What’s a “safe”? The question, seemingly only of semantic interest, was the key point in a case decided recently by the N.C. Court of Appeals. The state’s second highest court held that a locked compartment of a desk cannot be considered a safe or vault and overturned the felon safecracking conviction of a man caught trying to break into a locked desk.
On May 27, 2004, Kim Purser came from the back of the Island Cove Convenience Store, which she co-owned in Atlantic Beach, to find David Goodson on his knees using tools to attempt to pry open a compartment of a desk. The desk, an assemble-yourself model made of particleboard, featured a locking compartment in which Purser stored the store’s cash box, checks, and computer.
Goodson fled, but was soon arrested. He was charged with safecracking, which makes it a felony to “unlawfully open, enter, or attempt to open or enter a safe or vault . . . [b]y the use of explosives, drills, or tools.”
At trial, Goodson’s lawyer moved to have the charges dismissed, contending that the locked compartment of the desk did not constitute a “safe” or “vault” and thus the state had failed to prove its case.
Superior Court Judge Kenneth Crow rejected the defense motion. He found that the desk’s storage area was secured by a lock and designed to keep items safe and secure. He also found that use of the storage area was as a vault, with a cash box and other valuables kept there.
A jury convicted Goodson, who received an enhanced sentence as a habitual felon.
Goodson challenged his conviction, renewing his argument before the N.C. Court of Appeals that the locked storage area of a desk should not be considered a “safe” or “vault.” Court of Appeals rulings are controlling interpretations of state law unless overruled by the N.C. Supreme Court. Thus if the appeal court adopted Crow’s ruling, all future cases of attempted entry into locked desk compartments in North Carolina could be prosecuted in a similar fashion.
The Court of Appeals, however, did not agree with the lower court’s ruling.
“Just because complainants referred to the desk compartment as a safe or used it to store their money does not constitute substantial evidence that it is legally cognizable as such,” Judge Rick Elmore wrote for the appeals court. “Defendant’s motion to dismiss should have been granted.”
The appeals court noted that the common definitions of “safe” and “vault” suggested that the General Assembly in crafting the safecracking statute was addressing attempts to forcibly gain entry into something more substantial than a compartment of a desk.
“While the broadest definition of safe may include a simple locked desk compartment used as ‘a repository for protected items,’ in the context of a criminal statute, we are compelled to prohibit the word from stretching to its maximum breadth,” the court said. “Otherwise, any desk drawer, or possibly any suitcase, bearing a lock would constitute a safe — and hence a Class I felony for attempting to break into it. A ‘safe’ or ‘vault,’ while not necessarily having to be that associated with a bank or those stylized in old western movies, must be something more substantial than a common locked desk compartment.”
The Court of Appeals also noted that appellate courts in Michigan and Ohio had come to the same conclusion.
The case is State v. Goodson, (05-1255).
Michael Lowrey is associate editor of Carolina Journal.