United States v. Thomas Melton, Jr.

In an unprecedented opinion in the criminal law of the United States reversing this conviction for first degree burglary without even a remand, the majority rests its reversal on what it asserts to be an absence of “any evidence of an intent to commit a crime after the unlawful entry.”1 Quite to the contrary, it must be concluded under well settled principles of criminal law in this jurisdiction and elsewhere that the record contains ample evidence to support the trial judge’s decision to submit the issue of intent to steal to the jury. Hence the following dissent.

Stating the facts in the…