## Facts

- Michael Wayne Davis went to a walk-up window of a check-cashing business and presented a stolen, forged check by placing it into a metal chute built into the exterior window.
- The check was drawn on Robert and Joan Tallman’s account, payable to “Mike Woody,” and signed “Robert Tallman.”
- The teller required Davis to endorse the check and provide a thumbprint; Davis returned the endorsed check through the chute.
- The teller contacted Robert Tallman, who denied writing the check and reported checks stolen from his automobile.
- Police arrived shortly thereafter and arrested Davis while he waited at the window.
- At the station, Davis provided handwriting samples by repeatedly signing “Robert Tallman”; Tallman testified the check’s handwriting was not his.

## Issues

1. Whether a defendant who remains outside a business “enters” the building for burglary purposes by placing a forged check through a walk-up window chute into the interior.  
2. Whether transmitting an object through a device designed for customer transactions constitutes “entry” under California Penal Code § 459.

## Decision

- The California Supreme Court held that Davis did not commit an “entry” within the meaning of Penal Code § 459 by placing the check into the chute.
- The burglary conviction was reversed.
- The forgery and receiving-stolen-property convictions were affirmed.
- The judgment was modified to strike the burglary conviction and otherwise affirmed.

## Legal Principles

- Burglary requires a penetration of a building’s boundary by the defendant’s body or by an instrument under the defendant’s control used to effect an intrusion into the building’s protected space.
- Mere movement of an object or document into a building—without bodily intrusion or use of an instrument as a burglarious extension of the person—does not constitute “entry.”
- Use of a structural feature intentionally provided to pass items back and forth (such as a walk-up window chute) as intended is not a trespassory intrusion that satisfies burglary’s “entry” element.
- Burglary targets unauthorized physical invasion of a structure’s possessory security; fraud-based conduct at a transactional interface is ordinarily addressed by offenses such as forgery or theft-related crimes, not by expanding “entry” to include any object transmitted indoors.

## Conclusion

Because Davis remained outside and used the business’s walk-up window chute in its ordinary transactional manner, his conduct lacked the physical intrusion required for “entry” under Penal Code § 459; the burglary conviction was reversed while the forgery and receiving-stolen-property convictions were left intact.


People v. Davis, 18 Cal. 4th 712, 958 P.2d 1083 (Cal. 1998)