Arnold v. State

Thompson, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. Carroll Sylvester Arnold, the appellant, was observed during nighttime hours in front of an apartment house in the possession of a tire valued at $15.00, that had been stolen from a storage bin in the basement of the apartment building. He was convicted of breaking a storehouse and stealing goods of the value of more than $5.00 by a jury in the Circuit Court for Prince George’s County. He contends on appeal the evidence was insufficient to support his conviction.

He argues first that the storage bin, being located in the basement of the apartment house, was a part of the dwelling of the owner of the tire, and was not, therefore, a storehouse within the meaning of Section 83 of Md. Code, Art. 27, implying, of course, that he should have been convicted, if at all, of burglary under Section 30 of Md. Code, Art. 27. We think that this part of his argument is without merit. He relies on Mason v. Commonwealth, 101 Ky. 397 , 41 S. W. 305 (1897), but in that case the Kentucky Court held that the basement of a single family private dwelling was a part of the dwelling house and not a storehouse, whereas the problem presented here is whether or not the basement of an apartment building, in which several families reside, is a part of each family’s dwelling when a portion thereof is set aside as storage space for each tenant. In State v. Clark, 89 Mo. 423 , 1 S. W. 332 (1886), the basement of a building which was occupied by several families as a residence was held to be a storehouse and not a dwelling.

In Poff v. State, 4 Md. App. 186 , 241 A. 2d 898 we held that a vacant apartment which was used simply by the owners as a place in which to keep furniture pending rental was a storehouse and not a dwelling. In Jones v. State, 2 Md. App. 356 , 234 A. 2d 625 we affirmed a conviction for storehouse breaking ³ (Section 32, Md. Code, Art. 27) of part of a building which was used for a club, while another part of the building was used as an apartment by a tenant of the club. These rulings seem to be in accordance with the authorities, i.e., where the area broken into cannot be considered as an immediate part of the residence of the owner of the building. Clark and Marshall, Law of Crime § 13.01; Perkins, Criminal Law, Ch. 3 § 1, 2 Wharton Criminal Law and Procedure § 425 (Anderson Edition).

See also Thomas v. State, 97 Ala. 3 , 12 So. 409 (1893) and Hahn v. State, 83 N.W. 674 (Neb. 1900). We think the distinction is sound. The law of burglary was developed for the purpose of protecting the habitation, and although it extended to the house and to the immediate curtilage, it did not extend to barns which were nearby but not within the immediate curtilage. A storage bin in the basement of a modern day apartment house can be a considerable distance from the apartment occupied by the lessee who uses a particular bin.

We hold that the basement of an apartment house, not occupied by the owner, is a storehouse and not a dwelling. The second prong of the appellant’s argument that the evidence was insufficient does have