Few things are less reassuring about the state of crime and degree of safety we have in this town than police officers who can’t be bothered to learn basic law. Blogger Amber at Prettier than Napoleon reports a story we sincerely hope is not true. Her friend, she says, was home when two men attempted to break into her house. Apparently her presence made them rethink their efforts, but they remained nearby in an alley while she called the police. Even though she could identify them and the police investigated at least enough to discover one had been released on robbery charges that morning, they refused to arrest the two men because, according to them, “D.C. doesn’t have an attempted burglary statute.”

In case you can’t hear it, the lawyer in this writer is hollering in frustration. The District of Columbia’s burglary statute is D.C. Code 1981 Section 22-1801, and while the Code itself may not explicitly list “attempted” burglary, the fine legal interpreters on the bench of the U.S. Supreme Court District of Columbia Court of Appeals defined the crime in Shelton v. U.S., 505 A.2d 767 (1986), stating that “[c]onviction for attempted burglary, which differs from burglary only in that act remains incomplete, requires finding that defendant had already formed intent to commit criminal offense inside.”

The supreme irony here is that inchoate crimes (of which “attempt” is one) were created in order to give police authority to prevent more harmful criminal acts. Giving law enforcement officers the ability to arrest someone standing in front of your window with a suspiciously house-breaking-into-looking object helps prevent actual burglaries and perhaps more violent crimes from being committed.

We hope, at the very least, that Amber’s friend reported these two police officers to their superiors in the Third District. Similarly, we suggest that if you ever find yourself in a similar situation, perhaps demand that a judge decide what the law is and is not.

Photo by Terecico.