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58 Hous. L. Rev. 1015 (2020-2021)
That's Not a Burglary! Classic Crimes and Current Codes

handle is hein.journals/hulr58 and id is 1053 raw text is: ARTICLE THAT'S NOT A BURGLARY! CLASSIC CRIMES AND CURRENT CODES Andrew T. Ingram* ABSTRACT I will show that the definition of burglary in modern state criminal codes deviates significantly from the ordinary idea of what burglary is and what makes it wrong. These loosely written burglary statutes can work significant injustices and are responsible for counterintuitive real-world prosecutions that would be laughable were the consequences for criminal defendants not so dire. As journalists and defense practitioners have documented, prosecutors in some states have been charging repeat shoplifters with burglary, on the theory that, having been banned for life from a certain chain store for shoplifting in the past, they committed burglary by entering with the rest of the public and shoplifting again years later. Several costs result from poorly drafted statutes that sweep in conduct that looks nothing like what a common person would recognize as burglary. First, people may be charged with burglary for minor conduct that would otherwise be a misdemeanor, producing excessive and disproportionate sentences that violate the internal logic of a criminal code that ranks crimes and indexes punishments to crimes based on that ranking. Second, public expectations are frustrated, and the rule of law damaged, when * visiting Assistant Professor, Chicago-Kent College of Law. PhD, 2018, The University of Texas at Austin; J.D., 2013, The University of Texas School of Law; AB, 2009, Brown University. Special thanks to my colleagues at Chicago-Kent, especially Christopher Schmidt, Nancy Marder, Kathy Baker, Sungjoon Cho, Alex Boni-Saenz, Dan Harris, Doug Godfrey, Steve Heyman, and Hal Krent, for sharing their insights and criticisms of my paper at our workshops. 1015

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