Sometimes a crowbar is just a crowbar, court narrowly decides

A 4-3 majority on the Supreme Judicial Court today overturned convictions for possession of burglarious tools for two men who were stopped by police as they walked down train tracks in Norwood late one frigid winter night with two crowbars, gloves, a flashlight, walkie talkies and a map of a possible building with arrows and X's on it, because police failed to prove the men were going to use all that stuff to commit a break in, rather than just going for a little stroll.

Although the majority of the state's highest court allowed as how police might find such activity "suspicious," the justices noted the police found no evidence of a break-in and that those things could also have perfectly legitimate uses - as well as the yellow sledgehammer the pair left behind in the car they'd parked in a darkened shopping plaza before they hopped up on the Franklin Line tracks around 11 p.m. on Feb. 3, 2013.

We do not doubt that the discovery of the defendants on the railroad tracks late at night in freezing weather was suspicious conduct that warranted the threshold inquiry by the police. But this suspicious conduct, without more, did not prove an intent to use the tools in their possession for a burglarious purpose. The discovery of the defendants walking on the railroad tracks was not necessarily probative of an intent to use the tools for burglarious purposes. Although Officer Wennerstrand testified that there were businesses and buildings on either side of the railroad tracks, there was no evidence that the defendants veered off of the railroad tracks to attempt to break into any business, building, or depository. Moreover, the fact that the defendants parked in a shopping plaza parking lot is no more probative of intent than their presence on the railroad tracks. The Commonwealth presented no evidence to prove that the defendants intended to use the ordinary tools in their possession to break into any such "place." ... It is insufficient to merely show possession of ordinary tools in proximity to a statutory place to establish burglarious intent.

As to the map, the Commonwealth did not connect it to any particular or nearby building, room, vault, safe, or other depository, as contemplated by the statute. ... Although the map depicted an "L"-shaped space with the words "Going in" handwritten on it, there was no evidence that the defendants intended to use the map and the tools to break into a place named in § 49 with the intent to steal money or property therefrom or to commit some other crime.

The dissenting justices, however, provided the legal argument equivalent to "oh, please."

Even if the two men - one of whom died before the court could issue a ruling - didn't manage to break into a building before officers spotted them, anybody with half a brain could tell what they were up to, these justices wrote:

A commonsense view of the evidence ... leads to the conclusion that the crudely drawn map depicts a building, and the defendants intended to enter that structure at a certain location (i.e., the point marked "Going in") and to follow the path designated by the arrows to the "X" marks. See Commonwealth v. Latimore, 378 Mass. 671, 676-677 (1979). Fact finders are not "required to divorce themselves of common sense, but rather should apply to facts which they find proven such reasonable inferences as are justified in light of their experience as to the natural inclinations of human beings."