When people commit a burglary a lot of times the police are unable to catch these individuals because they're either sneaking into a house when nobody is home, taking all of the stuff and leaving, and a lot of times they will leave evidence as to who they were that went into the home.

Other times, they will sneak in in the middle of the night when the people are asleep, take something, and they're able to get away before the people wake up and can contact the police.

A lot of these burglary crews are very difficult to catch by the police.  But I get cases all the time as a criminal defense attorney where people are being charged with burglary cases. There are no eyewitnesses identifying them inside of a home, and they're not caught with any of the property related to the burglary. California Penal Code 459 defines the crime of burglary.

Powerful Investigative Tools Used By Police

So, the question becomes, how is it possible that they're being prosecuted for a burglary?  I have family members calling, saying they illegally arrested my significant other.  I don't understand.  They didn't catch him inside the house, and they're charging him with burglary.  What they don't realize is there are other ways to catch people for burglary now.  The police now have a lot of very powerful investigative tools at their disposal, making it increasingly difficult for burglars to escape justice.

Ping Evidence

One big tool that has come on the scene is this so-called ping evidence..  And really, what it has to do with is a person's cellphone pinging off towers off to burglary scenes.

So, they can pinpoint people within a mile or two of a burglary scene and that evidence combined with other evidence is sometimes good enough to be able to catch them.

Also, suppose they believe it's a crew of burglars. They can pinpoint the other crew member's phones pinging off cell phone towers close to the burglary scene and also close to their fellow burglars. They can also get phone records showing them talking to each other while burglaries are occurring. In that case, this starts to get a foothold on being able to prove that people are involved with a particular burglary.

Possession of Stolen Property

Other evidence that surrounds that ping is obviously if they're caught with any of the stolen property. A lot of times, people are stupid enough to pawn merchandise that has been stolen in a burglary.

Video Evidence

That's another way they can be caught and prosecuted for burglary. There's other evidence available. If they go back and check that out, they can also get video evidence of the person near the burglary scene. Also, sometimes, witnesses will get license plates.

Circumstantial Evidence

So, a lot of these burglaries that are being cracked where they don't have eyewitnesses or video evidence of the person actually in the home stealing the merchandise are being cracked by what we call circumstantial evidence, and that's basically the police building a chain of evidence through circumstances that make it clear that the person was involved in the particular burglary that they've been arrested for.

The perfect example is one I give a lot when I try to explain circumstantial evidence when a mother bakes a pie and a little boy is left alone with the pie in the kitchen. The mother comes back five minutes later, and a big bite is taken out of the pie, and asks the little boy, did you bite that pie and the little boy says no.

Now, there was no video of the boy biting the pie.  There were no witnesses to see the boy bite the pie, but meanwhile, circumstantially, the boy was the only one in the kitchen.  The boy has pie crumbs all over his shirt.  The boy has cherry pie juice all around his face.  That's circumstantial evidence that the boy bit the pie.

Similarly, in a circumstance where there are a bunch of circumstances that show someone was involved in a burglary, the police will make a run at trying to get that person.  They'll give it to the prosecutors who are lawyers that work for the People of the State of California, and a lot of times, these prosecutors are sophisticated enough to be able to show a jury circumstantially that a particular person or persons was involved in a burglary.

Another way that they're linking these burglaries together is through gang activity.  A lot of these gang members are stupid enough to put the stolen merchandise on Facebook, for example.  They put a picture of themselves with the watch or some other merchandise from a burglary. This thorough approach to investigating and linking evidence is a testament to the legal system's commitment to ensuring justice.

So, once you start to tie all of these things together, it makes sense why the police have arrested a particular person. In this scenario, all people can do is point to the fact that just because I had a picture of a watch on Facebook is not enough to get me for burglary.

That doesn't mean I went into the house. But what they don't realize is that there are about twenty other things that make it plausible that you were the one who went into the house and burglarized it.