People v. Shaber

By the Court, Shafter, J.: The appellant was indicted for feloniously and burglariously breaking and entering in the nighttime a certain house (describing it) “ with intent to commit larceny.” On conviction, the defendant moved in arrest of judgment on the ground that the indictment did not state whose property the defendant intended to steal, nor that he intended to feloniously steal, take and carry away any property then being in the house entered.

The indictment charges the offense in the very terms used in defining it in the fifty-eighth section of the Crimes Act, as amended in 1858, (Acts 1858, p. 206,) and with all the particularity required by the two hundred and thirty-fifth section of the Criminal Practice Act. The case cannot be distinguished from 6 Cal. 487; 7 Cal. 403; 10 Cal. 309; 14 Cal. 30; People v. Garcia, 25 Cal. 533; People v. King, 27 Cal. 510 ; Regina v. Lawes, 1 Car. and Kir. 62 ; Regina v. Clarke, 1 Car. and Kir. 422-3. As a larceny actually committed is not made an element in the offense, it cannot be needful to allege one, either generally or by an averment of the facts entering into and constituting its definition. And as a forcible entry, etc., with a larcenous intent is all that is made essential to the crime, we consider that a conviction would be due even though it should appear that there were no goods in the building at the time the entry was made. The forcible entry and the intent being found or given, the crime would be complete even though it should turn out that, contrary to the calculations of the burglar, the building was empty. The sting of the crime is, in short, the guilty purpose, without reference .to the possibility of accomplishing it, in any given instance.

The judgment is affirmed.

Sanderson, J., dissenting: I am of the opinion that the indictment is not sufficient because it does not describe the intent with which the “ breaking and entering” was effected. It is not sufficient, in indictments for burglary, to allege the intent to be “ to commit larceny,” or “to commit rape,” or “to commit murder,” as the case may be, and there stop. The offense intended must be described, or, in other words, the acts which the defendant intended to commit, after having effected an entrance into the building, must be described for the purpose of showing what the intent was. This is but a familiar principle in every system of pleading, either civil or criminal. The facts are to be stated, to the exclusion of conclusions of law to be drawn therefrom. Where an intent to commit an offense is to be charged there is as much necessity for describing the offense intended as there is where the commission of the offense is charged directly. It is not for the pleader to say whether the acts intended amount to larceny, rape or murder, but for the Court, and the acts, therefore, which constitute the one or the other must be alleged. If it would be insufficient in an indictment to allege that the defendant at a certain time and place committed larceny, it is for the same reason insufficient to so allege when it is proposed to charge him with an intent to commit the offense. The averment is no more a conclusion of law in the former than in the latter case. The acts constituting the offense, whether it was in fact committed or was intended to be committed, must be stated, and that, too, for the same reason. In my judgment an intent to do an impossible act is not criminal, and hence the facts, showing the intent to have been possible, should be stated.