Brown, 4 Cranch 604; State v. Henry, 9 Ired. 471.
The facts assumed in our case show that Rolland, when he unlatched the doors and passed through them, had no immediate purpose of committing a felony in the room or place to which the doors led, but that in fact he was going away from the banking-room, which was the theatre in which his plot to rob the bank was to be enacted, if he had any such plot at all.
We submit, then, that the learned judge was in error in ruling, that if the jury believed the facts assumed to be proved by the Commonwealth, Rolland was guilty of an actual breaking.
The error is still more manifest, when, under the facts of this case, the court charged the jury that there was an actual breaking under the Pennsylvania Criminal Code, and the Act of April 22d 1863, which were intended to provide for an offence where the entering is by night, without breaking, and which apply to this case.
O. C. Bowers, District Attorney, and John Stewart, for the Commonwealth.—We have here a breaking and entering of a certain part of the dwelling-house in the night time for the purpose of doing an act in the furtherance of the general design to steal, and it indeed seems idle to undertake to say that it was not done with intent to commit a felony. With what intention was it done if not with that one?
It is of no consequence that Rolland was going out and away from the banking-room, which was to have been the theatre in which his original plot was to be enacted, when he opened the dining-room door and started for Kindline.
He was not breaking and going out, but he was breaking and entering that portion of the house in which he knew Mr. Kindline to be, for the very purpose of taking a second necessary step in the accomplishment of his design, that is, for the purpose of committing a felony. State v. Wilson, 1 Coxe (N. J. L.) 441, is an analogous case.
This record presents but a single question. Was there such a breaking as constitutes felonious burglary? That the opening of an inner door may be such breaking is too well settled to need discussion. If a person leaves his doors or windows open, it is his own folly and negligence, and if a man enters therein it is no burglary; yet if he afterwards unlocks an inner or chamber door it is so: Sharswood's Blackstone, vol. 2, p. 226. The same rule is asserted in Wharton's Criminal Law, vol. 2, § 1536; 1 Bishop's Cr. Law 308; Roscoe, p. 302, and numerous authorities cited in which the point has been decided. It was conceded at bar that the law is so, but it was contended that in the case of the opening of an inner door, it must be accompanied with an intent to commit a felony in the very room so entered. We do not assent to this qualification of the common-law rule. If a burglar, entering by an outer door or window, incautiously left open, with the intent to commit a felony in a particular room in the house, as if he intends to rob a safe with the...
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People v. Davis
...on the inside. It is burglary to enter an inner door with intent to commit a felony even though the inner door was unlocked. Roland v. Commonwealth, 85 Pa. 66; 2 Wharton, Criminal Law, 12th ed., sec. 976; see also Daniels v. State, 78 Ga. 98; 9 Am.Jur., Burglary, secs. 4 and 6. Here the ent......
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People v. Garcia
...on the inside. It is burglary to enter an inner door with intent to commit a felony even though the inner door was unlocked. Rolland v. Commonwealth, 85 Pa. 66 ; 2 Wharton, Criminal Law, 12th ed., sec. 976; see also Daniels v. State, 78 Ga. 98 ; 9 Am.Jur., Burglary, secs. 4 and 6. Here the ......
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Hubbard v. Globe Indemnity Co.
...enters a building or a room or any part of the building with intent to commit a crime is guilty of burglary in the third degree. In Rolland v. Com., 85 Pa. 66, it was held that one opened an inner door of a dwelling house with intent to commit a felony in another part of the house was guilt......
- Commonwealth v. Brown