State v. Pelkey
| Decision Date | 27 February 1968 |
| Citation | 238 A.2d 611 |
| Parties | STATE of Maine v. Paul PELKEY. |
| Court | Maine Supreme Court |
Jules L. Mogul, Asst. County Atty., Bangor, for appellant.
David M. Cox, Brewer, for appellee.
Before WILLIAMSON, C. J., and WEBBER, TAPLEY, MARDEN, DUFRESNE, and WEATHERBEE, JJ.
On appeal. Appellant was charged with and convicted for violation of 17 M.R.S.A. § 754 which reads as follows:
'Whoever, with intent to commit a felony or any larceny, breaks and enters * * * any * * * building in which valuable things are kept, * * * shall be punished * * *.'
The pertinent portion of the indictment in the light of the issue in the case, charges him with breaking and entering 'a certain building in which valuable things were taken and then and there kept.'
An illegal entry and the intent to commit larceny is not disputed. The issue is whether or not the State sufficiently proved that the reference building was one in which 'valuable things' were kept.
The evidence establishes that a building utilized in connection with the owner's used-car business contained a desk with at least one drawer in which drawer were three 'piles' of automobile keys. The keys were those fitting the ignition switches of three rows of used cars in an adjacent parking lot, and after having been removed from the cars at the close of business on the day before the 'break' were thus deposited in the desk drawer. Each key had attached to it a tag identifying the vehicle which the key fitted. The appellant, after entry to the building, took one 'pile' taken keys and used one key from the 'pile' taken to start and remove an automobile from the parking lot.
At the close of the State's case, the accused moved for a directed verdict, which was denied. Appellant now charges error in that denial 'for the reason that the State failed to prove an element of the crime charged in the Indictment, that element being that the building allegedly broken and entered was a building in which valuable things were kept.'
Appellant urges that to justify the finding of guilt, it was incumbent upon the State to prove expressly that the contents of the building in question, to-wit, the keys and the desk therein, were valuable and that failure to offer such evidence prohibits a finding beyond a reasonable doubt that the building invaded was one protected by the statute.
In cases involving robbery (State v. Perley et al., 86 Me. 427, 30 A. 74) and concealing stolen goods of an alleged value (State v. Gerrish, 78 Me. 20, 2 A. 129), in both of which the necessity of proof of value of the goods involved was raised, it was held ...
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Busam v. State
...of fact may reasonably infer the existence of value, the evidence is adequate and the inferences properly may be drawn. State v. Pelkey, (1968), Me., 238 A.2d 611. This rule, we believe, was followed by Judge Hoffman in Lane, and is indeed a reasonable and sensible rule. See also Gardner v.......
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State v. Day
...the degree of the crime. State v. Thomes, 126 Me. 163, 136 A. 726 (1927). While the property stolen must be of some value (State v. Pelkey, Me., 238 A.2d 611 (1968)), value is in no other respect an element of the crime. At the time of Defendants' trial the law's only other concern with val......
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Jackson v. Commonwealth
...conviction. As with any element of a crime, the nature of the item taken may be proved with circumstantial evidence. Cf. State v. Pelkey, 238 A.2d 611, 612 (Me. 1968) (holding in a case of robbery involving an automobile key, in which proof of "some value" was required, that "the principle ......
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State v. Cookson
...statutes 10 which the Legislature saw fit to enact primarily to protect the integrity of buildings and their contents. State v. Pelkey, Me., 238 A.2d 611 (1968). This, together with the nature of the common law crime of burglary, leads us to the conclusion that the Legislature in 1821, when......