Smith v. State

Citations

• 80 Fla. 315
• 85 So. 911

Syllabus

<p>1. The term “dwelling house” in the law of burglary is defined as the apartment, building or cluster of buildings in which a man with his family resides.</p> <p>2. Words employed in a statute having acquired a fixed and definite meaning, it will be presumed, in the absence of any definition in the statute, that they were intended to be used in that sense by the Legislature.</p> <p>3. In order to uphold a conviction under the statute defining the offense and prescribing the penalty for breaking and entering a dwelling house, it must be alleged and proved that the dwelling house alleged to have been broken and entered was the dwelling house in fact of another at the time of the alleged breaking and entry.</p> <p>4. In order that a house may come within the common law definition of burglary it must be in fact the dwelling house of another at the time of the breaking and entry; and the same is true under a statute punishing the breaking and entering of a dwelling house. The character of the house is generally immaterial if it is occupied as a dwelling.</p> <p>5. Temporary absence of the occupant does not take away from a dwelling house its character as such,'but it must be made to appear that such occupant left the house animo revertencli in order to constitute an unlawful breaking and entry of the house during such absence burglary.</p>