People v. Young (1884)

In People v. Young (1884) 65 Cal. 225, the defendant was charged with burglary by entering the ticket office of a railroad company with intent to commit larceny. The outer door of the house at the railway station led into a waiting room for passengers, and a door in the waiting room led into an inner room, the ticket office from which goods were stolen. The court refused to instruct the jury that the defendant could not be convicted unless he entered the building known as the ticket office with intent to commit some felony. ( Id. at pp. 225-226.) The Supreme Court concluded: "The court did not err in refusing to charge that if defendant conceived the purpose of stealing after he entered the waiting-room they should find him not guilty, nor in charging that if the ticket office was a room or apartment, and defendant entered it with felonious intent, the jury should find him guilty." The court reasoned: "One who enters, with burglarious intent, a room of a house enters the house with such intent. (2 Bish. Crim. Law, 97; 2 Whart. 1536, and cases there cited; State v. Scripture, 42 N. H. 485, 4 Blackst. Com. 226.) Here, where the room in a building was known as the ticket office, it was properly described as a 'building, to wit, the ticket office.' If the room was in the house, and the house was a building, a felonious entry into the room was a felonious entry into the building, since burglary consists not of entry alone but of felonious entry." (Id. at p. 226.) The court held that the trial court properly instructed the jury that to constitute a room, the partition between it and the rest of the house need not extend to the ceiling or roof. (Ibid.)