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477 So. 2d 942

Melton v. State

Mississippi Supreme Court

Decided October 2, 1985

Mississippi Supreme Court · decided 1985-10-02

Cited by 1 later decisions — most recently March 1988

1 state decisions

Relies on Woods v. State · Watson v. State

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1985-10-02

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WALKER, Presiding Justice, for the Court:

¶1Lester Pettway and David Melton were indicted and convicted of burglary of a dwelling house. They bring this appeal from the decision of the Circuit Court of Warren County.

¶2It is uncontradicted in the record that the house in question was under construction and had never been occupied. Since no one had ever lived in it, the house had never become and was not a dwelling house within the statute defining burglary of a dwelling house. Watson v. State, 254 Miss. 82, 179 So.2d 826 (1965); Woods v. State, 186 Miss. 463, 191 So. 283 (1939).

¶3The appellants’ motion for a directed verdict at the conclusion of the state’s case in chief and request for a peremptory instruction at the conclusion of all the evidence, both of which were denied by the trial court, should have been granted.

¶4REVERSED AND APPELLANTS DISCHARGED.

PATTERSON, C.J., ROY NOBLE LEE, P.J., and HAWKINS, DAN M. LEE, PRATHER, ROBERTSON, SULLIVAN and ANDERSON, JJ., concur.
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