Donald Storey took a band saw from construction site at Wesley Medical
Center but argued that he shouldn’t be convicted of burglary of a building, since the structure wasn’t finished.
Wrong, the Kansas Supreme Court ruled this morning. The Supreme Court upheld previous rulings by Sedgwick County District Judge Rebecca Pilshaw and the Court of Appeals, saying even though the building didn’t have doors, Storey still shouldn’t have gone in there without permission. He cut the lock box, took the band saw and put it in his trunk, before police arrested him at the scene.
“Under the facts of this case, an unfinished medical center consisting of a roof, a concrete floor, installed electrical work, and four brick walls with openings for yet-to-be-installed windows and doors constituted a building (under the law),” the court ruled.
Not everyone agreed.”Carried to the extreme, … the pouring of a concrete floor would be sufficient to make all property left on top of that floor amenable to a burglary,” Justice Lee Johnson wrote in a dissenting opinion.
Storey, 38, finished his sentence in December, but the felony conviction will increase his sentence if he’s convicted of future crimes.