Tuesday, July 10, 2007

To burgle.

When someone's home as been broken into, he will often tell his friends, "My house was robbed."

This is not true. Robbery is stealing something from a person through the use of force of the threat of force. Burglary is stealing something from a dwelling at night. (Most jurisdictions don't require the nighttime element; it is, however, part of the common law definition.)

Robbery versus burglary is pretty basic criminal law. But most folks don't know the difference.

And so, when someone has broken into your home and stolen your flat panel TV that you paid WAY too much for, or your diamond jewelry that small children had their hands cut off for, remember, your home was not robbed. It was burgled.

1 comment:

Paul Bourque said...

So, were you the victim???