The People, Plaintiff and Respondent v. Jammal Haneef Yarbrough, Defendant and Appellant

Summary

The court held that a private, second-floor apartment balcony designed to be accessed only from the apartment and extending its living space is part of the apartment for burglary purposes. Although the trial court's instruction broadly stated that the area inside any attached balcony is within a building's outer boundary, the error was harmless because the balcony met the court's criteria and a properly instructed jury would have reached the same verdict. The court also disapproved prior dictum suggesting that an unenclosed balcony could never mark a building's outer boundary.