COPS related legal question- burglary?

First: I apologize for the thread title, condensing questions isn’t my strong point.

I saw the following situation on COPS today: Guy #1 goes into restaurant with buddy, runs up $358 bill. At the end of the night, the waiter/waitress brings him the bill. Guy #1 puts in $3 and both men bolt as soon as the wait-person looks at the singles.

Manager et al chase down guy #1, guy #2 gets away. Cops come. Eventually they charge Mr. #1 with grand larceny (because the defining line between petty and grand larceny is apparently $250 in this jurisdiction) and burglary.

Here is the question: Why burglary? If I heard correctly, the cop claimed it was because he entered the restaurant without enough money to cover the bill he intended to incur. I see several problems here. First, how do they know how much of a bill he intended to run up? Second, how do they know that guy #2 didn’t have enough money to cover the intended bill when they walked in? Third, and most importantly, how can they charge him with that when he had a credit card (which they showed on air)???

I know that the cop isn’t the one who would file the charges, and the DA may laugh the burglary charge straight into the trashcan, but would this hold up? Anywhere? It seems ridiculous… I can’t possibly carry enough cash to cover any bill I may run up. Was the cop just trying to sound like a hardass, or am I missing something?

ETA: I’m not trying to defend the guy, obviously he was planning a dine-and-dash, but I’m more than a bit skeptical of the burglary claim here.

Findlaw.

I’m guessing since no force was involved that a robbery charge would not apply.
(I’m not a cop,lawyer,judge or any other expert)

I completely agree. I did some more research on the episode, and this is from the COPS website:

“The manager tells Officer Crumrine that if the man pays, he doesn’t want him arrested, but if he cannot pay – arrest him. The man has several warrants for his arrest across the country including a DUI charge locally. The man is arrested for burglary & defrauding an innkeeper.”

I’m still (more?) confused. FYI, this was apparently in Las Vegas.

So I suppose there’s no jurisdiction in this country where it’s only possible to commit burglary at night. (An interesting legal tidbit picked up from Bouvier’s 1856 and Webster’s 1913.)

Interesting. That wouldn’t work here in Washington state, because the entry itself must be illegal, on top of having the intent to commit a crime therein.

Washington’s Burglary 2 law

If the laws where this occurred work as described, you could charge every person who shoplifts a pack of gum with burglary. Seems a bit harsh.

(bolding mine) Do we know the burglary charge wasn’t based on the existing warrants?

It specifies “unlawful entry” in runner pat’s quote as well. It seems like that wouldn’t apply to the OP’s case; how could the entry into the restaurant be unlawful in and of itself?

Going into a place knowingly about to commit a crime would be unlawful entry.

By going in there and not having the means to pay would qualify for that - if the disparity between ability to pay and actual amount to pay was large enough, and in this case it exceeds $250 - the amount to commit grand larceny.

Obviously the answer to this question is heavily dependent on the jurisdiction. I’ll generalize using California law as my basis (since it is what I am most familiar with):

(1) Why burglary? Burglary is a felony. Defrauding an innkeeper (a crime which covers a dine-and-dash) is typically a misdemeanor unless the total loss exceeds a certain amount. It’s an easy way to turn a small misdemeanor into a felony crime — if you can show that it was actually burglary.

(2) Burglary in California requires two things to occur at the same time: (1) entry and (2) intent to commit theft or a felony. So you have to show that when the guy walked into the restaurant, he intended to commit theft. How do you prove intent? External manifestations of intent, like not paying and running away, and statements (like “I was never going to pay.”)

As for your specific questions:

(3) How do they know how much of a bill he intended to run up? There isn’t a differentiation in intent for grand / petty larceny. What matters is that you intended to commit theft. How much you actually stole decides what crime you committed.

(4) How do they know guy #2 didn’t have enough money to cover the bill? They don’t - but they can show that the two of them left three bucks, left the restaurant, and then ran away. Hopefully that’s enough to reach beyond a reasonable doubt. Emphasis on “reasonable.” Let’s not forget that the police only need to reach probable cause — a standard that is below “beyond a reasonable doubt.” If they can develop probable cause that burglary was committed, they can arrest for it.

(5) How can they charge him when he had a credit card? Because it doesn’t matter what your capabilities are — what matters is intent. He could have walked in with plenty of cash, credit cards, the works. As long as he intended to steal when he went in, that’s all that matters.

Now the practical aspects brought up by wfudan:

(6) What if the man pays? Generally speaking GENERALLY SPEAKING cops will try to avoid an arrest in a dine-and-dash situation. They will say - pay up. If the guy pays then they let it go. Bigger fish to fry.

(7) Why does it matter if the manager wants him arrested? In California, cops can only arrest for misdemeanors committed in their presence. So they actually cannot arrest for the dine-and-dash (unless they can show that it is a burglary and thus a felony). What they can do is have the manager perform a citizen’s arrest and then take custody of the suspect. That’s why it matters whether the manager wants to arrest the guy or not. The other consideration is practical: if your victim is a business and the manager doesn’t really want anything done, why do anything? Especially if they indicate that they will not cooperate in the event of a trial. It’s just a waste of time.

(8) Warrants - if all else fails, if the suspect has a warrant, you can take him to jail.

Clear as mud?

  • I apologize for using California law…I just am not familiar with Nevada law. Hopefully it’s similar enough that my explanations can provide a little illumination.

Many many years ago, I worked for Montgomery Wards. I observed a guy steal some tools from the hardware department. I called security who arrested him. When searching him, the police found a list entittled “Steal from Wards” with the exact items he stole listed.
He got arrested for burglary as it was obvious he entered the store intending to steal.

Actually that makes quite a bit of sense. The officer explained it as entering the restaurant without enough money to cover the bill he was going to run up that led to the burglary charge, when in fact it was entering the restaurant without the intent to pay the bill that led to the burglary charge.

The amount of money he entered with was irrelevant, it was the fact that he didn’t plan on using it that was the problem. Am I getting that right?

I agree, that clears it up for me too. Thanks, Doctor Who.

I think you’re getting it right. I bet that entering the restaurant without sufficient money can be taken as pretty good evidence that his intent was not to pay, though …

Exactly.

And exactly.

The California law has some interesting permutations. For example, if someone (not I, heaven forbid!), aged 19, entered his girlfriend’s house, said girlfriend being 16, with intent to enter her, he could get charged with burglary as well as Stat. Rape.